The daily grind can get a bit much, and that's a genuine bastard of a commute you've got there.

If it helps, the FPO and I spent the weekend sorting out our girls' room. This involved chucking out the little 'un's toddler bed and moving her into the bottom bunk, building and painting some rather nice (and extremely cheap) solid pine chests of drawers from IKEA, moving some stuff around and generally sorting shit out. It was MASSIVELY therapeutic - actually getting something done. Sometimes I feel that my working life consists largely of starting things and then getting frustrated that they will never, ever finish. It was nice to finish something. Nice to have one room in our house that's not a complete fucking tip, too.

Now we're going to do the kitchen. I'm painting all the cupboards, ripping up the floor, laying underfloor heating and stone tiles, fitting a cheap-as-yer-like solid oak worktop and new sink. That's my half term sorted, right there.

Doing stuff. Finishing stuff. That's the one.

and that's something I'm finding with increasing regularity. In fact, I'd be surprised if anyone said they always find time to do what they want to do.

Word of advice though, your commute sounds horrendous and if you dislike your job that much, do something about it. Easier said than done maybe (perhaps take some time off to do some proper job hunting if that's possible?), but that's more important than all the books, music, garages etc. in the world.

You spend a huge amount of your life at work. It's not worth doing something you hate. Life's too short

You'll end up thinking like this:

"Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.

No offense mate but two and a half hours? That's as long as the train journey from Glasgow to Newcastle. If you can't change your job then you badly need to move house. Work out which of the two is most doable then take action. If I did that I'd have gone postal years ago.

I keep wondering this myself, how come in this age of convenience, technology and time saving gadgetry - why I seem to have so little time to relax nowadays? How come before the internet, before computers, I had time to go to gigs, go to the pub, write letters, write songs, go to gigs, perform gigs, go the pub, run a cassette label and fanzine, read books and listen to whole albums right the way through...and still have time to go the pub?

Then I realise that when I was doing all this I was on the dole and living at my mum and dad's...

I commute to London from the West Country. I do 2 and a half hours door to door, two times a day. I have a 15 month old son who eats dinner with us when I get through the door then gets bathed and put to bed. He's not a keen sleeper so sometimes it's nearly ten o'clock when I sit down with the wife to watch some TV, drink a cup of tea and then it's time to bed to get up at 5am the next morning to start it all over again.

Weekends are no better thanks to the close proximity of my son's three grandparents. Unless of course we plan to fill our days so that we're not at home.

The commute allows me to listen to music, read books and write a blog. But I don't really get much time to do much else.

ganglesprocket, I don't know about bamthwok's reason for the long commute, but in my case the need for the wife to be nearer to her family following a difficult pregnancy and my job being specific to London meant somebody had to sacrifice something. Either the inlaws came to live with us or we went to live nearer to them. I can cope with a commute if it means I don't live with the in-laws. Bad enough having them within half an hours drive......

But he's plainly frayed to bits and on the evidence of his post he can either change jobs or move house. More than that I can't say or comment on.

If the epic commute works for you then genuinely more power to you. If I spent that long a day (5 hours? You're only meant to work four hours at a time) commuting I'd go completely mad myself.

Personally I'd live with the inlaws. I like my mother in law and if I had a child she'd come in blooming useful. I'd certainly not spend 25 hours a week on a train. I just couldn't.

Hello, 2 year old and a six month old under our roof. Living in London, from Dublin originally and no grandparents/family living nearby. I hear what you're saying.

You can find the time, sometimes, but it takes planning. And the frustration arises from having to plan what you used to do spontaneously. I used to go to about a gig a week - not so anymore, but I did get to go to Glasto for three days thanks to a very generous MrsDrJ. So I got a year of gigs in a weekend. Fair nuff. I've developed a metaphorical camel's hump for the things I like, so that when I get to do them, it sustains me through the times when I can't get to do them.

Also this year, having hit my mid-thirties I was developing a BMI to equal my age so I finally bit the bullet to get in some kind of fitness. Since May, I've been jogging 2-3 mornings per week and loving it. I usually get up at 5.30 to do it and I can listen to music. Takes planning and effort but it's become very worthwhile for me. If you had told me last year that I'd be doing it I'd have told you I didn't have the time.

I use my commute (45 mins) to take in a book or music or a podcast - can you utilise any of your commute this way? To be honest, the biggest enemy of listening to new music is the enjoyment I get from podcasts: The Word, This American Life, Chris Moyles...

But I do like my job, that is important for sanity.

Could have written quite a lot of that myself

I also have a bastard commute,1&3/4 hours each way if I am really lucky

Its a hell of an amount of time and it leaves me quite often coming home drained and grumpy, to go to bed and then start again. You then get to the weekend, want to collapse on the sofa before the treadmill calls again. The light in the darkness is the family supported by grazing over popular culture and gadgets. I often feel inadequate when I read of the Massive members having read X & Y tomes - my brain is too tired to do anything but surf and watch trashy TV with the family. I don't feel that I am achieving anything else - and hence I do think idiotbear's advice is very sage - make the gargantuan effort to do SOMETHING.

There's so much stuff we're expected to do, required to do and generally drawn into. Well, have a think about all those tasks and duties, think about the ones you can stop doing, make a "to don't" list and then just don't do them. Hopefully, you'll clear some space to do the things that do matter to you.

for me, everyday for the last 12 twelve years! I leave at 6.15 and usually get home at 6.30/7pm, in time to drag my daughter away from Mylie Cyrus etc, put her in the bath and read her a story.I like my job, usually get on with colleagues and have got used to the drive. The only time I find it really frustrating is when I actually think of all the other things I could be doing if I worked closer to home i.e. trying to lessen the ever increasing ring that used to be a six pack, practicing more on the guitar or spending more time with the little'un.
Other than that I use the commute as ME time, I switch the phone off so can't be contacted and I listen to podcasts. Now the issue is that there are too many podcasts and not enough time to listen to all the music I've recently bought!
Petrol prices are really starting to bite now though, it's costing nearly £90 a week.
Sometimes I think I must be the only one to do stupid commutes so it's nice to know I'm not alone.

My commute is a reasonable 1hr 15 mins (although I know some will gasp at even that!) However, my *real* problem, was exercise and find the time to do some...

I can read on the train, and telly is only ever about a couple of hours a night..and has been since the youngest came along 10 yrs ago. BUT finding time to do exercise - to make me feel better, and it DOES release the endorphins, genuinely making me feel good - was a struggle.

Thanks to the tube strike (bizarre, but true) I decided to walk from London Bridge to Camden town and have now been doing it every day, approx 4 miles in about 55 mins, working up a bit of a lather, and I'm expecting to keep doing it, as it is only 15 mins longer than 'normal' and I arrive at the office feeling great (luckily we have a shower, not a good one, but it's there...)

*IF* you can fit in some exercise, it'll really help. A couple of years ago, I had a few problems, and the medication helped but long term the quack said exercise WILL be the thing that keeps your mood bright, and I have to say on the evidence of the last week, that has been true...

Achieve certain level of success (= certain level of income)
+
Conventional marriage & kids (ie arriving between 30-45, during career peak)
+
Desire to live in family house & good schools (= move out of City)
+
Wife's career affected or extra childcare costs = lower family income
=
Main breadwinner needs to stay in job whether an unacceptable distance or/and unfulfilling.
=
The Trap.

... but when my wife and I were in similar situation to yours, we decided to up sticks and leave the country. We were in our late 20s. Our commutes were only an hour each way, but involved packed trains, buses and long walks. We both disliked our jobs with slightly different degrees of intensity. Our daughter was only 6 months old, but we simply decided that we didn't want to spend the next 40 years living that life.

So, we decided to look for jobs abroad. My job is fairly specialised, as are my qualifications, but I managed to find a job in the Caribbean, where we have been for 3 years. Don't regret the move at all. We have a much higher quality of life - shorter commutes, better weather, more time together as a family.

I agree with the people who say that exercise helps, I'm always trying but failing, and I know it will help if I can do it. But more important still is to exercise your soul, something I have done. Of course the majority of the massive have probably long since jettisoned the belief that there is a creator to whom we are all intended to relate, and who if he existed would transform us from the inside out. So we plod on, hoping that family, music and gadgets will provide the answer, and accept the received wisdom that there is no God, but still feel the hole is there that bamthwok has identified, with nothing to fill it.
Bummer, huh?

At least 2 or 3 days a week. If that's a no go, talk to your employer about flexible working hours. An ex colleague of mine used to work 90%. He didn't work Wednesdays and stayed with a friend Mon and Thurs nights. Ok that meant 2 nights away from home, but worth it for the extra "quality time" with his family and only 4 long commutes a week instead of 10.

I feel there's a persistent barrier that I can't break down.

I started to feel this way not long after our second child came along. She'll be 3 in November. I run my own business, have employees, many clients etc. and her arrival seemed to be a tipping point as regards juggling all those spinning plates.

So I let some of them fall. On the one hand I'm lucky in that I'm my own boss so I have a final say on the majority of work related issues but on the other hand I have commitments and responsibilities I can't walk away from. As an employee you perhaps feel that you also have commitments and responsibilities you can't walk away from. I'd ask though this question of yourself from the outset: if you don't feel any commitment and/or sense of responsibility then what is the point of doing the job you're doing? It's not enough, in my book, just to get along with the people you work with or to just tick along in your job unless you can view your job as giving you the money to pursue your real interests. But most of us don't have that kind of job, whatever money we make is swallowed up by the financial drain of our personal commitments and responsibilities.

This was where my barrier came up, the realisation that my personal life and work-life primarily revolved around commitment and responsibility. Where was the fun? Where was the time to do anything else without feeling guilty about not doing something out of commitment or responsibility? It is a mentally crippling situation to be caught up in and in all honesty there is no avoiding those commitments and responsibilities but there are ways of making them seem less onerous. The first thing is to check your behaviour and mood and act accordingly. I noticed myself getting an ever shorter fuse, often triggered by stupid unimportant things so I monitored that and made myself take some time out (just 5 minutes). The next thing I did was make some plans with my wife to do stuff either together or with the kids that went on the calendar. Again I'm not talking weekends away but perhaps 1 hour to play a game, go for a walk, look at old photos, talk!

Next, look at work. Can you ask for flexi-time? Is the 2.5 hour commute a factor of the time in which you travel? Can you do some of your work by starting a couple of hours earlier and leaving earlier or having 2-3 days when you work longer hours to free up time later in the week and be fresher for the weekend? Can you do some of your job at home? But whatever you discuss with your boss remember that you understand your commitments and responsibilities and make sure he/she knows you do as part of your discussion.

But I repeat let some things just fall. I can't tell you what those things are but I stopped doing a load of admin work and farmed it out to the accountant. I have to pay him more to do it and as a result take home less but I gained time with the family as a result. I have fewer meetings and expect better agendas for meetings I do have and better outcomes, I ignore emails until an allotted time of the day. I only worry about what I can do, not about what I can't. I have become a standard bearer for standardisation in the way I communicate with my staff and with my clients and this has helped everyone become more aware of their role and their importance in the process of work. I standardise where possible to free people to do what they're good at. I'm no good at admin but I'm good at identifying solutions to client problems.

And finally, yes, some of these barriers will naturally fall and some will pass more quickly than others. Humans are pretty adaptive and becoming a father for the second time around required a greater adaptive leap on my part because I think there was less adrenaline to get me through the difficult stages of adapting as there was with the first child. I knew where all the dull, repetitive stages were in the process.

and be wary of that frustration, I tried to do everything, ignored the frustration and resentment and came apart one day in the bosses office. Luckily he was ok about it, sent me home for a week and after some readjustment in life and work and some professional help I got back on track. 4 kids, wife with issues of her own and job that kept me out of the house for 12 hours a day including travel is not sustainable and I cracked. When I look back on how I treated my wife in that time and how close I was to losing my job I realise how lucky I've been not to lose both. As Ahh_Bisto says, let some things fall, things will get better.

That was a few years ago, one son is living happily away from home, one is off to University this week and the other two are enjoying school with a good social life. Me and the wife have time to spend together, I spend far too much time on this blog which has helped enormously and I've started to listen to music other than Justin Currie's rather dour outlook on life. As someone who always thought stress was bollocks and who lived his life thinking I can do anything because of my dad's experiences in WW2, (if he dealt with that I can deal with...........fill in the gap) it comes as a real shock when the wheels do come off and it comes without warning.

A problem shared and all that. I hope the advice and words above have made you feel better. I commuted for 2hrs each way for just over a year and that almost cost me my relationship that and a few other factors. I hope you find a way to change your current set up as it's not doing you much good. Best of luck doing it.

as I have a different daily rythm than most people; a creature of the night so to speak.
Many years ago I worked ordinary hours until I got health problems from going against my inner clock. I was always tired, no matter how much I slept, I got ill all the time, the flu, colds, any virus showing up within the nearest mile would pounce on me.
Finally I got so screwed up that I first slept for three days straight and after that I couldn't sleep at all without medication.
So I got myself different working hours that are more in tune with my personal rythm, and have been in great health since. Of course my choice of work is rather narrow so I don't necessarily love what I do, but I'm grateful that I don't have to get up early in the morning anymore, and my colleagues are nice. Not crazy about my boss, but thanks to my hours I don't see much of him!
So what's the problem now ? Well, I come home from work when other people go to bed, so I can't do things that makes too much noise ( use the washing machine, hoover etcetera ). I can sometimes get up an hour early to get something done before I go to work, but if I do that too often I collapse on my day off and get nothing done then.
I can't get together with friends and family before work, when they are at their work. I can't see them after work, when they are asleep.
So I have to do everything on my ( rather few ) days off. Washing, cleaning, washing up, cooking lots of food to bring to work for my "lunch" ( at your dinnertime ), go shopping and see my friends and family. And most of the time I work at the weekend and have a day off mid week instead, when it's difficult to meet up with friends.
Friends...I used to have lots of them, but after a great number of years working like this they are very few these days. People get tired of always getting the answer "sorry I can't, I'm working" or even worse; "I have to wash clothes" and finally they stop calling. And part of me is relieved when they do, then I don't have to feel guilty for not having the time to see them.
Now I just have to live with a guilty conscience towards my mother and siblings that I don't see as much as I would like to.
The positive side of the way I live is of course my health, but also that I have four to five hours every night when I can't do anything noisy, giving me the licence to read, watch TV ( headphones ), listen to music ( headphones ), writing long letters to my father ( who lives in another country ) and short stories, and of course this here interwebby thingumajig... [ it's my day off today of course, or I couldn't be here this early in the day! ]
So that's good, but sometimes I wonder who's going to come to my funeral...will I have any friends left by then ?
Ah well, I'll just have to get very socially busy when I hit retirement I guess!

...I sympathise Loc - I used to have an alternating day/night shift job, for a year in the early 90s. It was awful for my health and I missed out on friends/social stuff in the way you describe. I stuck it as long as I could, secured a first-time mortgage (in the days when you generally needed a 'permanent' job) and then got the hell out before it killed me.

Funny, though, I've been thinking about the friends thing recently - it's really important, I feel. And yet I seem to be finding that a number of long-standing friendships are drifting/decaying, perhaps for various reasons, perhaps just the ebb and flow of life. There's only so much you can do about it yourself - it really has to be a two-way thing or its not ultimately worth the bother (or is it...? after all, to give is often better than to receive, as I'm sure Jayhawk will agree).

I have one long-standing friend who had a significant birthday do recently, which several mutual friends were invited to and which one was performing at. The performing friend happened to ask the birthday girl if I'd been invited and was told 'No, I had to draw the line somewhere.' There were 70 people at that do. Maybe those are the 70 she wants at her funeral, who knows? But it made me think, and take a tough decision - maybe I'm right, maybe not - which was to effectively, but quietly write that person off my metaphorical Christmas card list. Not to be petulent, simply in recognition that being outside someone's Top 70 after 20-odd years of bonhomie, and having forgotten the last time they contacted me rather than vice-versa, means its time to put self-respect before time-wasting. Gives me no pleasure, only disappointment.

Life's a bummer, sometimes, isn't it?

If you loved it the commute would be less of a grind. Well that's my view. But then again my commute is a minute long walk, and I work for myself - so if I hate it I only have myself to blame.

Being a Northerner, I don't understand London commutes. When I had a job, my commute was typically 15 to 20 miles and took 15 to 20 minutes. That would be, what, 90 minutes in London?

I proscribe a job in the north - less money, less culture, less commuting (usually).

What started out as me flailing around in my everyday frustrations has splintered into a discourse on religious faith or the lack of. Who would have thought?!

Seriously, this is the first time I've 'reached out' (as I believe I would say if I was in a HBO production), and I appreciate your responses. Much appreciated, much consideration to be had and also a kick up my own backside that I'm actually a lucky bugger and I should stop this self-centred melancholy, target the affected area & take action. Hurrah!

I shall raise a glass to you all. Although one of the things I need to do is cut that down, so a mug of Earl Grey is brandished aloft.

to the posts I er, posted some time ago. Still unresolved ATOGTP ;-)

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/life-changing-decisions-mid-life-c...

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/mid-life-crisis-alert

Listen to singles, specifically rock 'n' roll singles, under two-and-a-half minutes long, they're shorter than albums.
Then you'll have more time to get to work.
I'll get me coat.....

Reading this thread has given me a half hour of very pleasurable thought and insight into how 'The Massive' help each other through life. I applaud you all. Not being religous myself, I admit that bit got a bit above me but I persevered and I'm glad I did. I commute by driving for about 2.5 hours a day but I'm lucky that I enjoy my job very much and have some great colleagues. One of my lifes ambitions though is to get a local(ish) job with little commute time as the older I get the harder the commute time becomes. In the meantime I trade this off with the fact I enjoy my work immensely. My father died from lung cancer when he was just 51 after a life spent working hard for his family. I want to last a bit longer than that hence the ambition to work closer to home and have more time for me and indeed my wife and family.