I'm a volunteer manager, and as I'm reading through these letters, I'm really surprised that the volunteer managers at these organizations are not checking in regularly with their volunteers, to ask about how things are going; to receive feedback about your experience, to see if there are ways that the positions could be changed or adapted to mitigate burnout or boredom. Check-ins like that should be happening a regular basis. It's the responsibility of the volunteer manager to make sure that their volunteers are getting what they need from their experience. If that can't be provided, then there should be a gracious way to release to volunteer from their responsibilities. I would suggest bringing any issues to the attention of the volunteer manager immediately. If they're decent at their jobs, they will do everything they can to support you and make it work. Don't suffer in silence. If the VM is not aware that you're having issues, they have no way to fix it for you. If they don't seem to care or won't make time for you, quit. Your energies would be better spent elsewhere.

I'm almost 40, and I have those same thoughts every day. Then I look at most of my siblings, who have all made the "right" choices by rote, never deviating from the Script--from the dream house to the corporate job to the prescribed number of kids to the right religion, lawyer, and finance company...one is now in the middle of a terrible divorce, one is so stressed out he had a faux heart attack not too long ago, and the other two...well, they aren't faring a whole lot better.

All the same, I have the exact same tendency to look back in angst and think, I'm almost 40, I should have: House, Baby, Big Important Job, Furniture-That-Doesn't-Come-From-A-Box; OMG what have I done wrong? Why didn't I take Path A instead of Path B? Then, I realize that the choices I made were truly the only ones I could have made at the time, given who I was and the circumstances that were presented to me. And then I realize:

I didn't drag an unwanted kid into my chaos. I may have a book published soon. I am pretty happy, considering. And, even though I have made one completely impractical career choice after another, I have been employed at the same job for the last three years, and likely won't lose mine soon....whereas everyone I know who made the "safe choice" is now out of work, and they probably didn't have nearly the fun I've had. Also, because of no baby/house, I can change jobs if I want to and earn less $$ in exchange for ++happiness. So, I figure I'm doing okay, even though I look like a huge, failed loser to the rest of the world. At least my weekends are free of lawn work!

I know it's hard not to beat yourself up; I sort of do the same thing almost daily, but how things appear in this culture and what they really are, are two different things. It's never too late. 38 is young. You didn't mess up. You're not in prison. You didn't kill anyone. You just have a little debt and a little regret. But you still have every chance to fulfill your dreams.

I actually have a lot of sympathy for the letter writer. Having gone through life as a very "nice" person, never speaking up or asserting myself, a flip switched in me in few years ago, and suddenly I found myself having outraged meltdowns like this in public on a more regular basis than I would care to admit. At first, I thought it was just "healthy" expression of anger, but I realized eventually it was directly tied to the anxiety it caused me to have my sense of control taken away. A lot of the triggering events were related to my job, where I had to be somewhere specific for an event or a trade show, and I felt extremely accountable for being on time and appearing competent, and having stupid things go wrong due to what I considered to be the obtuse incompetence of others was very stressful. And blowing off steam DID make me feel better...but in the end, it wasn't worth it. I was wracked with guilt about how I treated others and embarrassed that I was not able to manage it better. I spent too much time crying afterwards, and I realized I needed to cope better, period.

I still get outraged by stupid things, and occasionally I still screw up and snap at hapless people, but I have tried to change my mindset a little bit. It helped to rebel internally against my own expectations of always being competent and top of things. That makes it easier for me to tolerate the inevitable snags. Being one hundred percent in control of all external events is not the same as being competent and intelligent. Once I realized this, I felt less insecure and anxious, and the urge to strangle people with my bare hands greatly diminished.