That's men for you: Most men sooner or later hit a point at which they begin to wonder if they've really achieved anything at all in life. They convince themselves that they have wasted their potential and have let themselves down.
This sort of thinking is generally thought to belong to a "mid-life crisis" but I'm not sure that's accurate. I had my crisis when I was in my mid-20s and not (I hope) in the middle of my life.
The 17th century poet John Milton had his in his early 20s Somewhere around the time of his 24th birthday he wrote:
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Had he lived today he could have felt even more guilty about what he regarded as his lack of achievement. We live in an era in which the pursuit of happiness is not just a right but a duty and in which we are conned into thinking that we should all be able to fulfill our full potential.
There are books which will offer to enable you to change your life in anything from 70 days to (I kid you not) 10 minutes. There's even a book, the young Milton would no doubt be depressed to learn, called Ten Poems to Change Your Life. I am afraid I am not a supporter of the Be Happy! Achieve Your Potential! movement.
Suppose you are working to support your family. Can you at the same time achieve your potential to be an opera singer, an explorer and a best-selling author? Suppose you are caring for a chronically-ill relative?
Can you also achieve your potential to be the Disco King or a Zen monk? No, you cannot.
The late Thérèse Brady who was a hugely influential figure in Irish psychology had the following to say in a lecture to the Psychological Society of Ireland in 1990 about the "human potential movement":
"It legitimised the goal of the good life for all. And yet . . . it intensified the misery of those who were unhappy when they contrasted their state with what they perceived to be the state of perpetual joy and fulfilment of the rest of the world."
She was director of postgraduate training in clinical psychology at University College Dublin. She was also one of the architects of the Irish Hospice Foundation and she noted that people can even feel guilty about being bereaved in an age which has, as she put it, "outlawed distress".
I wonder how much does the guilt about unfulfilled potential and about the unhappiness which is part of the package deal of life contribute to depression among young men in their 20s?
How much does it contribute to the high rate of suicide in this group?
And I wonder how much pain is experienced by older men whose dreams have not all come true and who have to accept the reality that some of those dreams will never come true?
It is, of course, a good and healthy thing to try to achieve things you want to achieve. But it is important to be able to recognise that trying to achieve something in one area means you have to drop the expectation of achieving something in another area.
If you have worked all the hours God sent you to support a family or to keep a roof over your head then you will not have had time to become a concert pianist and you should resist the temptation to beat yourself up over this fact.
The same goes for the notion of permanent happiness. Such an idea is pure fantasy. If you were happy all the time you simply would not be human. I am not suggesting pessimism as a way of life.
I am suggesting that life is a pretty strong brew and that we need to develop the capacity to taste the bitter as well as the sweet.
• Padraig O'Morain is a journalist and counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.