We can't all be rockstars

"Keep true to the dreams of thy youth," wrote Schiller, summing up what is, perhaps, the commonest theme of Western drama. It is there in Polonius's famous advice to Laertes, as well as Eilert Lovborg's rehabilitation in Hedda Gabler. Don't sell out, is the message. Not only will you lose your self-respect, you will endanger your immortal soul. This turns out to be spectacularly bad advice. According to a recent survey involving over 2m people in 72 countries, we all suffer from depression in middle age because that's when we discover we aren't going to achieve our dreams. "We cannot all be captain of the national football team or a rock star," says Professor Andrew Oswald, one of the architects of the survey. (source)