Maybe all the contributers to this thread should get together and set up a therapy group because bit by bit we seem to be teasing out what's actually going on in your life. Just lie back on the couch Ted, relax, and tell us about your childhood ...

Some of what you've been saying does strike a chord with me as I had similar issues at a similar age. Different circumstances but similar choices to be made. I'd just split up with my wife, I was working in a downmarket job with only dead mens shoes promotion in front of me and a feeling that time was moving on. I had a ten year plan from my early 20's and I'd achieved none of the items on the list. Looking back it was the second worst time of my life. I seriously considered an extended trip, just to give me some time to think and just shake everything up. I got to the point of doing a lot of the prep work.

It wasn't one big thing that stopped me, rather lots of little things. One of them was that I started a business - a part time paying hobby to begin with which gradually took up more and more of my time and supplied more and more of my income. There was never a point at which I made a formal start - went to the bank with a cash flow projection, that kind of thing as I never saw it as a long term career move. I still don't and I've been doing it 30 yrs! It's only now I'm starting to feel the same kind of unease with it that I felt with the old job back then.

I get the impression that at the root of your "distress" are a number of things -

1. A feeling that you're worth more (and I don't mean money) and should be doing better than the current job.
2. That you've served life's apprenticeship and if you're going to do something significant now is the age to do it.
3. There's not much else going on in other areas to distract you from, or compensate for, the situation you're in.
4. You have some ideas on how to improve things but so far all you've done is spend money on your business idea but it's not brought much, or any, in.
5. (This is the pop psychology bit) A long trip would be like taking time out from it all. Maybe things would happen en route or I'd come back with a different mindset.Perhaps I could even wipe the slate clean and start again.

Going on the trip would be like taking control of your life again. You'd be in charge of your own destiny and making your own decisions. What worried me (and one of the factors that stopped me going) was that the problems you'd (I'd) face on the trip were different. They were essentially linear problems, with linear solutions - turn left or right?, do I have the correct paperwork for this border?, pizza or pasta tonight? The issues I wanted to resolve though were multifactorial and complex and subject to all sorts of internal pressures that I knew the bike trip wouldn't fix - the sort of baggage you take with you rather than leave behind at Dover. You're obviously different so your solution will be different but if you do decide to go down the trip route make sure you do it with your eyes open and know what you want from it.

I've often wondered whether all our paths through life are just a continual sequence of cocking things up and trying to find a fix. A fair bit of mine has been like that anyway.