Use Your Midlife Crisis to Engineer a Better Life
They function to give us direction and purpose.
It was only around age 35, when age 40 was a short leap away, that I began to truly think differently. Up until then, it wasn’t like I didn’t know I’d eventually die, and that life was finite.
There’s a certain bravado that comes with youth, a willingness to live free and disregard consequences in varying doses. The world feels vast and with unending possibilities. I changed my college major a couple of times, frequented bars and stayed until closing, traveled the world, flirted with girls, got my heart broken, and lived at full tilt.
Your thinking really does change as you get older, and it's necessary. It isn’t cute being the 40 year old at the bar at 2 AM on a Thursday night. Perhaps more of us should experience a midlife crisis.
The origins of the term
Dr. Elliot Jaques, a psychoanalyst and physician, coined the phrase midlife crisis in 1959 during a speech, saying it was a period where we must face our limitations and mortality. He described one of his patients saying, “Up till now, life has seemed an endless upward slope, with nothing but the distant horizon in view. Now suddenly I seem to have reached the crest of the hill, and there stretching ahead is the downward slope with the end of the road in sight — far enough away, it’s true — but there is death observably present at the end.”
The quote reads a bit grim — but it is a remarkably poignant and useful depiction of what I actually felt. For me, it was the realization that I wouldn’t have my parents forever, and that I’d someday be alone in a relatively indifferent society.
Jacques’s talk was far from revolutionary, or talked about throughout the halls of academia. It lived on in relative obscurity until he submitted the paper to a publication in 1965, which then garnered it huge publicity, bringing the phrase to common vernacular throughout the United States. It was immediately recognizable by the common public.
It is a subjective experience
Sadly, I’ve seen this midlife crisis handled poorly by many people. A friend of mine went off the deep end and starting drinking heavily and partying, despite having a family already. His indulgences caught up to him as he was caught cheating, and is now paying alimony and child support, seeing his kids only sporadically. He speaks with considerable regret about that period, and wishes he had handled it all differently.
I was fortunate, and unfortunate, in that I had a pre-midlife crisis at age 30, when I went through a painful divorce. That caused me to realign my priorities and think through what I wanted in life. When I got closer to 40, I felt primed inside to deal with the existential dread that hits so hard.
A midlife crisis can serve as a valuable wakeup call. Living like we’re ageless vampires isn’t a recipe to look back and feel proud of our lives.
There’s no one way to choose your path forward, but perhaps it’s worth considering the academic debates over choosing hedonia or eudaimonia. Hedonia was the philosophy that one should live for things that feel good. Eudaimonia meant that we’d live our life with a purpose. Scholars have debated the merits of these two things endlessly. The reality is that we need a bit of both.
In my case, I decided to focus on growing my newfound writing career and forgetting the old life I’d left behind, where I thought I’d be a financial analyst and dad in my freetime, neither of which excited me when I thought about it for more than five seconds.
But I also focused on personal care, bypassing the allure of alcohol and extreme indulgences, and instead getting consistent with my sleep, exercise, and nutrition.
Life actually tends to get better once you get through this rut. Researchers call this the “u-shaped curve of happiness”, finding that people are happiest at the beginnings and ends of their lives. The complications of the midpoint, as we wrestle with career changes, child rearing, marriage, and midlife crises, can be a big drag on our happiness.
If you feel you are in the worst of it now — this should be something to look forward to. I publish nearly everyday on Medium, and I’ve lost count of how many older viewers go on about how happy they are with their lives. The data aligns precisely with them.
The things I’ve realized is — a midlife crisis is only a crisis if you let it be.
The fallacy of a midlife crisis
It’s also a complete misconception to let your fear of death be invoked by midlife — because we’re all capable of dying at any given moment. I lost a friend to cancer in his 20s, another friend to a car accident when he was 31. Another friend died of liver failure at 37.
Death is always a small hop, commute, or phone call away.
So live the life you want to live and don’t waste time on things that don’t make you happy. Beware of the instinct to “feel alive” again, as my aforementioned friend sought. Initially, it began as buying a sports car that he’d always wanted as a young man. This wasn’t destructive on its own. Buying a car you can finally afford doesn’t equate to a midlife crisis.
But over time, his new habits became less and less benign, and he eventually teetered into full self-destruct mode.
Also, beware of dwelling on the declines that come with age, and instead, focus on the things that improve. Researcher Arthur C. Brooks found that those who focused on the benefits of aging— being able to see patterns better, explain complex subjects, and use their wisdom to live and teach — tended to be happier than those who clawed back against the aging, trying to stay young forever.
Remember that our mindset tends to improve too. A study led by psychologist Dr. Stefanie Brassen, found that older people (a group averaging age 66) tended to have much fewer regrets and negative assessments of their life than the younger cohort (average age 25). Moreover, we tend to just get better at living as we get older.
The midlife crisis should be a compass for our behavior and how to live better.
Some final thoughts
The odd thing about a midlife crisis is that it is so painfully predictable. All the confusion, lamenting, and fear of regrets were going to happen either way.
I would remind you that, regardless of what paths we choose in life, there will always be regrets for some of us. Why? Because we can’t simultaneously live every life. You can’t live single and date many people for years on end, and also be married for 30 years (in most arrangements…). You can’t be an upwardly mobile corporate employee and also spend your time backpacking and living abroad. You generally can’t have several kids and be a good parent while also indulging all your free time and getting the perfect night of sleep every night.
We all make tradeoffs, and I suspect we’d be better off deciding those tradeoffs sooner than later, and enjoying the journey for what it brings. As the scholars put it — find meaning, find enjoyment — and blend those two as you see fit.
The thing that really helped me find meaning was the realization that so many of the things that seem utterly important in the moment, fade in the ensuing months and years.
I try to relish each second, doing the things I need to do, and also want to do, are what really make life worth living.
I'm a former financial analyst turned writer out of sunny Tampa, Florida. I began writing eight years ago on the side and fell in love with the craft. My goal is to provide non-fiction story-driven content to help us live better and maximize our potential.