I took advantage of an opportunity to have a sincere discussion about mid-life crisis with two dear friends of mine and while we had different ways of expressing various baseline common denominators for each of our opinions on the subject, I think that what we all were trying to say can be woven into the same blanket of thought regarding aging.
A point of view reflecting on the passage of time, and evidently, activity, presented as an explanation for behavior labeled as mid-life critical suggested that a crisis has occurred if the individual, having reached a later time in his adult life, believes that the important years of his youth have been wasted spent living for others and that that mindset must now be exorcised by some exercise of practicality; i.e., undoing or correcting behaviors that manifest those years perceived as being misspent. With time seemingly running out, a, sort-of, panic ensues and an ‘Undertaking’ is initiated; a total makeover that will remedy the crisis and set the course for a new path for a new person. The behavior always seems strange to everyone not inside the mind of the individual experiencing the mid-life critical moment and that’s why it, at least, seems like, to everybody who knows him, he’s having a crisis!
Another point of view that, again, reflects on the passage of time but from a more pragmatic point of view, suggests that, if, at a certain stage in your career as a money-making, bring-home-the-bacon, provider of creature comforts and sustenance for yourself and/or family, you become disenchanted with your path; your level of success or lack of same and resort to extreme chance or choice to change your fortune, it is probably safe to assume that you have been living, working and playing in an arena that you do not like and you’ve been doing something that you don’t have a comfortable command over. Not to mention, you feel you’re earning way too little in the area of monetary compensation for your effort! Now, the question you have to contemplate is do you have enough time to steer onto another path and realize satisfaction on all levels such that you feel fulfilled! That internal struggle that you will wage within yourself may be viewed, by those on the outside looking in, as a crisis of a sort!
Then, the point of view that was least discussed but, I think, most contemplated when assessed from a realistic, matter-of-fact, point of view was the ‘What if…’ point of view. What if, just what if…your path is your path and you’ve just not finished walking it? What if…all that you have lived and experienced; all that you have done and not done is not to be reviewed and assigned as successes or failures but more simply, just your life, lived. What if…you are who and where you are with the experiences that you’ve lived and didn’t live and have yet to live; the money that you’ve earned and didn’t earn and have yet to earn; the places that you’ve been and not been; will and won’t visit. What if…you are the things that you’ve done and not done but will do! It’s true, that’s who you are! If viewed in the proper perspective, reaching a particular time in your life, any stage in your career, any point in your development, should be easy to accept and celebrate, as what you’ve yet to do, is something you still get to do…if that is what you want to do! And, all that you missed and won’t ever be able to do because the subject of the doing is dead or gone isn’t a loss. It just wasn’t your path to take or experience to have! As it stands, you are the sum total of the days, one after the other, that YOU experienced as they happened, up to this exact moment! At most any age after the age of realization, the only crisis one experiences is thinking that between your birth and death, a certainty is assigned to your life and, for some reason, it’s not happening with any certainty! So then…let the people say!
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