During the intervening years we may find ourselves experiencing five different ‘wake up’ calls. Each has the potential to generate its own ‘crisis’.
The five midlife crises are:
1.Cultural
2. Health
3. Relationship
4. Finance/Career
5. Existential
I generally refer to midlife as the 35-60 age range, although these life-changing crises can occur before or after these ages. And while I’ll explain these crises individually for ease of understanding, it’s worth remembering that they rarely work in isolation. There is more of an interdependent relationship between them than you might realize at first.
For example, if someone is unhappy at work, they may stay there for years to avoid a financial crisis, but the effect on their overall psyche can lead to marital breakdown, health collapse, and spiritual crisis. If someone contracts a life-threatening disease, he may lose his job, his marriage, his health, and ultimately his will to live.
1.Cultural
The midlife transition is a universal phenomenon, while the midlife crisis is more of a Western phenomenon, with our culture favoring youth over age and wisdom.
Many people in their forties and fifties in the West do not expect the benefits of being elderly as they do in the East. Tribal people have always recognized the power of someone who moves towards integrity and wisdom as they age.
Here in the West there is a stigma associated with reaching the middle of the road, “I’m over the hill” is an often quoted comment.
I don’t think we are on the hill, but standing on top of the hill. From this high vantage point we can look back and see the journey we have made to get here. We can review our lives and trace our steps. We can see, understand and appreciate how the events of our lives and the decisions we have made along the way have made us who we are today.
Reminding ourselves of what we’ve been through and what we’ve learned can provide us with valuable information as we move forward. With this clarity, we can choose the direction we would like to go and clearly see the next mountain we would like to climb. And so we set off into the unknown: a new terrain for life’s next adventure.
2. Health
There is nothing more shocking than coming face to face with your own mortality, whether through a life-threatening illness or the death of a loved one.
By the time we reach middle age, our parents are likely to be experiencing some of the problems that age brings; physical and mental deterioration, or even death. One statistic I read said that middle-aged people today are twice as likely to support an aging parent emotionally, physically, and sometimes financially.
As I entered the second half of life, I became more and more aware of death. As a young adult I lived with the illusion of immortality and felt ‘bulletproof’. I went through those early years like I was indestructible.
Now in middle age, I have seen many people my age succumb to cancer and heart attacks. The mother of a dear friend died recently. She says that she is alone now, she has a clear sense of her own mortality and it has awakened him to the fact that life is too short to be lived on cruise control.
In middle age, many of our health problems are self-imposed. Fast foods, lack of quality rest and continuous activity take their toll on our physical and emotional well-being. Today we are assuming more and more trying to fill each moment with more activities that make our stress threshold rise. The body alarm keeps going off, but we keep hitting the snooze button so we can go on and on. Eventually, the body breaks down from neglect.
3. Relationships
The outcome of relationship crises can take the form of extramarital affairs and, ultimately, divorce. Relationships that have been based on physical appearance, sex, financial security, prestige, and convenience can go into crisis around the midlife period.
Many middle-aged people also have teenage children who are going through their rebellious “know it all” stage. When you add up all of these factors and combine them with the angst that comes with midlife, you have a potent and volatile mix.
Another crisis for middle-aged people today is whether or not to have children. As a woman’s biological clock ticks down, couples can feel under immense pressure to make a life-changing decision and then have to accept their decision. And what about the added burden of dealing with the social stigma attached to being a child? Then there are those who have been trying to have children for years only to find out they can’t. This can be devastating for both parties and can make or break the relationship.
4. Finance/Career
Financial crises are common in middle age. Acquisitions, mergers, downsizing, and technological advances take their toll on middle-aged people. Suddenly finding yourself without a job can be shocking.
If someone loses their job when they’re twenty or thirty, it’s upsetting, but when someone loses their job when they’re forty or fifty, it’s traumatic. For someone whose entire identity is intertwined with the status and title that their job brings, losing a job can be a devastating blow to their sense of self-worth. And it’s not just their identity they lose, it’s their financial security, community, and livelihood. One of my clients summed up his job loss when he said, “It’s not just one job, it’s my whole life!”
For someone who has invested so much in their job, losing it is a complete failure. The result of that insight sends some spiraling into a deep, dark black hole called a depression. Some don’t lose their job, but are stuck in jobs they hate; it pays the bills but leaves them feeling empty.
The funny thing about careers is that, for many people, they didn’t actually choose them, they chose them. Think about your own experience. Did someone tell you that you would be good at that particular job or did you get into it because you just had to get a job to earn some money?
All of this usually happened when we were young adults, at a time when we didn’t know each other very well. Usually it’s not until we hit our thirties or forties that we hit the ‘wake up wall’ and ask, “Why am I doing this?” “How did I get here?”
5. Existential
This crisis is really a crisis of meaning or a spiritual crisis. It is the drive to discover and understand the deeper meaning of life. It is an internal crisis, while the other four happen to us externally. That’s why I think middle age has a positive intention for us. An existential crisis leads us to ask ourselves the old existential questions of life. Who I am? Because I am here? What is my purpose?
In a sense, an existential crisis is linked to the other four crises. When an event arrives that alters our fundamental assumptions about life, the result is a search for the deeper meaning of it all. For example, if someone loses their job and faces financial ruin, it can lead to a search for greater meaning.
Someone facing a life-threatening illness may begin to search for the deeper meaning of it all. Events like these can bring us back to what we value most. You may have personally experienced the kind of family relationship healing that takes place when someone we love is near death.
Forgiveness, love and compassion are what matter most in times like these. Many of those I have interviewed sum up their current existence by saying that they have reached a point in their lives where they feel like they are in the wrong place with the wrong people doing the wrong thing. This call for attention initiates a process of deep inner reflection. They look around and wonder what they are doing and what motivated the decisions they made. They usually discover that their current unhappiness had its roots firmly planted in their youth.
Nothing has any other meaning than the meaning we give it…
In fact, he is a rare individual who will not face at least one of these crises in his middle age. We may not be able to control that part, but we do have a choice in the meaning we give them. We can give them the meaning of great personal and family disasters, but this will only serve to increase our pain and deepen our suffering.
I did some research on the word ‘crisis’ which in my little Bloomsbury dictionary is defined as; inflection point; a critical moment; an emergency. After doing some more research, I found out that the word ‘crisis’ comes from the Greek word krinein, which literally means ‘to decide’. Before I did that little research, the word crisis had a negative tone to me. Now I think it has a positive tone.
The term ‘midlife crisis’ now means a time in our lives when important decisions must be made.
Maybe it’s time we changed our language from “I’m having a midlife crisis” to “I’m experiencing a:
-Evolution of middle age
-Middle Age Empowerment Stage
-Middle-age growth stage
-Middle Age Kick
-Middle Age Challenge
-Midlife transition
-Middle-age wake-up call
Which resonates best with you?
There are no meaningless events…
I believe that there are no meaningless events in life. Every crisis, however devastating, is also an opportunity for deep and profound personal growth.
It was Stephen Covey who said, “In the absence of a wake-up call, many of us never really come to grips with life’s critical issues.”
Each of these five crises are challenges, with important lessons to be learned. Many stories abound of people who have chosen an empowering meaning for life’s difficulties and changed their lives as a result.
Middle age is not a weak part of our evolution; it is an empowering step. So let’s step up!
