Midlife crises can be annoying, cringe-inducing, and even hurtful (especially when they lead to income disruptions, breakups, and other things that impact folks beyond those having the crisis).
At their core, though, these crossroad moments are often the result of someone trying to get more out of life by rearranging the elements of their day-to-day to better suit their needs and preferences, possibly after a decades of living with significant internal discord.
Such crises can happen at any moment (I feel like I’ve been experiencing a persistent, low-level crisis since my mid-20s), but we’re especially prone to them after our 40s and all the way up through our 60s—when we begin to feel like we’ve lived more years than we have left, basically.
In theory, this is a pretty healthy thing to do. It’s not great (for us or those around us) to maintain a depleting status quo just because it’s the status quo.
A sudden pivot after years of stasis can be surprising and even disturbing, but it’s arguably better than bullheadedly suffering (and inflicting the consequences of that suffering on others) just because change is difficult or socially frowned-upon.
The problem is that many of us don’t know what we want because we don’t really know who we are.
As a result, we hit 50 and start throwing money at silly things. We behave how we assume young, rich people behave because that’s what we’ve been told is good and correct; all the marketing messages and media narratives assure us that driving the right car, wearing the right clothes, and dating the right person will earn us status and make us happy.
A healthier approach is to regularly take stock of our lives so that we almost always have a high-resolution understanding what works and what doesn’t for our needs and priorities. With such knowledge in hand, it’s easier and less disruptive to beneficially rearrange things over time.
As we take stock in this way, maybe we’ll discover we actually do want a flashy sports car, but for most of us that money could probably be spent on something more specific, valuable, and us-shaped.
Our relationships (and other aspects of our lives that impact our loved ones) might also change (or change shape) as a result of these smaller reworkings, but it’s easier to be considerate and kind when you’re moving slowly and purposefully, rather than flailing around in a last-minute panic.
The more tiny, fractional crises we scatter throughout our lives, the less time we waste with wild, zig-zaggy paradigm shifts and utterly nonsensical (and at times, harmful) decisions stoked by age-related anxiety and existential dread.
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