Have you ever felt like you were having an existential crisis, questioning your purpose in life?
For many, this troubling inner turmoil tends to strike those in middle age, leading to what has become known as the midlife crisis.
You may have found yourself asking: Why am I here? Did I choose the right path? Is this truly all life has to offer? What meaning can still be carved out from my remaining days?
While the notion of a midlife crisis has become something of a joke in pop culture, there is real science supporting why so many struggle during this transitional period. The inner angst and discontentment is no laughing matter – it can shake someone to their core.
This term was first coined by Canadian psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques after studying the biographies of famous artists like Mozart, Raphael, and Goya? He noticed they all died around the same age in their late 30s. Jaques then published his observations in 1965, bringing the new term “midlife crisis” much ongoing attention from print media, TV programs, and movie plots that have reinforced this belief for at least two decades.
While not completely accurate, Jaques’ observations were on the right track. The reality may not be as dire as he proposed, because the downward slope in middle age does not plunge into an abyss. Rather, it represents a general lull in human lives. From studies in sociology, economics, and demographics, much research points to the same conclusion: happiness for most people generally follows a U-shaped curve. It remains high in early adulthood, then begins dropping in the late 30s to early 40s, hitting bottom around age 50. But the sadness does not end there, as people recover from this slump and happiness after this point climbs even higher than during our youth.
Interestingly, what happens during middle age that causes many to stumble and feel unable to continue? According to Susan Krauss Whitbourne, psychologist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has studied this debate on the so-called midlife crisis: “Scientific research based on surveys, interviews, personality tests, and mental health checkups reveals that there is something about middle age that inevitably leads people into emotional turmoil.” Professor Alexandra M. Freund, an expert in psychology at the University of Zurich, also comments:
“Around this time, some people may look back on their lives for the first time and find they have not achieved the dreams they had at age 18, making them think the doors of opportunity that used to be open are now closing as they get older. For women this may relate to family, and for men it may relate to their career.”
It is unsurprising we sense something in middle age that can easily trigger a personal crisis. Some evidence shows we often enter crisis mode when we come to a transition point. For some it may be after graduating high school or university, for others it is anxiety over starting a family for the first time, and still others may struggle to adjust to retired life. During these times we tend to review and take stock of our accomplishments, and if we find our lives thus far unsatisfactory, it is understandable to feel distressed or disappointed.
But do not lose hope yet, because the hope that can prevent us from plunging down the downward slope of life, according to researchers who have thoroughly studied this, is “regularly updating our personal goals.” Dreams and aspirations can change, and as we get older, what we once desired may no longer be the same. Not clinging to the past and trying to modify our objectives based on life experience could gently guide us out of any midlife doldrums.
Victory or defeat is still far off, because this is just halftime.
Reaching this point, if you currently feel your life has hit the halfway mark or cannot find a way out of its slump, try reconsidering that this signals an alarm clock, notifying us that we have used up half of our time, while the remainder is vanishing by the day. In fact, this harbors tremendous power that could alter the course of one’s fate in unbelievable ways.
Researchers who have studied the midlife crisis have made an interesting observation: realizing we have expended much time and questioning whether it was worthwhile and how we should spend what little remains can induce a beneficial level of stress. For some this rekindles motivation, driving them to develop new strategies to accomplish their goals.
To illustrate, envision your life in its midlife slump as halftime in a sports match whose final outcome is still uncertain. Generally the team leading at halftime has better odds of ultimately winning, but this is not always how it plays out. Sometimes trailing can mean having an advantage. To clarify, one study analyzed scoring over 18,000 halftimes across 15 years of basketball games by the National Basketball Association. Researchers discovered something noteworthy: a team down by just one point at halftime has a 58% chance of coming back to defeat the leaders.
In summary, once aware we are in the middle of life’s dip, we can transform this downward trajectory by considering ourselves players only slightly behind as the halftime break concludes. All that remains is mustering our physical and mental energy once more to compete in the second half, as victory ahead now seems within reachable distance.
Did You Know?
- One technique to stimulate the midlife midpoint and make it more active is intentionally leaving daily tasks half-finished but with a clear plan for the next steps. This can be explained by the Zeigarnik effect – the tendency for people to better remember unfinished tasks compared to those already completed. Purposefully ending each day with work still in progress can boost motivation to return and wrap it up the next day. It is said the legendary writer Ernest Hemingway also utilized this method to increase his literary output, often stopping his daily writing mid-sentence.