When you type midlife on google, you will get all articles related to ‘midlife crisis, ‘signs,’ ‘depression,’ ‘unhappiness in midlife,’ ‘therapy in midlife,’ etc., all casting a negative spell right from the beginning of the word you heard. This invariably gives an idea of how midlife is perceived by many. Is midlife as worse as it has been interpreted? This website’s whole idea is to make you aware of the positive sides of midlife, as opposed to how it has always been interpreted, create awareness of its challenges, strategies to overcome them and make possible the much-yearned happiness part of these crucial years of one’s life.
Western countries would hold on to the youth and suggest midlife may begin about 45 years, whereas Eastern countries would believe ‘getting older is wiser and hold on to the old definition of midlife starting from 40 years. The majority of reports rank midlife from 45-60 years.
Why is midlife almost always interpreted as a crisis? When you hit midlife, naturally, your children have grown up and not as dependent on you as to when they were small. You have risen in your career ladder, but maybe not happy where you are compared to others. Your home relationships deteriorate with your husband/wife due to a lack of communication of past years. Your financial situation now shows you the results of poor planning for many years. Your lack of attention to your health will show symptoms and signs that cannot be ignored anymore.
Yet if you dig deeper of all above, underneath is ‘poor planning,’ ‘lack of awareness’, ‘lack of adaptations’ to circumstances, lack of proper ‘ME TIME’ etc. If planned adequately with awareness of its responsibilities that would come to you with time, midlife will be an absolute blessing, as you will have adequate time first time to turn to yourself, re-bond with yourself, stock take where you are, and explore life’s miracles.
Perception of Midlife
When someone speaks of midlife, as mentioned above, it’s heartbreaking to see that it has been chiefly interpreted somewhat ‘negatively’. This general perception of cultures, traditions, and other perceptions affects people’s thought processes somewhat negatively.
Men feel a lack of career success, not having a ‘fat’ bank account, or significant savings in investments as a failure at this stage. To make things worse, they feel lonely at home when their partners are too involved in raising children, having more petite sex due to fatigue, and surfacing health challenges with failure to do routine exercises. Women feel less with a lack of adequately maintained body, children’s responsibilities, juggling full-time careers, hormonal changes, and meeting others’ expectations – throwing them out of balance in life. One may hear more about their friends’ problems, instead of successes and happy events, as most people one associate at this stage are also similar ages as themselves.
Poor planning during your younger years
Most of us are so caught up during our younger years, and we hardly pay attention to the proper planning of where we want to be in 10 years. Most of us get caught up in our careers, raising kids, meeting others’ expectations, going on in a life that goes off track many times and far away from the final goal we anticipated. Or it could also be that we never had a life goal in the first place. Like a wheel in a car, when you cut to one side, the vehicle goes in that direction; if you cut to the other side, it goes in that direction; so would we have been in our life journey, as we would have strolled along aimlessly. Suddenly you may find years down the lane, looking back, you are nowhere you meant to be – financially, professionally, or personally.
Lack of awareness that life passes soon
Sadguru once announced that our life is like a ‘pop-up’ on a screen on his Youtube channel. The first time I heard, it made me laugh, and I almost thought it was absurd. It took me time to sink into the actual meaning of the statement. We have a short time to live on earth. But we get ourselves to be so full of unnecessary thoughts, events, other’s comments, trying to juggle everything to perfection, when the truth is we live only a short life. Sometimes we are so full of ourselves, wanting things to please ourselves, arguing, getting into issues, trying to compete and break someone else for it. We forget the truth behind all of us. We should keep an eye on the ball, that each day that we wake up in the morning, we know we are alive for one more day. We should learn to appreciate the surroundings we live in, people who have come close in our journey, the nature around us. We should realize that the path we walk down, sometimes unhappy, sometimes happy, is all part of living.
Lack of adaptations to circumstances
Adaptation theory, or the survival theory in simple terms, talks about the survival of the fittest. It means an organism’s ability to adapt to changes in its environment and adjust accordingly over time. With the full-blown complex world, we live in today, to keep up with the complexity, stress, overwork to find the balance in between, we need to adapt ourselves. Mentally we need to understand that we live in an ‘information era’; the times have passed, and we are physically and mentally multitasking all the time. We need to understand and prioritize our lives, not to be overwhelmed, but to find a balance and peace in between. We need to take time to develop ourselves spiritually.
ME time is crucial to spend a happy mid-life
We need to find a creative time and space for ourselves, wind down from our daily schedules, look at how the day had been, the learnings, stock take and plan how we can make tomorrow better than today. ME time will connect you to your inner being, connect with your inborn talents, and help manifest these hidden talents. It is equally vital finding time to practice mindfulness.
All above is shared with you to take you through the midlife journey with a positive perception. Stay tuned for more…
