The demographic and cultural roots of the midlife crisis

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2020.0008

by mayiplease • 6 years ago

93 100 6 years ago

brundolf4• 6 years ago

I'm in my late 20s, and already starting to feel some anxiety around the nearing conclusion of what could be called my "youth". But my therapist, in his forties, has experienced (and relayed to me) the "life begins at 40" philosophy (I didn't actually realize it was something other people said until I saw this article).

It's not just wishful thinking for him: he felt that he didn't really figure out who he was, didn't really start self-actualizing en force before 40. Having known him a few years, it's clear to me that he genuinely has a very balanced and happy life, one with a family that he loves but also with his own goals and small pleasures, his own meaningful friendships, etc.

So I guess: I would tend to agree that the midlife crisis is a trap constructed by our western culture, and one that it's very possible to simply pass by. I think you just have to never stop working on yourself and asking (and listening to) what your needs are. Keep a balanced life of relationships, and pursuits, and self-care, and - yes - some accomplishments too. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Don't get complacent, but don't burn out either. Be in it for the long haul.

emerged2• 6 years ago

I’m about to turn 40 and have never felt less in crisis. Although I have never had any fear of my own mortality which could be what drives the crisis for many people. I also don’t tend to care much about what I’m “supposed” to do in life vs what I want to do.

brundolf4• 6 years ago

Historically I've taken the things "I want to do" and turned them into things "I'm supposed to do", and in the process built up a lot of stress over them. But that's something I've been working on changing, mainly via therapy :)

tayo42• 6 years ago

Curious if your hobbies include anything physical? Turned 30 recently and I feel like there's a good chance I won't do what I want in sports. Not so much about mortality but feeling your self not be as athletic as you have sucks and it only gets worse.

contingencies• 6 years ago

I'm approaching 40 and in some ways have never felt more in crisis. Partly this is because having assets means exposure to new forms of risk. Major business or life decisions require days of effort over periods of weeks because the complexity and stakes now cross scope and potentiality boundaries that are unsettling at best and downright scary if not tackled in a structured fashion. In short, while I now have better tools, resources, and experience there is nobody to delegate the most critical decision making to, the stakes are vastly increased and the results don't just affect me anymore, therefore any execution what Bezos calls a 'type 1 decision' (effectively irreversible) must now be extremely well considered. Things that help: supportive investors, good lawyers, good doctors, the maintenance of long term friendships completely outside of work and family circles, family, exercise, nature.

yters• 6 years ago

Plato seems to have shared this view. He said one shouldn't engage in philosophy, life's most important pursuit, until one turns 40.

kkoncevicius3• 6 years ago

Interestingly same suggestion is found in Kabbalah: in order to study it you have to be above 40 years old, expert in Talmud, and expert in Jewish law.

kkoncevicius3• 6 years ago

That might also be related to the occupation of your therapist - being, well, a therapist. Seems like almost everyone would choose an older person as their therapist; and conversely, hardly anyone, at, say 40 years old, would go see a 20 year old therapist. So their career really start taking off at maybe 40 and it steadily climbs up.

brundolf4• 6 years ago

Maybe, though I don't think he's the type who sees his career as the first or second most important thing in his life

germinalphrase2• 6 years ago

My wife is a therapist. All the therapists in her office are - always - busy, even if they’re 22.

People seek all kinds of qualities in a therapist. “Older and wiser” is not a ubiquitous appeal.

hinkley• 6 years ago

As my friend’s parents put it, on the subject of adventures: At 40 you have the means to do many things, and the health to still do them.

I think it does require keeping an inventory of dreams and assets, if-this-then-that style, but I don’t think that has the form of a midlife crisis. Those are less calculated in nature and manner.

nonbirithm• 6 years ago

As someone who is not yet 30 and is naive to the mindset of a 40-year-old, I get the impression that some people have it figured out sooner than others. Or if not having "the" thing figured out, have something at all figured out. This is dangerous for me because my mindset is that if I'm not spending most of my time on something, I will not be able to believe I'm "taking it seriously." From past experience, the end results of not spending enough time on what I did say as much. It is hard for me to leave my tunnel vision and see other things. (I have evidence this can be partially explained by a mental health diagnosis, but it isn't an excuse.)

As typical, this is probably amplified by social media. Look at people's Twitter bios and look at how many describing words they use. Artist. Musician. Writer. Livestreamer. Some of these people got started when they were not even teenagers. As a result it's difficult not to feel as if you haven't found the words you'd be comfortable putting in your own bio. Why label yourself as such and such if you don't feel like you deserve it yet? (At least not to the extent that you see people's best selves being portrayed in their feeds.)

But of course, ignoring comparisons to others, if those people found themselves there at some point, there would probablybe no reason not to write those words describing themselves. I end up believing I can only "find myself there" by deliberate action, not casually following a passion until you happen to arrive where you want. Everybody says memorable accomplishments require hard work.

brundolf4• 6 years ago

I think you're being too hard on yourself, and if I may say, I think therapy could help you work some of this out (fwiw I believe nearly every person on the planet could benefit from at least a little therapy).

Here's one way to try reframing it for now: I see the point of life as maximizing happiness for myself and others. So if I'm setting rigorous expectations for myself that don't actually contribute to that purpose in any way, and in fact partly sabotage it by making me miserable, there's no logical reason to hold those expectations in the first place.

What do you or anyone else gain from "deserving" to put titles for yourself in your Twitter bio? Do those activities if they make you happy; if they don't, then don't waste energy on them. And certainly don't do them just to say that you did.

UncleOxidant3• 6 years ago

Maybe your therapist can say life begins at 40 because for a therapist their career starts kicking into high gear at that point and really just keeps going upward until retirement. For a software developer your career can start heading downhill even before 40 - age seems to have no advantage (with regard to career stability) for software developers like it does for therapists, doctors and lawyers.

wpietri2• 6 years ago

It doesn't? There are all sorts of things I think I do better now.

africanboy2• 6 years ago

I am a software developer, my career had its best moments when I was in my 20s, but at 43 I am making more money with less effort and more enjoyment than all the past 20 years combined.

vmception• 6 years ago

Look, if you suddenly get a new interest that is pretty flashy and you also have a cohesive family unit and kids, people will say you have a midlife crisis. If you don't, you are just cool guy successful enough to do your own thing.

That's it.

africanboy2• 6 years ago

life begins at 40

Can confirm!

But not in the way people usually think, being younger is awesome while being 40 is not as much.

But I am completely self aware and don't think anymore that I am missing something like I did before.

It doesn't really has to do with 40 as a number, it has to do with the moment one starts accepting himself and lives life the way it was supposed to be lived.

Of course things change with age, but as someone that still is a night owl and still sleeps like a baby and can't easily wake up early in the morning, there is also the fact that you get treated like an adult with their own personality and accepted for that (or not accepted but you learned to not care that much and to move on)

Daily activities are boring compared to what I did not long ago, but they are also more fulfilling and I spend most of my time with people I've been knowing for a long time, that I trust and love and that I can count on.

So, if you ask me, middle life crisis was worse at 30 than at 40.

When I'll be 50 I'll know more, but until now everything has been better in terms of accepting those things that would depress me or make me angry 10 years ago.

SoSoRoCoCo• 6 years ago

"life begins at 40"

As someone who is mid-50's, everything turned around at 40. Health, physique (was at the gym 4 days a week), job (quit a loathed job and found one I liked), relationship (got a well-needed divorce). I feel like I wasted my 20's being anxious and my 30's being married to someone I didn't love.

beepboopbeep2• 6 years ago

I have a personal theory that we enter into a "crisis" of some sort roughly every 5 years. Essentially 1-2 years of definition/growth/change, 2 years-ish of normalcy post change, 1-2 years of redefinition as things become old and others become new/interesting.

A perpetual cycle of shifting identity as we change internally and externally. I think it's a good thing to have and understand, but can be overwhelming as well.

I have zero evidence of this, it's just kind of based on my own observations. It's helped me to not be so hard on my self though when I find my tastes, interests, and identity changing over time.

Swizec• 6 years ago

It’s the many lives theory! Taked about 7 years to focus on a thing effectively, leading to roughly 11 lives for most of us.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-09-02

beepboopbeep2• 6 years ago

This is a great perspective on it, thank you! I'll be sending this around to a few folks

anonymouse008• 6 years ago

You could probably extrapolate the infant, child, adolescent, and adult's growth and development model (with hormone increases and decreases) to find evidence. I think your hunch is pretty cool and spot on for my experience as well. Surely, too, do external events either speed up or slow down some parts - but the core idea of new stage change, stasis, then redefinition could be worth exploring.

the_cat_kittles• 6 years ago

absolutely. the daily cycle, the weekly cycle, the quarterly cycle, the yearly cycle, and the 5-10 year cycle. i also have nothing but my own anecdotal evidence for this. i think its hard to realize that things that last for several years still do come to an end in many cases, their cycle is just slower. the fact that there isnt a term for the 5-10 year cycle is evidence that we are kinda blind to it.

resu_nimda• 6 years ago

I like to think in terms of "cycles" in a similar manner, except that there are multiple overlapping cycles of different periods (some closer to weekly/monthly), all summed together. On any given day you will be in a somewhat unique position. Basically a Fourier transform for your psyche.

standardUser• 6 years ago

While it's interesting to read about these concepts in the context of the time they were established (even if they do come off as hopelessly classist) I have always despised how they become conventional wisdom far beyond their shelf life. It compels people to ignore their unique life circumstances in favor of a shortcut explanation that may not apply to them at all. I've always been similarly wary of concepts like "rebound relationships" or "best years of your life". If we have a bunch of de-personalized frameworks to help explain the course of our own lives, it only moves us farther away from seeing our lives for what they really are. Maybe that relationship ended because you have attachment issues, not just because it happened to follow shortly after a different relationship. But if you and people around you write it off as just another classic "rebound", then you may miss out on the ability to learn something about yourself.

brianjunyinchan• 6 years ago

If we have a bunch of de-personalized frameworks to help explain the course of our own lives, it only moves us farther away from seeing our lives for what they really are

Very well put. I feel most popular content about {categorized mental dynamic} has gone through a sort of natural selection of ideas, where they evolve to appear as very sound explanations to a general, population-scale public forum. But they equivalently become pointlessly broad brushes when applied to problems whose natures arise from nuanced and unique individual lives.

And just because an idea has alluring memetic “aha! that explains it!” power, it doesn’t mean it’s true, particularly regarding mental states. I do believe there will someday be a generalizable-yet-customizable framework for understanding, but at the moment, there's definitely a systemic correlation between the distribution of an idea and its vagueness (like medium articles about productivity)

So I find it’s most helpful to have an in-depth discussion with another human (familiar with the situation if possible). As a bonus, you can then incorporate knowledge from your own relationship with that person, perhaps an understanding of how they think too, and thus get a more complete picture.

After such discussions, I inevitably think, “Wow, no way that nuance could have been pinpointed in society’s general discussion of this topic.”

Some of the (IMO) most productive conversations I’ve had with friends re: our psychology and life reflections, I feel would be torn to smithereens or ridiculed by “modern” popular understandings.

renjimen6• 6 years ago

This is a large motivation of mine for reading fiction and watching good drama. The best of it can provide insights into my own life that {categorized mental dynamic} is too blunt an instrument to probe. The Crown springs to mind - the latest season is absolutely fantastic for furthering my understanding of the human condition. My wife and I find ourselves discussing every episode and character at length for all their nuances, which are often difficult to put into words.

trianglem7• 6 years ago

Tangentially related, but I think that there’s a real problem in western society around the teen years. Since corporal punishment is not allowed, parents tend to discipline their kids by attacking their self worth. This leads to a reliable pattern of teens “hating” their parents, a phenomenon that is non existent in the rest of the world especially Asia. This also leads to a huge disparity in what percentage of kids end up becoming successful adults even when all basic needs are met.

nitrogen• 6 years ago

Corporal punishment doesn't exactly prevent teens hating their parents, either.

The most violent instance I've seen (as opposed to experienced) was within a culture that has very high respect for elders. A 20-something guy's dad beat him repeatedly with a log (3" diameter with the rough bark on doesn't really count as a stick) because the 20-something said something mean to his (the 20-something's) wife. The 20-something needed some kind of reprimand, but I wouldn't accept that kind of violence in trade for higher "respect" for elders.

skim_milk• 6 years ago

Since corporal punishment is not allowed, parents tend to discipline their kids by attacking their self worth.

There's no doubt we're in this awkward generation where our parents were probably treated with corporal punishment, but still want to inflict onto their kids this which they were exposed to as a kid despite this no longer looking good/being legal. Even the anti-child-abuse book "For Your Own Good" by Alice Miller wrote "The former practice of physically maiming, exploiting, and abusing children seems to have been gradually replaced in modern times by a form of mental cruelty that is masked by the honorific term child-rearing". Of course the book pretty clearly covers the dangers of corporal punishment or any kind of attack on a child's self-worth. The point is to push through this awkward abusive phase and bring our species out the other side more self-aware by not continuing the cycle of abuse/neglect.

trianglem7• 6 years ago

How do you push through a phase with no corrective mechanism allowed on the other side? How do you propose you correct your kids? Corporal punishment is quick and decisive and both parties can move on quickly as opposed to the lifelong mental baggage that weighs down a lot of people in the western world.

bradlys2• 6 years ago

Are we talking about at institutions or at home? Corporal punishment is legal in all 50 states for parents.

Btw, corporal punishment isn’t a great alternative to dissing your kids. Both are terrible and should be avoided.

Just because some people beat the shit out of kids in Asia doesn’t mean Asia got it right.

trianglem7• 6 years ago

There’s a difference between beating the shit out of your kids and a slap across the face. That nuance gets thrown out with the bath water though.

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 6 years ago

This has been going on a long time. Take for example Julius Caesar at the age of 33 as recorded by Plutarch:

In like manner we are told again that, in Spain, when he was at leisure and was reading from the history of Alexander, he was lost in thought for a long time, and then burst into tears. His friends were astonished, and asked the reason for his tears. "Do you not think," said he, "it is matter for sorrow that while Alexander, at my age, was already king of so many peoples, I have as yet achieved no brilliant success?"

I think, at least for a lot of men, that a huge cause of the mid-life crisis is the death of boyhood dreams. Many of us dream of accomplishing great things. And it seems we have our whole life before us and limitless opportunities. However, by the time we reach midlife, we realize that time is running out, our physical prowess is on the way down, and we will never accomplish all that we have dreamed.

konjin2• 6 years ago

If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon. But Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed. You cannot, therefore, get away from envy by means of success alone, for there will always be in history or legend some person even more successful than you are.

[...]

Alexander the Great was psychologically of the same type as the lunatic, though he possessed the talent to achieve the lunatic's dream. He could not, however, achieve his own dream, which enlarged its scope as his achievement grew. When it became clear that he was the greatest conqueror known to fame, he decided that he was a god. Was he a happy man? His drunkenness, his furious rages, his indifference to women, and his claim to divinity, suggest that he was not. There is no ultimate satisfaction in the cultivation of one element of human nature at the expense of all the others, nor in viewing all the world as raw material for the magnificence of one's own ego.

https://russell-j.com/beginner/COH-TEXT.HTM

throwaway20234• 6 years ago

I think this is precisely it. We all (many?) of us expect ourselves to have an extraordinary life and then we inevitably end up with something more ordinary than expected.

I do wonder though if there is an additional component for folks in tech careers. If you stay heavily invested in the technology aspect of it, you might start wondering how much longer you can keep up with you folks in learning about the latest technology. If you move to the management track, you might feel less secure about your job and your ability to get a new position, especially as your former strong suit, the tech knowledge, atrophies. I moved to the manager track and sometimes interview folks for manager positions who are 10-15 years older than me and have been struggling to find a job for a very long time. Their tech skills are entirely outdated and I ask myself if that's me in 10 years.

Bakary5• 6 years ago

It's worth asking why we shackle ourselves to ideas made when we barely had any knowledge of the world

bradlys2• 6 years ago

The alternative you end up living under is one the parents create. While likely more attainable, not likely fulfilling. You could change goals as you go... I did that. But if you’re like me, you have failure around every corner and you’re more ambitious than a thousand men. You will become jaded well before you’re 40. I was jaded before I was even 30. I gave up and tried again many times.

And now that I’m 30, I hate how much suffering I endured the last decade. Questioning everything every step. Wondering how long it’d go. Wondering if there was ever a payoff to anything and not just another stepping stone. Wondering if I was as strong as I used to be. Constantly thinking to myself, I was stronger then. I was better then. I was smarter, faster, etc. Somehow I feel like I peaked near high school and it’s been a decline since.

But, likely, it’s more that I just haven’t had a path as easy or clear since then. Thus, ambiguity leads to more ambition which leads to more suffering which leads to more feelings of inadequacy.

It’s a great time...

redelbee• 6 years ago

I just finished reading “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” by Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray, Love fame) and she brought up a related and interesting idea I can paraphrase:

In midlife we’re concerned with status and our outward appearance, which can hinder creative output. Then we get older and realize that we don’t care what anyone thinks about us, which can lead to more creative risk taking and accomplishments. Then we get even older and we find the truth: nobody is thinking about you (except you) so it’s not worth concerning yourself with status or outside validation.

In the midst of my own midlife crisis in the making I often find myself coming back to these types of concerns: How do I look to others? How do I compare to others? What am I missing out on?

Thankfully I’ve been able to, so far at least, keep any real crisis similar to what’s described in the article or otherwise from occurring. I try to remind myself of what Gilbert explained, that no one really cares about me so I should live my life without worrying to much about what they think.

I read a lot of books about creativity and most aren’t great, but I think “Big Magic” is a decent read. I also enjoyed the audiobook of “Creative Quest” by Questlove.

CMCDragonkai• 6 years ago

Sounds like the loser, clueless, sociopath transition.

sethaurus• 6 years ago

Could you elaborate on this? Are you saying that being unconcerned about how one appears to others is a sociopathic trait? Which aspect of the GP would make someone a "loser"?

bentcorner• 6 years ago

I recently read somewhere on twitter that we shouldn't let ourselves be caught up in the quality of our hobbies. That is to say, if you're not a rockstar programmer, baker, piano player, artist, or whatever, don't let that stop you from enjoying your hobby.

If it makes you happy, keep doing it. Don't let other people define your success.

borroka3• 6 years ago

"nobody is thinking about you (except you) so it’s not worth concerning yourself with status or outside validation."

This is often repeated, but it is so untrue that I don't get why well-intentioned people repeat it. Nobody thinks about me as much as I think about me, but some make decisions, be romantic, professional, based on what they think about me, that is my appearance, my status, my money, my family.

As usual, the truth is between the straw-man extremes, which are in this case "nobody is ever concerned about me" and "everyone is thinking about me all the time." Now, it is not that older people realize that nobody is thinking about them and they were previously mistaken when thinking otherwise, they simply become aware that people are not thinking as much about them anymore, since they starting to be (or are) out of the game.

Retric• 6 years ago

Expect they don’t think about you, just the surface details that they can see.

At ~35 most people can fake it well enough that external validation is largely meaningless. Which quickly leads to a feeling it’s just fake and by 40 became disillusioned with work, disenchanted with relationships and detached from family responsibilities.

throwaway22452• 6 years ago

people are not thinking as much about them anymore

I disagree. I don't observe much difference in this sense, but I feel more free to be my authentic self without worrying about how that might be perceived by people who are not a meaningful part of my life.

I only recognise the meaning in "life begins at 40" since I reached it.

lilsoso• 6 years ago

I agree. The common saying "nobody is thinking about you (except you)" is specious.

Upon examination it falls apart. You think about others, albeit not everyone you encounter but the people you care about. Why wouldn't they think about you? Either you're unique in that you're the only person who thinks about others or you're invisible to them.

And as you point out, your image in the mind of others translates into tangible results: money, sex, etc.

Looking at social media, we can prove the point further: some people are thought about much more than others.

ycombinete• 6 years ago

TBH I think the straw man here is taking that sentence literally, which I can’t imagine any sane person doing. The sentiment itself is idiomatic at this point.

neuromanser• 6 years ago

In midlife we’re concerned with status and our outward appearance

That seems completely backwards to me. I've never been more comfortable with being myself, whatever I am, than now, in mid-forties. My midlife crisis is raging out of control, because I'm looking at things that are outside of my reach. Activities I'm too frail to do, girls I'm too old to date... It's more of a temporary Peter Pan syndrome than anything else.

Life runs past you really quickly, one day you wake up realizing it's still the 20-something you, just in a 40-something body. Midlife crisis is the process of coming to terms with the physical, temporal reality.

vlovich1232• 6 years ago

It can also just be a reflection. Regardless of what everyone else thinks of me, what do I think about me? Where do I want the next phase of life for me to go? What have I accomplished? What do I accomplish next?

I don’t think any one person can claim an authoritative view on what the framing of the experience of it has to be like.

ericmcer• 6 years ago

I recently read a story about two people on their death beds, both had worked hard and achieved success in their fields. One was happily reflective and talked about what a journey life had been, the other was upset and remorseful, talking about how much time he had wasted.

I wonder if the contents of your life are secondary to your semi-hardwired emotional state. I am naturally somewhat anxious and hate wasting a day; conversely, I have friends who seem totally content after 9 months of unemployment and video games. Maybe it does not matter what you achieve, boxes you check, friends or relationships you make along the way. At the end if you are an unhappy person it will not be enough, and if you are naturally content it will all seem ok.

wpietri2• 6 years ago

Could be. but it could just as well go the other way. Maybe the people who spent a lifetime trying to figure out what they wanted and really nail it will be the ones who are pretty satisfied. While the people who were on cruise control will say, "Wait, now I'm questioning my choices!"

I suspect that's how it will work for me. Being naturally somewhat anxious has given me a lot of practice looking back and iterating. The areas of my life I'm most comfortable with are the ones where I've done the most work thinking about who I am and what I'm doing with my time.

ekianjo• 6 years ago

At the end if you are an unhappy person it will not be enough, and if you are naturally content it will all seem ok.

Yeah, regression to the baseline (happiness). Which is why trying to change your own life based on other people's dying regrets is utter stupidity.

leetcrew• 6 years ago

for sure. it's easy to say "I wish I'd done X" when all the effort required for X would already be in the past.

giovannibonetti• 6 years ago

According to the documentary Happy [1], happiness is ~50% genetics and ~50% about what happens in your life. The most intriguing part for me was that major life events like getting married (happy) or becoming disabled (bad) don't affect so much happiness in the long run.

[1] https://www.thehappymovie.com/

vlovich1232• 6 years ago

Careful how those stats are collected/computed. I don’t think statistics techniques and the methodology that’s used to run these kinds of experiments is anywhere good enough to make such bold conclusionary statements. It sounds nice in theory but in practice social sciences are to other science disciplines (that can make such definitive statements) as tabloids are to news papers. It’s a cheap imitation from the viewpoint of the strength of the conclusions. I hope they get to a better footing eventually but that entire field is way to arrogant right now in the strength of the conclusions they make based on bad science (limited population studies, small effect studies, rarely/never publishing negative results which is a kind of p-hacking en made, lack of reproducibility, etc). That also ignores the fact that epistemologically they have a weak footing of not actually concretely describing their terms (ie happy, sad, good, bad, etc) or how they can measure these things (what is 1 happiness unit?).

Once you start seeing links establishing how to actually measure this stuff with technology, then the results will be more meaningful (easy to replicate experiments, easy to do things en masse more cheaply and quickly).

That being said I still have respect for the work being done. It should still be done rather than wait for better tech but the incentive structures for that field need to be drastically different to better reflect the quality of using that data to make decisions (maybe a generally agreed upon ban to feature it in “public” media/journals, more careful reporting by science journals to limit to the results of meta studies or major reversals of what might be orthodoxy, publishing lists like Math does of what are open problems and what are assumed to be the conclusion even if not proven yet, etc). There are reforms to be made but until that’s done these studies do more harm than good as people latch on to whichever they want that sounds good to them rather than what’s actual reality).

Bakary5• 6 years ago

I had a realization similar to this not too long ago during a manic episode. The philosophical beliefs and impressions of the world and our own selves that we hold are a byproduct of our general mood and are essentially post-facto rationalizations.

On a side note, I find it strange that so much attention is given to a person's final days and whether regret will experienced then. They should not count much more than any other series of days. In fact, they are the ideal time to feel regret since your problem will be soon resolved!

pavlov• 6 years ago

The truly great thing about dying is that you won’t regret it.

Melting_Harps• 6 years ago

Maybe it does not matter what you achieve, boxes you check, friends or relationships you make along the way. At the end if you are an unhappy person it will not be enough, and if you are naturally content it will all seem ok.

Honestly, COIVD made me confront and explore that very subject incredibly deeply--month's long trains of thought about past experiences--, despite previously being in therapy and generally considering myself quite introspective; it also coincided with learning about how many founders in startups have many commonly found mental health issues (anxiety is almost always there) that lend themselves to enduring startup culture's grind.

That anxiety and restlessness is fuel that gets you to keep pushing to the next milestone when everything else is failing all around and its an incredible source, but the question then becomes: at what cost? For me being unhappy was just the cost of admission to apply my skill set to an immense complex problem; seeing incredibly sad things like currency collapses and Society's wrecked by hyper-inflation fucking sucks but it became my norm, what came after in that journey was an even higher cost altogether.

Failing to address that critical psychological factor is why I think burnout is also so common, you lose sight of the what and why you did something, which often starts as simple as thinking it was simply 'cool and interesting' thing to do with one's limited time and not simply testing how many times can you can endure going beyond your mental and psychological limits before it completely adversely affects your health in a way you that you may never actually recover from.

Which I think is something that is never discussed in founder/startup culture until after someone like Tony Hsieh dies and most just scratch their heads and try to figure out 'why?'

I can't say I'm completely over this either, as I think some ambition still lingers depending on the project ideas, but I've been forced to have to make sure I don't take on 'too much' and solely focus on one path now after being too many burnouts from doing 2-3 at any given time, but also realizing the value of the skill set you've gained as a result of your experiences. And having confidence in that instead of being obsessed with keeping up with every new update and knowing you can bring yourself up to date as needed.

I've also started to take advice from the cautionary tales that I previously ignored or that I simply didn't feel apply to me. Everyone is susceptible to these consequences and the only waste of time is to not at least consider how it could occur to you and try to learn from their mistake(s) to avoid repeating the same.

loco5niner• 6 years ago

I am naturally somewhat anxious and hate wasting a day; conversely, I have friends who seem totally content after 9 months of unemployment and video games.

I was that unemployment and video games friend... I was satisfied at the time. Now I'm married and 'more' mature and look back at all the opportunities I had and wasted.

dilap• 6 years ago

"We are now trapped in a world of kids. Old kids. The disappearance of patrimonial transmission means that an old guy today is just a useless ruin. The thing we value most of all is youth, which means that life automatically becomes depressing, because life consists, on the whole, of getting old."

--Houellebecq

renjimen6• 6 years ago

What about the other half of the population? It's an interesting quote but it doesn't explain why women also experience midlife crises.

Could it simply be that a focus on career and modern nuclear families provide less satisfaction for the middle aged? That might explain the diminished patriarchal/matriarchal aspects for men and women.

konjin2• 6 years ago

Having listened to a few women going through theirs: kids.

Either not having them, the kids not meeting their mothers expectations or the kids never wanting to see their mothers again once they grow up.

knaq• 6 years ago

The article's most important quote:

"All this is denied me in this stale marriage to an elderly, sickly, complaining, nagging wife. Let's get rid of her, start life all over again with another woman."

Even if a person doesn't consciously have the thought, there is a biological drive to reproduce. Even if a person expresses the desire to be childless, that biological urge may be pushing for a younger mate who might be fertile.

That leads to the anxiety. Trying to do impressive things and to display wealth, no matter how useless, is a biological urge. It becomes time to buy the fast car or take up hang gliding. When sanity and resource limits pull back on that, the emotions don't go so well.

peter303• 6 years ago

Age 35-40 was the best period of my life. I had a thriving career, strong health and great social and recreational life.

blendo• 6 years ago

This rings true:

“Anderson's analysis shows that those born in 1891 could expect to inherit from their parents at the age of 37, while they still had children at home and when their oldest child was ‘at best only just entering the labour force’. By contrast, those born in 1946 could expect to wait until 56 before both parents had died, that is well after their children had left home, leaving middle-aged parents in the second half of the twentieth century vulnerable to economic constraints, particularly when they were sandwiched between caring for children and caring for elderly parents.”

OneGuy123• 6 years ago

This. Moderne parents have children much later so the children might have to end up supporting their parents before they even have a familiy of their own which puts a huge financial strain on them, preventing them from having more kids.

The demographic and cultural roots of the midlife crisis

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