Chapter Content
Okay, so, like, let's talk about midlife crises, right? I know, it's a bit of a downer, but hear me out. Actually, I want to make a case for why, maybe, *more* people should have them.
Think about Frank Lloyd Wright. He had, like, two major turning points in his life, right? One when he left his family, and another during the Great Depression. And, like, instead of just being a disaster, he totally transformed himself. He became an even *more* creative architect. It just shows that, yeah, a midlife crisis can actually be a *good* thing.
And it's not just about people who haven't achieved anything yet. We should also be looking at people who *have* already done something interesting, you know? People who could, like, do it *again*. So many people are, like, successful but unhappy.
But, like, not everyone needs to ditch their life and become a painter. That's not what I'm saying, okay? Sometimes, a change of attitude is enough. Finding the good in the work you already do. It's super underrated, actually. But, for some people, yeah, a new career, a new life, that's the right move.
It's a common thing, feeling discontent in middle age. There's this thing called the U-bend theory of happiness. Basically, you start out happy, you hit your low point in your forties, and then your happiness actually goes *up* as you get older. And it's not always a crisis, right? Sometimes, people just get used to feeling a bit…blah.
But, here's my weird argument: maybe more people *should* have a midlife crisis. That dip in happiness, it can be, like, an inspiration to change! Instead of obsessing over your problems, you need to, like, get outside of yourself. Care about something other than yourself. Sometimes, it's just finding a balance, a middle path. But for some, really leaning into the crisis, it can be the best answer.
It's like, middle age is a second puberty, right? Your body changes, you want a new purpose, your views on authority change. It's an opportunity for development, just like being a teenager. Teenagers are expected to explore, find themselves. But when middle-aged people feel those stirrings, they're more likely to feel confused. We should, like, normalize this! It's a time for change and opportunity.
Think about those stories, right? Where kids *hate* it when their parents start doing new things. A mom decides she doesn't want to be cared for by her kids and goes to live alone. The kids are, like, totally freaked out. But she develops a whole new life! It’s about not being trapped. And it doesn't always have to be some massive transformation. Sometimes it’s just gaining perspective, a sense of freedom.
People who've already been successful can often reach a second peak later in life. Steve Jobs is a perfect example, right? He got fired from Apple! He lost a ton of money. For years, he had no successes. But then, he learned a lot. He came back to Apple and totally transformed the company. He learned to lead without being a bully.
It’s about the failures, how they help you learn and improve, you know? Jobs said that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that ever happened to him! It replaced the heaviness of success with the lightness of being a beginner again.
And it's not just Jobs. Think about people who leave a culture they knew and go for something chaotic. It works! They're what that place needed and that opens up a whole new set of opportunities.
So, yeah, a lot of people's careers start strong, fade, and then come back. It takes perseverance, believing in yourself, even if it's isolating.
Take Vera Wang, right? She was a figure skater! She changed course when she realized she wasn't going to make it to the top. Then, she had a career in fashion, traveled the world, but then she left that and became a designer. She realized how boring wedding dresses were, and so she designed her own. She started late, but she had a unique set of skills.
You know, she said she lost her way after skating. It seemed like nothing was working, it was chaos. But little things led to her larger transformation. She learned practical skills. It was a long apprenticeship. The skating gave her, like, discipline and the joy of self-expression. It's about picking yourself up again when you fall down.
It might be a stretch to say that she had a midlife crisis when she left her fashion career, but, instead of waiting for a bad situation to get better, she went for something new. When asked why she started her business at 40, she said she thought that she had to learn and earn, and had already had two incredible careers working for others, but never felt qualified or secure to found a company. But she did it!
So, with longer life expectancies, more people are going to need to change their careers, transform themselves. The old model of education, work, and retirement is being replaced with a new one, where there's a phase of exploration, and periods of work are punctuated by periods of transition. More of us work independently, change industries. Being a late bloomer isn't going to be a minority thing anymore.
It also changes how you build your reputation. With more transitions, it's harder to assess people. The culture you're part of is really important. Companies are looking for people who can contribute to the right culture. So, it should create more opportunities for late bloomers.
I talked about the happiness U-bend earlier, right? But it's not a given. Some people think it only applies to low-income people. Others don't find any evidence for it. A lot of research makes assumptions about how people report their happiness! When you remove those assumptions, you find different patterns. There's a lot of variation in how happy people feel.
Psychologists can be skeptical of the midlife crisis, too. And there are always exceptions. So, was it a crisis, or was it inspiration?
But, a lot of data *does* show that middle age comes with U-curves on all sorts of measures of wellbeing. People take their own lives, have trouble sleeping, feel depressed. The reasons are unknown. Maybe we expect to be happy in middle age and unhappy in old age, and that's a mismatch. People might get happier in their fifties because they abandon their aspirations, but that doesn't work for everyone.
So, we don't all follow the U-shaped curve. Some have a more dramatic drop and climb. Others have a gentler upward slope. And there are variations between countries, too.
It’s like stories, right? There's a guy-in-hole, cinderella, and more!
Fiction isn't real life, but world literature has found a *lot* of variation in life patterns. Data science research has found story arcs that have been measured, that show a range of variation. People’s lives are more like novels than statistical averages.
It's not easy to make changes. But it'll be more necessary as we live longer. If you're on a classic U-bend, what feels like forever is temporary! It's not happiness that's missing, it's optimism! And even if it has nothing to do with you unmet ambitions, it’s still worth trying to achieve them.
One thing you hear a lot is that acceptance makes people happier as they age. Give up and be at peace. But the variations in life patterns suggest that some people shouldn't accept their lives, they should change them. You might feel like you're in decline, but you might just lack optimism for biological reasons. In those conditions, accepting sounds like giving up for the *wrong* reason. Don't advise the middle-aged to simply accept their lives!
There are people who make mid-career shifts and are all the better for it. Becoming a web developer at 51. Getting a PhD late in your career. Buying your first digital camera at 62. Starting a company at 41. The list goes on and on.
For example, one economist left his stable life at 34, and supported his two children while attending lectures. His itching feeling that he was wasting his potential made him do it.
Just believing in your own cognitive decline is a huge barrier to, like, transforming your life in middle age.
A journalist gave up her career to become a math teacher in her late fifties! She said it was hard to get people to *unlearn* their old tricks. There are some things that you need to learn early, like learning a language. But for most things, youth is an advantage, not a necessity. The hardest thing is unlearning old tricks. Also, adults often underestimate the time needed for practice.
It was all about attitude. The old habits played no role in the transformation: it was all a question of attitude. Once she left the boredom and started teaching, she became obsessed with her work, engaged in a way she hadn't been for years. What made it so rewarding was her age. She no longer worried about being bad at something, or about office politics, or about the drudgery. Her life stage gave her the freedom to change.
It's about investment in loss. In order to be good at something, you must, like, give yourself to the learning process. Wanting to win and resisting failure blocks the mind. You have to let yourself be burned so that you can sharpen your sword in the fire. It’s about the competency trap: people who don't think age matters, who invest in loss, can turn the changes of middle age into an opportunity.
Believing you've gone through cognitive decline causes the problem. If you believe you're less capable, you're less able to invest in loss.
We need to take more seriously the idea that older people can be businesspeople, scientists, or inventors! One woman joined the Peace Corps at 80. As Kenichi Horie said, after sailing across the Pacific at 83, "Challenges are exciting, so I'd like to keep trying."
It’s about the explorer stage of life. The old model of education, work, and retirement is giving way to a new model where periods of work are broken up by periods of exploration. We're just living too long, and the world is changing too much. It means there are periods for your twenties, forties, and seventies. What matters is your willingness to keep going and keep changing, to make the most of your midlife transitions.