The Myth (and Reality) of the Midlife Crisis

Wynne
Sep 15
5 min read

Spoiler: Disruptive life re-evaluation can happen at any time.

I love hearing stories about people who shake things up or get their first big break after the age of forty. Did you know Judy Sheindlin (aka Judge Judy) didn’t start her famous TV show until she was 52? Or that Ty Burrell (Phil Dunphy from Modern Family, aka the best) landed that show at age 42 after years of rejection, and had considered giving up the business entirely?

Others who have pivoted in mid-to-later life include Julia Child, who wrote her seminal cookbook Mastering The Art of French Cooking when she was 50; Alex Haley, was 55 when his Pulitzer Prize winning novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family was first published; and recently deceased Ken Dryden, all-time hockey great who became a politician at 57 and then a teacher at 65.

*The crabapple tree in our backyard. It's stunning for about 2 weeks in the spring and a colossal pain in the fall. I love it so much.*

These are the stories of midlife that I want to hear: stories of persistence, curiosity, confidence, and optimism, rather than the stereotypical stories of sports cars and tantrums and plastic surgery that dominate the zeitgeist. Some ideas are just so of-their-moment that they take hold of popular imagination and never really let go, and the notion of the midlife crisis is one of those ideas, even though it took almost 20 years from when it was first coined to becoming taken for granted as a rite of passage in adulthood.

In fact, it was the 1976 book Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life by American journalist Gail Sheehy that most popularized the idea first put forward by Canadian psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques in 1957. And though it was compelling, it was decidedly dodgy from the start. First off, it was not based in science, but rather on reading the biographies of old-timey famous men: men like Michelangelo, Bach, Dante – Western men from an era when their life expectancy was around half what it would be in the seventies, never mind today (and not a woman in sight). Using her gifts as a successful journalist, Sheehy built and expanded on Jaques’ and others’ ideas and declared that every adult goes through the same four stages: the Trying Twenties, the Catch-30, the Deadline Decade and the Age 40 Crucible. Also of note: no “passage” is mentioned after age 40.

In other words, according to Sheehy, there’s a (sometimes many) decades-long stretch of adult life that a) goes completely unexamined, and b) is defined by a crisis or otherwise traumatic event that adults are ill-equipped to deal with. That this idea continues to resonate in the culture is, I believe, to our detriment. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all roadmap showing us all the stops we need to make as we travel from birth to death, and not all challenges are crises.

In his book Life is in the Transitions, Bruce Feiler calculates that the average person goes through at least one disruptor (i.e., “an event or experience that interrupts the everyday flow of one’s life”) every 12 - 18 months, and they can range from positive - like having a baby or starting a new job - to neutral - beginning or ending school, for example - or negative, like a personal health challenge or getting fired.

“Most lives simply do not follow the tidy templates of linearity." - Feiler

So it's not that people don't experience shake-ups in the middle of our lives. It's that midlife is just one of many windows in which shake-ups occur, and what does mid-life really mean, anyway? Ironically, it may be that as we age, we become better equipped to handle the shake-ups than ever before. Flow blockers like self-consciousness are more easily discarded as we mature, and the tendency toward deep reflection that is cultivated over time can help overcome other flow blockers like uncertainty, overwhelm, and lack of motivation.

"I think the crisis of midlife is just the crisis of life. You invent it for yourself." - Alexandra Schwartz

It is true that navigating our forties and fifties often accompanies grappling with the realities of aging or even acknowledging a heightened sense of our own mortality, leading to musings on accomplishments, regrets, and what the future may hold. It is here that there is a real opportunity for meaning making, creating purpose, and cultivating growth. So if we're constantly inventing ourselves in the midst of shake-ups, low points, high points, and turning points, there are a number of things we can do to recognize these events as opportunities:

Name what's happening.

You first need to acknowledge you're in a shake-up or transition period. Researchers suggest that naming the disruption (divorce, career shift, etc.) helps us face it instead of resist it. It also helps us see the disruptor as an event and not a permanent state.

Accept that there is no one-size-fits-all path in life.

It's hard! But it's important to let go of the expectation that life will unfold in a predictable and controllable way, and to remember that your path will not (and should not!) be the same as someone else's! Doing this also allows us to see setbacks as part of our unfolding story, and not as failures.

Consider how your life story.

We all have a story in our heads that we tell ourselves and others about who we are. Storytelling is so central to our identities and sense of meaning -- really consider yours, and how the disruption/transition fits with or challenges your story, and contemplate what may be ending, what's unknown, and what may be beginning. This an important step in connecting meaning to change.

Seek connections.

Social support is critical to navigating transitions, and meaning often emerges through relationships, not isolation.

Allow growth to be ongoing.

Again, remember that the straightforward, linear path through life simply doesn't exist, and tidy resolutions rarely occur. Instead, try to embrace lifelong learning and personal reinvention.

I'm not gonna lie -- it know can be scary and daunting, sometime discouraging and demoralizing, to push forward and try. And I do believe we have to really work at it as we get older. Even here, with FRL, I'm trying something new at 53. I'm glad you're with me, and I hope I can be a help to you, too.