What is a mid life crisis?
One thing for sure, it isn’t a mid life celebration.
Just look at the difference in the two words:
I mean seriously, if you could only pick one, which would you pick?
Mid Life Crisis candle burning? Nope. It’s more like this:
“I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got to hold up for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” — George Bernard Shaw
Thank you, readers and regular followers of Mid Life Celebration. Your support is one of the reasons I write daily. The main reason, of course, is to leave a trail for our son. My wife and I are in our early 50′s and he’s nine.
It’s sort of like The Last lecture concept, except I currently am not aware of any terminal illnesses. In The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer and given six months to live. At that time, his three children were all six and under. He set out to leave a trail too.
If you got some “bad news” and didn’t have time to “leave a trail”, would there still be one?
“Be not afraid of going slowly; be only afraid of standing still”. – Chinese Proverb
I just wrote a blog post at jeff noel.com about this very subject. About wondering if now is the right time, if the current approach is the right approach.
This type of potential self-doubt and potential fear, can sabatoge us from breaking through to something we can be great at. And something we should be great at. It’s just that we are late bloomers and are playing catch up.
This time delay – from creating a compelling vision - to it actually materializing, takes way longer than most people can comprehend. This is why people give up and stop,
So, be not afraid of going slow. Be afraid of stopping.
“Identify your highest skill and devote your time to performing it. Delegate all other skills”. – Ronald Brown
Mid life adults get to mid life for a variety of reasons, including luck, passion, focus, discipline, etc. What we do once we get to mid life is a different game though.
How?
Why?
Many reasons to be sure. Well, at least if we pay attention. Many people at mid life have the proverbial Mid Life Crisis, lasting from a few hours, a few months, and even a few years.
One of the mid life tips to consider is to do what Ronald Brown suggests. Only one challenge with that though?
Most have no idea what their highest skill is. None. Crisis? What crisis?
“Wealth can’t buy health, but health can buy wealth”. — Henry David Thoreau
Interesting. Why? Because Thoreau died in 1862, at 44. Little did he know that all these years later, money can buy health, to a certain extent. But that’s not the reason this Thoreau quote is important.
It’s important because, in my opinion, health can buy wealth. My wife’s Grammy, who lived to be 93, would always say, “Health is wealth”.
Grammy died in my arms in 1989. We had traveled to Allentown, Pennsylvania to visit Family and I was attending our best man’s wedding.
Grammy, in her wisdom, knew firsthand that as we age, we are at the mercy of our bodies. Our body – the greatest machine ever devised. Don’t forget to rotate your tires and change the oil at regular intervals.
Mid Life shout out to Lane 8. Lane 8 is a GREAT place to get inspired, or stay inspired – to lead a healthy lifestyle.
What’s waiting for you there today is an article – “Staying Active At Any Age”!
Click here to be magically transported to Lane 8.
PS. Lane 8 is one of the five daily blogs I write and manage.
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted”. – Ecclesiates 3:1-2
And a time for mid life, which happens in it’s own unique way for virtually everyone. For some, like me, it can easily last a decade. For others, perhaps it comes and goes over a weekend.
The essence of a mid life crisis is that it’s a time for reflection, and asking:
Life is hard. There is no manual telling us exactly what to do. There are so many unpredictable things that change, destroy or inspire our plans. It’s up to each of us to choose wisely.
“A man must learn to forgive himself”. — Arthur Davison Ficke
One of life’s fundamental success principles is learning to forgive. Yet it’s not enough to simply learn how to forgive others. Which is and of itself, one of life’s biggest challenges.
Bigger still is doing it to yourself. Life will never be complete without the critically fundamental act of forgiving yourself.
Many people in, or nearing, mid life find this difficult. We carry “baggage“. Apparently, we like carrying baggage. Why else would we carry so much of it? It gives us excuses for why we are like we are.
Well, I dislike baggage. Perhaps if we really wanted to change, we would. So maybe, many of us are co-dependent on ourselves.
Hope your day is full of self-discovery. Self-discovery in mid-life can be painful to admit. It can also be the key to letting go of our baggage and learning how to travel with a lighter suitcase.
“Beware of the naked man who offers you his shirt”. — Harvey Mackay
By now, we know that there are many people who make tons of promises. Same with businesses, with marketing, with the Internet, and so on. False promises.
The real question is, to me, “What promises am I making to myself that are false promises? Promises to be wary of”?
This is one of the main reasons we find ourselves in a mid-life crisis.
We start with good, well-intended promises, but in reality, they were really only false promises:
No one should feel alone reading this. We all suffer from this. We’re human. That’s what we do, we fail. Over and over again.
So now, consciously reminded of this, “What are you gonna do about it? And I mean specifically, what are you gonna do today”?
“There is only one success – to be able to spend life in your own way”. — Christopher Morley
Agree to disagree? Good. Because I’m going to do both here.
Sure, it’d be great to do whatever it is you want to do, when you want to do it. And yet, it sounds a bit self-centered to my ear.
What abut sacrifice and service to others less fortunate? Ask Mother Teresa her opinion on Christopher Morley’s quote. Ask Jesus, or Abe Lincoln, or Martin Luther King.
Ask a mother, a father, a school teacher, a doctor or a nurse. Ask a street sweeper, or a cook.
We all should consider where we stand on this issue. And if we like our answer, awesome. If we don’t…..
“It is an old ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way”. — Rollo May
I’m tempted to question myself. Why? Because many I talk with, think I’m crazy to believe that people will want to change if the right recipe comes along.
There is a secret recipe. Everyone knows it. But because we ignore it, it remains a secret.
The secret is, “work hard and find your purpose”.
Most people don’t want to do either. I certainly didn’t. Most of my life was, “Work hard, play hard”. That’s a catch phrase for, “Hurry up, we’re lost”.
Then I regained consciousness and started looking around. There’s much work to be done. The harvest is great, the workers are few.
Mid Life Fanatic. Why yes, yes I am.
Why wouldn’t anyone want to be a mid life fanatic? Actually, why wouldn’t anyone want to be fanatical about life? Period.
Fanatical. Defined as excessive enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is just another word for attitude. Attitude is up to you. No one else. Period.
We get one chance to have enthusiasm. It’s the time between our birth and our death.
Ya with me? Seriously. Are you with me? Carpe diem 
Mid Life Self-Discipline. We may never be perfect, but we can be better.
Discipline is remembering what you want.
First we form habits, then they form us. Conquer your bad habits or they will conquer you.
If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.
The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want now.
If we don’t discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.
You never will be the person you can be if pressure, tension and discipline are taken out of your life.
PS. Found these thoughts on Twitter, source unknown, and put them together. They were all found separately.
“As I get older I’ve learned to listen to people rather than accuse them of things”. — Po Bronson
Here’s my challenge with Po’s thought – doesn’t anybody (when listening) hear the echos of codependency?
“Oh, Uncle Joel, he sure likes his beer”, people say lovingly about a family member’s obvious addiction.
Everyone lives with it. Everyone is privately aware of it. Everyone acts like it’s not true. Everyone says nothing.
I sort of feel like accusing them all – of saying nothing, doing nothing.
Or maybe it’s better to let loved ones travel that path. Then no one would be guilty of accusing anyone of anything. How cool is that?
Traveling the world, I see many of our American Military coming and going. I talk with a fair number of them. And because of this, a more present appreciation for what is “happening in the real world”.
Here’s to all of you who’ve I’ve met, and to all those I’ll never meet. God Bless you and your Families. Godspeed.
An American Soldier, by Toby Keith. Click here to watch it.
My Father-In-Law served in WWII and lives in Pennsylvania. My Dad served in Japan during the Korean War, and died of a non-military disease in 2001. I love them both.
And if you do have the time and the guts to watch it, say a prayer for our troops.
PS. And, um, it’s ok to cry. I did.