I think I’m on the backside of a mid-life crisis. I recently turned 43 and have been doing a lot of soul-searching over the past several years and I am coming to terms with the reality that I don’t think or feel the way I ever thought I would.
A mid-life crisis is something that is frequently parodied or satirized for entertainment purposes. We’re all familiar with the standard tropes of a middle-aged man buying an exotic sports car and starting to act in an incredibly reckless and immature way. However, those dismissive and comedic approaches to a fairly common experience can keep it in the dark and under the rug.
I’ve been reading a lot about the psychology of a mid-life crisis and have discovered that they are not universal, and there is no standard diagnosis for one. Both men and women go through them. Statistically, more people from developed and affluent societies experience them than folks from other parts of the world. They can last anywhere from 6 months to 10 years. There seem to be more unknowns about them than solid information, and the suggestions of how to manage and cope with a mid-life crisis are very broad and general–stuff like meditate more, exercise, take up a hobby…
At the midpoint of life, some people begin to experience a fear of mortality, or are disappointed with their station in life. For some, there is a deep sense of being unfulfilled. Many have to redefine relationships as kids grow up and move out while aging parents move closer and require more care. I can remember someone telling me that, “After you turn 40, you begin to wonder if all the little aches and pains you feel will go away, or if they could be a harbinger of something truly awful.”
I haven’t had too many of those thoughts because a lot of them don’t apply to my situation in life. What I am surprised by is what I think about, and how I think about things. It has been said that a good education will make you aware of how much you didn’t know that you didn’t know. It seems that I am also constantly becoming aware of how much I don’t know about things I thought I did know about.
I started my undergraduate studies a little late in life. Although I had been in and out of community colleges since high-school, I didn’t go to the University until I was 28. At first I was worried that I wouldn’t be much of a student because I had never really applied myself to school before. However, I quickly discovered interests, thoughts and perspectives that I had been completely unaware of before…and I loved it. My professors helped me to find connections between various fields of study, and they instilled a love of learning and an insatiable curiosity.
Since finishing my studies and getting ordained I am constantly asked questions. My advice and counsel is frequently sought and I regularly preach, teach, lecture and ramble about anything and everything under the sun. Although I can usually field what I think is a pretty good answer to questions that are posed to me, I am starting to have many more questions myself.
…And this is where I find the source of my mid-life crisis–I am less certain about many things, but I am more comfortable with uncertainty. I used to get angry when I was uncertain, or more accurately, when someone challenged the certainty of my positions. Now I feel much more docile and actually excited to learn from different perspectives. I am much more okay with my limitations and enjoying the insights that others provide. I legitimately want to know how other people think, and why they think differently. I don’t assume different thoughts are wrong thoughts.
I have the suspicion that this is what could be at the root of a lot of mid-life crisis experiences–the encounter of limitations and the challenging opportunity to accept them. We all invest so much time and energy in who we are and who we’ve become. There is a choice to be made and it can be a very difficult one–can I admit that I am and have been wrong about so many things I felt so certain about, or will I double down on my positions and only seek to find the evidence that supports my certainties? Sometimes it feels like admitting limitations and entertaining new thoughts is like switching sides in a confrontation. Will the people who love me still love me if I change my mind?
The world keeps changing around us and upsets our desired routines. People we know and love make choices we can’t comprehend. The social, political and physical environment around us seems consistently less stable than we ever thought possible and new questions demand our attention. This is where we either suffer a mid-life crisis, or go through a mid-life adaptation.
We can either feel trapped by how much time and energy we have invested in our thoughts and perspectives–refusing to allow for anything new or different–or we can accept the inevitability of change and seek to be more adaptable. A great Catholic philosopher and writer, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, wrote an excellent work on spirituality entitled, Transformation in Christ. In one of the subchapters on aging he highlights the irony that, often times, the people who should be more adaptable and better at change, the older population, are the ones least willing to do so.
At this mid-life juncture, when I feel the strain of being caught between youth and growing older, I look to my heroes for inspiration and guidance. My top three are Jesus Christ–for what I hope are obvious reasons–Socrates and Eddie Van Halen. Socrates is my second favorite for many reasons, but especially because of a story that Plato recounted about him in his dialogue, The Apology.
One of Socrates’ devoted friends, Chaerephon, is so convinced that Socrates is the wisest of all men that he goes to Delphi and asks the Oracle if anyone is wiser than Socrates. The Oracle affirms that no living man is wiser than Socrates. When Socrates is confronted with this news he thinks for a while and then suggests that he may indeed be the wisest because he willingly claims ignorance. Socrates aims to discover truth by asking questions, not asserting certainty.
Only one question remains, “Why is Eddie Van Halen in my top 3 favorite historical personalities after Jesus and Socrates?” Because I am a middle-aged man who cannot afford an exotic sports car, and acting in a reckless and incredibly immature manner is rather frowned upon in my line of work.
