Someone just forwarded me an article written by Vivian Diller, Ph.D. which recently appeared in the Huffington Post: Surviving Midlife Without A Crisis: Step One. Dr. Diller is a talented, articulate writer, who makes some interesting points. But I’m going to digress for a moment and say that as I was finishing up this piece, I received a call from a friend who was in the midst of a very real, absolutely horrifying life crisis – and not as in “mid” life crisis. I’ll come back to the call in a moment.
Diller asserts that the phrase “midlife crisis” in outdated, emotionally charged, and just plain inaccurate. She proposes instead that we use the phrase, “emerging maturity” when referring to that time of life in which we experience “a heightened awareness of the many years that lie ahead, and a wish to bring fulfillment to the rest of the journey.” We all have, in Diller’s words, an “Uh-Oh” moment in which we must accept that we are moving on. If we’re “wise,” we acknowledge the uh-oh moment and pull-over on the roadway of life, and take a breather while we seek guidance and try to figure out what makes most sense for the next part of the journey. Okay. This is how life should work. Things should be thoughtfully planned and researched so that wisdom prevails. Maybe if that’s all there was to this article, I’d say, “Nice try, Vivian. But real people don’t live like that.” In real life, as we all know too well, wisdom doesn’t always win out over foolish mistakes and horrible blunders.
The saving grace, though, is when Vivian says that the “uh-oh” moment in Emerging Maturity may be filled with frightening emotion reminding us of the “fragility of life.” She promises in a future article to discuss how we can effectively deal with all this and thereby “resolve” our emerging maturity and avert crisis.
Back to my phone call. The phone call is from a friend who is a single parent. She started her family in her late 30’s and she currently works two jobs to put 2 of her children through college. Anyway, “Mary” is weaving wildly through traffic trying desperately to make it to the hospital. Her oldest, 21, a college student, has been admitted. He’s had a complete psych breakdown and on top of that, he’s loaded with drugs and is going through withdrawal. She doesn’t know where to turn or what to do. Maybe if Mary lives through this, she’ll recognize it as one of Diller’s Uh-Oh moments, because it sure is filled with frightening emotion. But Mary doesn’t have time to pull over on the roadway of her life to ponder and/or come to terms with whatever. And I bet that most of the frazzled, overworked, exhausted single parents out there don’t have the time or the patience for pondering either.
So, I’m concluding that dealing effectively with the realities of aging, which is really what Diller means by “resolving emerging maturity,” is actually a luxury that’s experienced only by a very limited few. I hope I’m wrong. I want all the Mary’s out there to have satisfying mature years. But with all due respect, Dr. Diller, I just don’t believe you’ll be able to develop the magic potion that will enable us all to “survive midlife without a crisis.” For some, life’s roadway is too badly littered.
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Thank you Jo-Anne for your great words of wisdom. I could not have said it better. There really is no happy pill. In my own life, the best help I have found is knowing and trusting God’s hand that “nothing and no one can pluck me out of.” When my garbage can of life started spilling over, it was quite ugly for a time. After I recovered from my anger at “such a loving God” it was He who showed me His light at the end of the tunnel. I know that sounds cliche, but was true for me. Thanks, and God Bless.
We rarely have the time to sit back and reflect upon their lives, because we are all so busy juggling jobs, school, family live, volunteer work and whatever social life we can fit in. We rush through life and then wonder how time has passed so quickly. Our society has created a world in which most people have to work in order to meet their basic needs, and in certain parts of the country it is very, very expensive to live!
We are on a treadmill that rarely slows down. We have to make a conscious effort to schedule “down time” with our loved ones or to participate in activities that help us to slow down and find the time to reflect before it is too late.
More and more people are turning to social networking sites to seek out people from their past, even if they had little to do with them in the past. Are they trying to find a part of themselves or their lives that they have lost along the way or return to a gentler time in their lives? Writing allows the opportunity for reflection and we reflect upon our personal journey as we talk about our lives to people whom we may not have seen or heard from in 40 years.
I am at retirement age, although I probably won’t retire for another 4 years. When I was young I had lots of short and long-term goals. I have met most of them, and
I still enjoy teaching and am involved in several activities and enjoy relationships that keep me busy and happy. Yet, one day I woke up and thought, what am I supposed to do next? It doesn’t seem to be enough to be alive and living and enjoying sharing moments with family and friends. I’m not supposed to do anything next. I don’t have to do anything next, but I think that I have to search for what comes next? One of the problems is that we divide our lives into phases, and the phases are usually based on age, not stages of maturity and experiences.
I meant to say that we rarely have time to reflect upon our lives
Good insight! I too have had a severely littered road to age 55 BUT I feel happier, more full of life and fun and have really learned to not sweat the small stuff. I have been to hell and back and I now know to appreciate every day….sounds trite but maybe that is what “crisis” gives you- middle age or not!! Thanks~