1. What age or age-range do you say is the bell curve midpoint for having a mid-life crisis? 2. Is this strictly a man thing, or do you hear of women who are supposedly going through a mid-life crisis?
How do we define this crisis? What exactly is going on, and what is the nature of it? I think I know what you mean, not trying to be contrary, just wondering what exactly it is we’re talking about. I think of it as a kind of restlessness or discontent, or maybe some confusion over the passing of youth and what it means to age. In that case it seems like a struggle of some kind with one’s identity and meaning in the world. Good post, this could generate some interesting discussion.
Women have mid-life crises, too. I think a part of it is, she looks around, evaluates her life and thinks, "Is this all there is?"
I think usually people use the phrase when someone takes an unexpected swerve in his life, seeming to let go of values or appearances that were important to him for a long time. Usually it involves trying to recapture some younger or more immature aspect of life either long gone or never lived out. Usually it is destructive to or irrespective of the life built up so far--abandoning a career, leaving a wife, altering appearance, buying expensive toys; but it could be just passively walking off the job of life and never coming back. I guess the question is, when someone changes like this at age 29, it seems just a normal remapping or reassessing of life. What age do you associate with the classic crisis? And, is it common in women? Likewise, when someone has planned for years to work just so long and then retire, or go into teaching or move to Africa or whatever, it doesn't seem to be a "crisis," because that was sort of the plan all along.
I've seen it several times and not to ruffle feathers but in my experience a big contributor has been getting married young. I think marrying young can be wonderful, an entire lifetime of love, but I've seen where it hasn't worked and people think at 38 or 40 that they never lived their 20's. And then they try to. I sorta associate it with people trying to "break free" from one thing or another and agree that for it to be a midlife crisis it would need to be destructive behavior. Of course women have them. Not sure if serious there.
I would guess the age would usually be 45-55 or so, but I don't really know. I thought I had one in my late 20s but turns out I just didn't know what the f**k I was supposed to do then.
I think mid-life crises should just be called LIFE crises/crisis. Not sure if mid-life has anything to do with it. I would say that people wake up (or live through some type of significant event) and ask themselves: Is this all there is? A lot of these men and women walk away from their lives in a sad attempt to recapture youth, etc...It is sad to watch these people self-implode because they affect those around them (spouses, children, etc...). Many find out, too late, that they really had it good where they were at meanwhile, everyone they left behind or crapped on...has moved on. I wish I didn't know first hand...but sadly I have lived it. Broke my heart to see it happening but it was better for everyone involved.
As the name implies, a midlife crisis is the realization that half of your life expectancy has passed or is about to. That triggers a number of emotions... a realization of your own mortality (that you are really going to die, and your loved ones are going to put you in a box in the ground), a reflection on what you have accomplished vs. what you aspired to years ago, and a reorganization of priorities in order to do the things you really want to, go the places you really want to, and be the person you really want to, in the healthy years you have left. Most often the midlife crisis is triggered by the death of someone close...a parent (old age) or a friend close in age to you (heart attack, cancer, etc).
This thread is timely. Kind of going thru this right now. Just hit my mid-30s and know exactly what I want to do but feel like my feet are stuck in mud. Can't even sleep at night, which is how I stumbled upon this thread.
It's only a "crisis" for the emotionally stunted; for the immature. It's merely an observation that one's physically better days are behind them; that there is more scenery existing in one's rear-view mirror than in the road ahead of them. Ultimately, it's about one's sense of death and mortality.
