wsj.com – The Myth of the Midlife Crisis:
- According to a growing body of research, midlife upheavals are more fiction than fact.
- Life satisfaction reaches a low point around the mid-40s, perhaps due to stress associated with the simultaneous demands of work and family. But it rises after that.
- Midlife, he adds, “is a surprisingly positive time of life.”
And yet, I can’t help but parrot Franz Kafka: “My condition is not unhappiness, but it is also not happiness, not indifference, not weakness, not fatigue, not another interest –so what is it then?”
Yay! Sounds good to me 🙂
It certainly did for me.
i have to say this rings very true for me, i am in the happiest and most peaceful place in my life. ever. life is simpler, and clear and joyful and filled with love. i am living it fully and am grateful every day.
I happen to agree Beth. I do.
I’m on the upswing!
Reblogged this on Writing Out Loud and commented:
Old is not all bad
It’s not! Thanks for sharing Robert.
It’s obvious, Franz Kafka, it’s your attitude!
Take that Franz!
I wonder if the perception of time, which moves more quickly as we age, allows a sense of trust that whatever is happening is part of a flow, less sticky, more fluid. Here today, gone tomorrow so letting go seems easier, even when memory doesn’t fail us.
It’s ironic that I am happier now with the wrinkles and grey. Any youthful advantage I once had was too often under appreciated. Aging requires seeing beauty in places youth never looks.
I read your thoughtful comment several times during the course of the day. What stuck Debra were the words “flow” and “less sticky” and “more fluid”. You have captured it. Squarely.
Must be the return of the Oregon rainy season. 🙂
Thank you David!
Makes sense.
Great. Something to look fwd to.
Hmmm…I don’t know…I think it’s true, and then it’s not. I think we become more accepting as we age, which makes us happier…but then, as we grow even older, a whole lot of other feelings start to happen.
Hard to disagree with that. Paradox.
I think perhaps we realize in mid-life what makes us truly happy and we start making the necessary changes and modifications so that we have more of what makes us happy and less of that which pulls us down? That is an upheaval of sorts, yes, but in the best possible way. When one person changes, others around them have to change a little too. This post just makes me, well, happy. 🙂
Smiling. Nodding my head up and down as my eyes swing from one word and sentence to the next. I’m with you.
So many wise observations here. All I can say is that, with every passing year, I feel happier, my needs are clearer (and simpler) , and my “non-negotiables” more secure. There’s something about making peace with oneself that’s so liberating….
Yes, to all of that Lori. Every stitch of it…
Along the lines of everyone else here, I believe our definition of “happy” changes as we get older. Less the ecstatic, more the contented.
Yes, Sandy, I agree.