Middle Age Crisis? By No Means, It’s About Waking Up!
For some reason, we still believe that everyone needs to go through a so-called middle age crisis. However, many of those who reach that 40- or 50-year-old milestone actually experience awakening. It is an opportunity to put aside old beliefs, stereotypes and ways of doing things. It’s time to rediscover yourself and create a new and better way for the future.
If there’s a word that people tend to use too much these days, it’s “crisis”. There are social crises, economic crises and cultural crises, not to mention all our personal crises. Instead of being something that happens for some reason or just occasional life events, we are almost always led to believe that people are living in a permanent state of change, crises, and ups and downs.
New generation
If we stop and analyze this term for a moment, we realize something. Clinically speaking, the crisis is associated with a momentary state of disorder. It means that a person feels incapable of dealing with certain things in the ways or resources he or she has had until that moment. There is also a threat of impending trauma. This trauma is often about your own expectations being threatened or collapsing.
If we use this definition in the so-called middle-age crisis, we realize that many of these points are not fully met. Or at least not in the new generation of men, and especially not in women who have reached this milestone in their lives. These new generations are already challenging the traditional ideas that are associated with this stage of life. Those thoughts that emphasize crisis and difficulty. Instead, we now have a definition called “awakening”. People want to achieve something better. They become stronger and experience personal growth in positive self-rediscovery.
Is the Middle Age Crisis Still Existing?
In psychology, we realize that every stage of human existence involves many challenges and difficulties. So-called developmental crises or changes occur at certain times between childhood and old age, when there are often many disorders that jeopardize our identity, our expectations, and our sense of control. A person is forced, whether he liked it or not, to leave behind certain ideas and accept a new reality.
We have always assumed that there are certain crises that are “predictable,” and one example of this is youth. Today, however, the so-called middle-age crisis is undergoing changes that require a new definition. Only some time ago, the transition from the “summer” to the “autumn” of our lives meant only one thing: accepting that our youth is now behind us and change is coming. Changes that include aging, menopause, parental loss, and children leaving home.
However, we are starting to see it quite differently these days. The winds have changed direction and new ideas are coming.
Maturity is not synonymous with loss, but rather with achievement
There are many who are calling for the term middle-aged crisis to be changed, for example, “in search of identity in the middle stages of our lives” . Change is happening and there is no doubt about it. Rather than “something is lost,” a personal search phase takes place. We eagerly want to leave one part of our lives behind so that we can enter a new phase. To the stage of better resources, greater freedom and a clearer identity.
It is a moment in our lives when we realize the following:
- There is no desire to go back and restore the power and energy we had twenty years ago.
- Let’s be convinced that the past is well lived. It has been helpful, but now our later years should be used to promote ourselves for personal fulfillment.
- Many people, especially women, realize that they want to find their place in the world. This can be a good impetus to make a big difference in our lives.
A time of growth
Social networks are a reflection of modern reality. To understand the essence of this change in the so-called middle-age crisis, we just need to internalize the hashtag #FaB (“fifty and beyond”). There we find the movement of a generation that is full of vitality. It is because mature age is not old age. It is not a loss; it is an achievement and above all growth.
People in their fifties are very active at both the intelligent and professional levels. They are human resources that provide a great workforce for companies and quality for any organization or project. Because they have greater critical knowledge, they also know how to solve problems better. They have decades of experience and yet they know how to learn and stay up to date, often using a new way of thinking.
Nor can we ignore the unstoppable and very encouraging social change that women are experiencing. We find them gaining dominance and leading their own projects. It is also clear how, after reaching middle age, they are often able to make radical changes in their lives to fulfill the dreams of their youth.
In conclusion, the so-called middle-aged crisis is no longer as critical as it used to be. In middle age, nothing is lost, but many things are achieved. Old values are no longer true and happiness is not exclusively about youth. Well-being, fulfillment and hope are no longer associated with age. Man does not really begin to age until the day he stops making plans for the future. On a day when his intentions are blurred and the shadows of fear and limitations threaten to be greatest.
Let’s stop calling it a crisis! Call it a revival, whatever it really is.