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Do midlife crises really exist?
Many of us have probably worried about the midlife crisis rather than everyone has heard of it, but do we really know enough about it?
The origin of midlife crisis
The concept of “middle age” is actually a modern concept. It actually emerged after mankind entered the industrial age.
There are three reasons for it:
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Improvements in medical care and the development of social security have increased life expectancy.
In the United States, for example, the average life expectancy was 35 years in 1800, and now it is 78 years. As the age has increased, more detailed age divisions have emerged.
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The industrial revolution and the growth of cities accelerated the division of labor.
Before the 20th century, 85 percent of Americans lived in rural areas, and activities such as classes, dancing and church attendance were of all ages. There are only three markers of age: marriage, childbirth and incapacitation.
Since the industrial revolution, schools and factories have divided the ages. At the same time, the modern retirement system covers most people in western society.
In 1950, American psychologist Eric Erickson published his book Children and Society, in which he divided life into eight stages, including “middle age”, which resonated with many middle-aged people and led to a consensus on the concept of “middle age”.
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The popularity and consumerization of the concept of “middle age” has developed with the rise of youth culture.
After the 20th century, the popularity of newspapers, magazines and movies, full of young bodies and beautiful faces, gave people a great visual impact and set off a wave of “youth worship” all over the world.
It also accelerates the middle-aged’s acceptance that they are “no longer young”. This is followed by worries about changes in appearance, physical functions and even job competitiveness, giving rise to the concept of “midlife crisis”
In 1965, Elliot Jaques, a Canadian psychologist, published an article in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. In it, Jaques drew on artists including Mozart, Raphael, Dante and Gauguin to formulate what has since become a popular theory of the midlife crisis.
Do midlife crises really exist?
In fact, using “crisis” to describe middle age is not accurate. Compared with adolescence and old age, middle age may be the most unpleasant period of life, but it is not a crisis.
A 2010 survey of 340,000 people asked people of different ages to rate how happy they were with their current lives, with middle-aged adults scoring lowest.
As you can see, happiness follows a U-shaped curve, reaching its lowest point at an average age of 52.9.
The U-shaped happiness curve is not unique to humans. In 2012, five scientists conducted a study of more than 500 gorillas across three countries, covering the ages of gorillas from infancy to adulthood.
The results found that the mood of gorillas also changed with age, showing a U-shaped curve. In other words, gorillas are also less happy in middle age.
Maybe this so-called trough isn’t so complicated after all. Maybe everything in between is a trough.
It might be more appropriate to call this a “mid-slump,” as Defined by University of Houston professor Brynne Brown, as “the time when the world grabs you by the shoulder and says, ‘I can’t help you, you’re on your own.'”
The real problems of middle age
Should you give up after 40?
Most of us have seen parents who, after middle age, begin to give up on their own lives and put all their expectations on their children.
In fact, the weaker the parents, the more unrealistic expectations they have about raising their children, the more they force them to do things they couldn’t do when they were young.
But they are very low requirements of their own, strict requirements for children. They may lie on the couch and watch TV by themselves while forcing their children to study hard.
But in fact, what makes children move forward is not their parents’ high pressure, but their own excellence.
Who you are is often more important than what you do to your children.
Unemployment in middle age is a fatal blow
Your career will always, always be your foundation.
Unemployment in middle age can be fatal to a person and even a family.
In Fact, Chinese people know little about midlife unemployment. The first generation to join the modern workforce (born between 1970 and 1980) has not yet reached the peak of midlife unemployment.
An earlier generation often heard the more euphemistic term “lay-offs”, which may well give the illusion that it was the country’s structural adjustment, not our own.
Of course, there are still some people who can stay in state-owned enterprises until they retire. In some state-owned enterprises, there is an early retirement system. It also gives the illusion, to some extent, that most people get through life unscrubbed.
A hundred years of life brings new thinking
Instead of thinking about a midlife crisis, I think the real question is: How do you plan your life?
The key question in how we plan our lives is: What is the time scale on which we should plan our lives?
You might live to be 100
According to the latest authoritative data from the University of California and other research institutions, human life expectancy has been increasing by an average of about three months a year since 1840.
In other words, each decade adds two to three years to human life. In the 21st century, the trend has accelerated even faster, with life expectancy increasing by more than five years in less than 15 years from 2001 to 2015.
And we’re talking about global life expectancy, and the increase is even more pronounced in developing countries.
For example, in the early years of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the average life expectancy was less than 40 years, but now, according to the authoritative report of the World Health Organization, as of 2016, China has already exceeded 76 years old, a full 36 years longer.
The chances of those born after 2000 living to 100 have reached 50 percent.
The traditional three-stage life
Life, as we usually think of it, is divided into three distinct stages:
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Go to school
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work
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Provide for the aged
For example, there is an old Wang. He went to primary school at the age of seven and began to work after graduating from university in his twenties. He spent the first twenty years of the first stage studying.
From working in your twenties to retiring at sixty, you spend the next thirty years working.
After that, he retired home to raise his grandchildren and flowers, and that was the third stage.
This is the pace of life that most people have been living for the past few decades, and if you’re only going to live 60 or 70 years, that’s a reasonable arrangement.
But if Lao Wang lives to be 100, how will he spend the next 30 or 40 years of his retirement?
Can you really live your life safely?
If you work for a company until you are 50 years old, you can brazen it out for a few more years until you retire, even if your knowledge, skills and learning ability are not as good as those of younger people. But if you are 100 years old, then 50 is the time to struggle.
The average life span of smes is 2.97 years, that of fortune 500 companies is 40 years, and that of Fortune 1000 companies is 30 years.
The industry is also changing fast, think of the former giants Nokia, MOTOROLA, Kodak, almost instantly by new technology, new companies destroyed.
In other words, most of us will change jobs or even careers during our lifetime, and if we are not prepared to change at any time, we may be left behind.
The multistage life will come
A person’s life may be divided into several stages, each of which is not distinct or in any clear order.
For example, if you were in school as a teenager, you might be back in school by 30. When I was 20, I was too busy to fall in love with someone. When I was 40, I found time to meet someone and got married within two years. When you’re 50, you quit a managerial job and take a year off to travel to clear your head. When you come back, you start over in a new industry. At 60, you start a successful business and decide to go back to school for a new degree.
Over the course of a hundred years, we get used to saying goodbye to our old selves and cleaning ourselves up every once in a while.
Lifelong learning will be everyone’s basic task.
How to cope in middle age
You might say that in middle age, one’s ability to learn declines and cannot compete with younger people.
Is it really so?
Middle-aged brains are more powerful
There’s a book called The Secret Life of The Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of The Middle-aged Mind.
It notes that middle-aged people do not lose brain cells, although their computational speed and attention do decline compared with younger brains.
But pattern recognition, spatial visualization, logical reasoning and so on, which are more advanced job skills, did not decline, but improved.
And computing speed is not a problem at all, can be handed over to the computer to solve. Being unfocused means you’re better able to think about many things at once, are more likely to see connections between them, and are better suited to creative thinking.
If you think your memory is declining, it’s a misconception. Human memory is divided into storage strength and extraction strength. The storage strength will not weaken with time, but only the extraction strength will weaken.
Simply put, you have too much memorization, which makes searching slow, whereas younger people do the opposite.
How not to stagnate in middle age
In fact, the vast majority of people will slack off in middle age, but as long as the heart, or can improve their state, at this time you need to re-design their carefully:
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Write down your personal statement
You need to present a persona that is right for you and in line with mainstream values.
For example, a middle-aged gentleman (Chen Daoming), or not looking old ten thousand big brother (Lin Zhiying), or a mind young joke master (Liu Qingyun), or a quiet but reliable expert in a certain field (Hawking), and according to the set dress.
Avoid presenting yourself as a fat uncle with a big belly, a tray and a talk about tea culture.
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Plan the details from head to toe
You need to plan what you’re going to wear, like frames or lenses, what kinds of accessories you’re going to wear, pocket scarves, flowers on buttonholes?
Choose a suit to suit oneself to set dress up, through changing appearance, will bring up a look brand-new oneself.
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Actively push your own favorable tags
You can send new songs, new movies, or new ideas in a field in your moments to let everyone know that you are not stagnant or outdated.
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Pay attention to your tone
Avoid vulgar topics such as the mistress of a fallen official.
Try to discuss some high quality knowledge, such as the knowledge about black holes and the latest research progress, etc., these are safe and stable topics to discuss, which not only show your culture, but also won’t say the wrong thing to offend others.
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self-discipline
Exercise restraint in diet, stay away from tobacco and reduce alcohol, and exercise as necessary.
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Find the right fellow travelers
When you are middle-aged, you should make some friends who are “equally unwilling”. If you play with stagnant friends, you will be dragged down by them. Try your best to find friends who are as unwilling as you are and want to make progress as you do.
Middle age is not the end
There is a saying that “when an old man talks about his ideals, the whole world moves.”
The stagnation of middle age is not a sharp pain but a constant ache, a mixture of “exhaustion” and “let’s take a break” that needs to be fought off with heroism.
In fact, midlife is the best time and the last chance for a career breakthrough.
From 22 to 25, everyone is working hard, and after 35 or 40, a lot of people are laughing on their laurels.
The man who clenches his teeth at this time is sure to win.