The worst part about the midlife crisis is that it doesn't exist. Or it doesn't exist as the whimsical fun experience that 80's television portrayed it as.
It is easy to laugh at the 40-something buying a red corvette and trying to hang out (or more) with the young floozy; playing Frisbee golf with a bunch of beer chugging frat boys. Even more funny if he is fat, ugly and going bald.
I even joked about this for a long time, saying I was looking forward to my midlife crisis when I would buy a motorcycle and ride it across the country, or I would do faux dangerous things like go white water rafting and bear hunting. It was easy and funny to paint myself as this caricature since I was doing these things long before the age of 40 and not as part of any sit-com existential crisis.
Before going any further, I think it is important to ask a few dangerous hypotheticals:
Would I go back to being a kid again? No way.
Would I go back to high school again? Nope, shoot me first. And I mean that.
Would I go back to college again? Hmmm, maybe - until I end up in a situation around college students and realize the answer is a definite no.
I recall working as a mechanic at a restoration shop during college, and the "old school" former employees would show up and often lament how the shop was just not the same anymore. Of course not - at the time, I thought it was better. But I get it now.
An informal poll of other similar-aged acquaintances suggests midlife can be a crisis of malaise.
There is that big question constantly lurking around lots of hidden corners:
I am generally content. Still, is this all there is?
Things were not supposed to be this ambiguous. My siblings and I used to play a board game called Careers. I likely have some of the details incorrect, but the premise was that levels of happiness, money and fame were chosen at the beginning of the game. Players then moved around the board "collecting" these things. The winner was whoever reached their predetermined levels first.
I'm somehow struck that either I chose the wrong mix at the beginning of my life, or this isn't quite as straight forward as the board game made it out to be. More metaphorically, I'm starting to believe that the game should have a constantly changing set of targets, and the players have no idea of what those targets are or what their score actually is. The squares in the board game only give vague direction as to how much of anything they provide. Money, Fame and Happiness can vanish without anyone realizing it. I believe I'm stretching the metaphor to real too far now.
Jonathan Rauch writes about his own experiences in The Atlantic. I've read similar articles and was prepared to skim this one. Until I got to the second paragraph:
"Yet morning after morning (mornings were the worst), I would wake up feeling disappointed..." (emphasis added). Mr. Rauch's experience is different in that the way any person experiences anything is unique, but there were familiar currents to what he was saying. And while I don't see things as disappointing, I'm with a large faceless group who see things with an overwhelming sense of malaise.
Yes, mornings are the definitely the worst, though. Perhaps a rarity in present day that I enjoy my morning commute. But once I sit down in my cubicle and stare at the computer as it boots up, there is a sense of unease. This routine is not comfortable.
Which is odd in that I like routine. When the routine is shook up, it too often means life is shook up, something negative has taken over. Monotony, comfort, lethargy, contentment all wrapped up in one.
Again, this is only unique in the same way any experience is unique. While not an avid Reddit user, a search on Reddit for "monotony" and "adult" shows that the crisis of malaise, while not universal, is also far from isolated.
The article in The Atlantic quotes Mr Rauch as feeling "ungrateful." I don't see it precisely this way. I guess I am in a similar state where if my 20-something self would look at my now-self, there would probably be surprise, maybe even shock. Who'd have thunk things would be where they are. In many ways, things could be interpreted as better than could have been imagined. Maybe I've sold out that 20-something though.
Not ungrateful, but incomplete. Definitely incomplete.
And that is the scary part of the midlife crisis, why the caricature of the guy spending too much money buying a Porsche seems funny on the outside. No matter what anyone does to rid themselves of the malaise of being 40-something, the only thing that won't change is themselves. Renting track time in a Ferrari won't do it. A new girlfriend won't do it. Even new career won't do it. The research seems to suggest, the best medicine is ... time. Given the restorative power of travel, I'm not really sure I believe this. Potentially, I just don't want to believe this.
I do think Generation X experiences this differently than the Baby Boomers, who screamed and threw tantrums about how they were not old. Generation X seems to be more in a holding pattern - the slackers even slack off when having a midlife crisis.
I frequently hear or read that generational distinctions are all BS. While this is partially true - slowly evolving changes create a spectrum. The reality can be seen in US birth data. The graph below shows both absolute and normalized births. No question the Baby Boomer generation exists, and that this huge group of people affects how people act and interact. The Millennial bump can also be seen; it is muted by the overall decrease the US birth rate.
In Generation X, we have a group of people who have listened ad nausea about how the Boomers were not ever going to get old. We watched them age before our very eyes. We saw it and are beginning to see it in ourselves. 50 is the new 40 is only one lie the boomers fed us for so long. Forty is still 40. And fifty will be 50.
And maybe that is good.
Mr. Rauch's article cites much research that after the midlife malaise, throughout it, things will improve. It would be nice if this curve was a V instead of a U. Life doesn't work that way; there will be no defined beginning and end - just a long malaiseful middle. Like generational change, the upswing will occur on its own schedule.
Generation X hopes that the research is meaningful, is accurate; that it is soon. I hope it is, anyway.
Still, there is a fear, a small voice nagging at me. As I look back 20 years, and ahead 20 years, could the next phase, beyond the humdrum of day-in day-out, be just as unexpectedly soft as 40-something?
Even as I am writing this, I'm not sure I believe it. Generation X is now well past the statistical half way point of our lives. There is another generation poised to bite at the heels of the first group to grow up in the participation-trophy era. That generation is just beginning to be defined. Gen Z? Or iGen (I hope not)?
With an objective eye, it is very hard to look at things negatively, and the midlife malaise ebbs and flows. I guess that midlife malaise is really a First World problem. But first world problems are not imagined - even with every developed country having pockets of third world when anyone takes the time to look.
This too shall pass. In time ... this too shall pass.
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