Sitting here wasting a little time, thought I'd click on the "hits from 30 years ago". Up pops The Best of Three Dog Night, and a great song, Pieces of April. Man, I love that song. But wait, can it really be from thirty years ago? That can't be right. Walk down to the fridge to get a beverage of choice (diet soda, caffiene free, sodium free, taste free... gotta watch that pre-hypertension-guess I could drink water). Feeling a little down, still thinking about Pieces of April. I know that song came out last fall! Go to the garage. That always chears me up. "TWO" red convertibles there. Another sign? But you gotta admit that the SL looks good. But, why did I buy a '75? Hmmm, senior year of high school? Too depressing. I think I'll go down to the gym and workout, maybe listen to some Doobie Brothers! :p

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the beatle's SGT PEPPER'S album was released in june of 67 according to yoko ono.

thats 36 years ago (6 past the "thirty years ago today" lyric), and thus makes me mid life, but still awaiting the crisis.

Darrell & ThrillBilly,

AHHHH!!!! That time in a w/man's life....
Here's an interesting article that helps spot the mid-lif-cri's telltales.......

CAVEAT EMPTOR!!!!! - You might not feel the same about yourself after reading this!!!!!

How to cope with being 40 and after...

by Mara Liberman

From one day to the next we wake up different. We are somewhere between 38 and 50 years old, but until that moment eternally 20, with all the time in the world in front of us and every path still open.

But perhaps on this day we become aware of the existence of internal organs, which we have only conceived of theoretically. Nobody thinks very much about one's liver or lungs, they just happen to be there, and to feel that they exist is not much fun. Or it happens when we stare a bit longer into the mirror, which reveals more wrinkles than we thought we had or reflects something unfamiliar, as if an unknown person was staring through our eyes. In the end it does not matter what the apparent catalyst is: a great anxiety appears to take over everything, and suddenly the possibilities are inexorably restricted, the mind is inundated with feelings of loss and limitations and we fall from the great heights of the immortal Olympic omnipotence of youth into the arms of a finite and scarce time, human and mortal.

Nothing will be the same as before. With high and lows, the great transition of middle age has arrived and will only pass when we are transformed and ready to start, armed with different values and concepts, a new life cycle.

The initial problem is to accept that this is happening, and that it is a normal, fundamental process through which the psyche has a greater possibility of providing significant changes that will prevent premature crystallizations or fatal stagnations. But there is really nothing that prepares us to cope with a crisis of this proportion and with such potential for suffering, where we are only capable of noticing quite clearly the losses, whilst the gains appear tenuous or mere rationalizations.

In our society there are no rituals of passage for middle age, no graduation ceremony that helps us to understand or prepares us for what is also a phase of growth. Often, we do not even mention the "strange feelings" that ravage us, for fear of appearing ridiculous or crazy and becoming even more alone, isolated from ourselves and possible companions on the journey.

Faced with this frightening prospect, denial seems to be the obvious answer. For a long time some people try to live their lives without thinking about mortality. Every mean is fine if it guarantees that it will be different, an eternal 'happy end'... And since the signs of crisis appear to be the beginning of this terrible decline, deception, silence, anxiety and withdrawal can be the first reactions.

However, man is far more complex than this, and everything that our urban hero leaves aside will at some point need to be integrated and evaluated. Any aspects that are left aside in the Shadow, repressed since they are considered inappropriate to his journey or obstructive to his competitiveness, have to find a means of expression, or life becomes impoverished and empty. Superficial relationships are no longer fulfilling, even if they occur within an elegant and politically correct scenario.

According to C. G. Jung, halfway through life another aspect begins to dominate the psychic map, the Self, the nucleus and totality of the personality, the central archetype that will guide all of the quests in the future, in the search for the meaning of life. It encourages existing values to be reviewed and modified: everything is re-assessed, reviewed by all of one’s consciousness, because all of the important philosophical questions about existence and the more profound definitions are at stake. Points that are more relevant for the essence that for existence: a BMW is still appreciated, but it does not absolve or redeem.

Between the domination of the ego and the calling of the Self, there is a long journey, a long period of transition, which unfortunately has to be performed without rituals, without signposts indicating the way and with no shelters. In a society that does not mark journeys nor value the stages of life, which only values eternal youth, there are no celebrations for this journey to another stage of growth. There is no users manual to advise on how to avoid traps and pittholes along the way or on how not to be eaten up by stress, there is only the realization that this journey has to be lived in its entirety.

But the crisis begins with radical and constant evaluations of what we had been until then, a process that appears to be dominated by pure destruction, by judgments of extreme severity that are relentlessly negative. As we meet the cold eyes of our internal slayers the feeling of unworthiness might be so intense that the initial reaction might be panic.

We no longer fit into our previous life, but we still do not have a clear direction for the future. We may have the feeling we are marginal and marginalized, not valued, strangers, and this frightens us in the same way as Pan's roars. Fear can take over. We, that fit so well, became outsiders.

Men and women of 40-plus have a great deal of energy and all of this psychic movement results in a type of second adolescence, where one feels it is possible to challenge everything. As well as changes in humor total moodiness and quick making and giving up of plans. Values and concepts are tested, as well as clothes, styles and hair cuts.

A lot of marriages come to an end during this period, jobs can be abandoned or lost, property sold, neo-hippie trips undertaken; like Dória for example, a brilliant publicity executive who gave up his highly paid job, and sold everything to start travelling with his rucksack with no definite route in mind, something he had wished but had not dared do when he was twenty.

There is the need to try out new styles of behavior that appear attractive, and our wolves in fancy clothes howl in search of concrete and radical changes where the new can make them feel young or like heroes again. They look for new models in love, cars and apartments, or for new children they might beget. Working out in gyms can become an obsession, not to try and find harmony and health, but in search of a lost figure, a dream young shape, in an attempt to mummify the past.

Sometimes drugs and alcohol are the escape sought in the search for relief and for contact with other universes.
During this process standards and relationships that had become unbearable, exhausting and devoid of energy can be brought to an end. Others, however, that which were still important can be just thrown away amidst the trash, to later speak of further regrets. In the thirst for renewal, a lot of what should be rethought is deleted. But a sense of relief does not yet appear, because the process needs to be internal, a change in focus is needed and not necessarily a change in neighborhood, city or marital status. Truths that are sought only outside of us can go further and further away...

Thousands of dreams have been abandoned over the decades; perhaps some can be taken up again, but others will have to remain forgotten forever. We no longer have that infinite time, where "later" was so extensive a concept that contained all infinite combinations of all our possible futures. On the contrary, we start to question the choices we indeed made, often with the desperate feeling that it is already too late to make others. It is the time to learn how to carefully prioritize goals and to do this involves recognizing limits. A large step for becoming human...


It is the time to discover that, whether we were successful or not during the first half of life, we were prisoners to what society demanded of us, tied to the tyranny of an idealized way of being and to the great lie that is imposed on the young to make them more productive and says that if they do everything correctly, they will necessarily be successful in all areas and that happiness is an inevitable consequence of status...

That beautiful dream that was followed as young people with all the energy and that was never felt reachable, the star that guided our battles, was it really born in our hearts or only borrowed from the book of choices for possible successes that our society provided us with? Did we give up deep relationships with our children and the possibility of intense loves because we were concerned about our own path or with a path that was imposed on us? And the beauty we searched to attain, was it to express our own grace and individuality or just to follow a type of aesthetics accepted by our time?

Living in a time in which we are inundated with so many alluring possibilities, not having achieved what we imagined our dreams were asking for and what we thought we deserved can be devastating. Perhaps the saddest form the crisis can assume is a hopeless feeling of guilt for not having achieved results. This can be a moment when we are flooded with discontent and anxiety and waste energy with sterile comparisons with the apparent happiness of our neighbor, : jealously and envy become the strongest feeling to which we have access in the mist of being assaulted by so many moods.


The middle age crisis is a great migration of the soul from its original way of operating to a way that is totally unknown. An immense psychic journey is undertaken during which beliefs, values, certainties, references that guided our behavior and expectations are abandoned, taking us to a great moment of suspension, in which everything we were no longer seems to make sense, and what we are to become is, to say the least, vague. We are strangers within ourselves, going to other psychological lands, where they speak a different language, which we have to learn

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RASPUTIN

Ras, I've got the rest of the week off from work. Slept in late, woke up feeling great! Forgot about the ML Crises...till I read the article. Yep, must be it. Thinking I might sell the house and cars (all 5 of 'em), send the teenager to live with family, and tell the wife she's either with me or against me. We're gonna hit the road. Hike around Alaska during the summer, find a nice beach to lay on in Mexico during the winter, maybe scale Mt. Everest. At least for the next 5 years till I'm 50, and the crises is over. Except, ...I'm just 45. Still feel like I'm 20. Maybe I'll just ignore it and it'll go away. Yea, that's it, just ignore it. Get the kid through college, work another 15 years or so, then get a condo on the beach. Will I still like the beach at 60? I like the beach now, but it may be just a bunch of dirt at 60. Uh Oh, getting off track again...ignore, ignore, ignore.:p

I'm 41 and have to admit I guess I'm a little slow - I have not experienced ANY of the feelings detailed in Rasputins quote.

As far as the mortality issue I'm not really sure why this scares people - the thought that I'm going to die someday reminds me I don't have time for crappy moods and thoughts or inaction.

Who wants to make their last day on earth a bad day?

I do feel sorry for people my age that hate their jobs and have no choice but to work hard every day. I've been able to slow down a little bit as I've reached middle age and find the change in work habits very refreshing.

Tim

Darrell,

I’d like to have a MLC, but I’m too busy pedaling. My oldest daughter starts Harvard in September. That’s 45 big ones each year for the next 4 years. If my other two kids follow suit, I’ll be in real trouble! If you have time to entertain a mid-life crisis, that must mean you’ve already mastered the first two life priorities, namely, “Have I been the best husband I could possibly be to my wife?” and “Have I been the best dad I could possibly be to my kid?”. And now you have time to address the third one, “What about me?”. Placing your desires ahead of your family will not do you proud. Honoring your commitments to your family will do you proud. The obvious answer is “Why not do it all?”

Glenmore, you are exactly right. I started this thread tongue-in-cheek, but seriously there is nothing more important to me than faith, family and being a good citizen. Married for 27 years to the greatest wife one could have, and my 15 year old son is a true blessing. College is still three years down the road, and I've been saving since he was three months old. I guess it depends on where he goes whether or not I've got it covered. I've lived a great first 45 years, and if it's God's will, look forward to many, many more. As a health-care administrator, I truly count my blessings daily. Mid-Life Crises? Not really...more like mid-life enjoyment.:p

Lebenz,

Mara Liberman is a Psychologist and Jungian Analyst in Brazil/
She writes wonderful articles for several Psychology magazines such as Catharsis Magazine and others. She is a regular in the C.G. JUNG PAGES

Two new articles by Mara Liberman:
 Eating Disorders and Myths (Published in Junguiana no 12, São Paulo, 1994)
 Howling at the Moon: A study of the symbolic meaning of eating disorders: How to cope with being 40 and after... (Published in Catharsis Magazine, year 4, May/June 1998)

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RASPUTIN

I'm nearly 50 and I feel I've just hit my stride. Except for the ACL rupture (while playing basketball), that is.

My significant other and I have a total of 5 kids ranging in age from 3 to 15 and they're a complete kick in the pants. I had my midlife crisis at 35 and have loved life ever since.

Family, faith and community. Yup. Don't forget fun and fulfillment, too.

__________________
David

His:
2003 Dodge Durango SLT
2002 BMW E39 530i Sport
1988 Mercedes 300TE
Hers:
2003 Chevrolet Suburban
1999 E430

That's the spirit! Darrell, -(I love your wit to bits!!!)- "Feel-The-Fear-and-Do-It Anyway!!"
(It's the title of a very interesting and revealing book)

__________________
RASPUTIN