5 ms·

A midlife crisis is simply when all your 'someday' bills are due. Someday I'll go back to school and get my masters, someday I will move to X place I'd prefer t

A midlife crisis is simply when all your 'someday' bills are due. Someday I'll go back to school and get my masters, someday I will move to X place I'd prefer to live at, someday I will visit my old friends or relative, someday I will take the time to spend with my kids. All the things you promise yourself to get through the workday. Then in the span of about 5 years, those options all close at once. Too old to meaningfully start over in a different career, roots down in the area you live, the relative you always meant to talk to now has dementia, you long ago missed the chance to read one last bed time story to your kids. Someday never happens. Guard against desire. Don't make promises to yourself you can't keep.

GuiA 12y ago
This sounds spot on. At 25, I find myself thinking these thoughts. Someday I'll finish this project. Someday I'll take this trip. Someday I'll spend a full week at my grandparents. And I'm realizing, as you aptly said, that the mere act of telling yourself "someday" is enough to comfort you that it will happen, that you shouldn't worry about it, until it's too late. My grandfather fought in WW2 in the French resistance, leaving his family at the age of 17 to live in the wilderness for 3 years, stealthily blowing up Nazi trains and doing various things like that. He got a fairly prestigious military decoration for it at the end of the war. He never really talked about it when we were kids though - he probably wanted to keep us blissfully ignorant. For about 2 years, my cousin and I talked of taking a few days to sit down, ask him questions about it, get him to share his story - and film the whole thing and produce a short oral history documentary out of it. We kept putting it off because I live in the US, she lives in Switzerland, my grandpa lives in France, and occasions were rare. Then he died last February. Despite a few surgeries, he was in fairly good health at 88 (still drove around, gardened, fixed stuff around the house, etc.). On a Monday morning he felt unwell, on the Wednesday morning he was gone. I'm trying to minimize those "somedays" now so they don't hit me in the face 100x when I'm 45. And yet it's always so easy to just say "someday".
LordKano 12y ago
I had what can best be described as a pre-midlife crisis. The summer before I turned 30, I was in a relationship in which I was not happy, my career had stagnated and my younger sister had just graduated from college. It felt like someone lit a fire under me. I went back to college, changed my career trajectory and ended the relationship. I spent 6 of the next seven years in college. I picked up two AS degrees, a BS degree and an MS degree. I roughly tripled my income, I enjoy my job and I'm now engaged with three children. "Someday" can happen but only if you make it happen. Don't wait for it, figure out what you need to do to make it happen and then do that. For me, the big incentive to get out there and make it happen was my angst over that digit on the left changing.
heygiraffe 12y ago
> A midlife crisis is simply when all your 'someday' bills are due. I'm sure that's an important component of it. But it is not the whole story. For example, incidence of clinical depression peaks in the late 40s. This page has a graph: http://www.medicographia.com/2010/10/the-timing-of-depression-an-epidemiological-perspective/ http://www.medicographia.com/2010/10/the-timing-of-depressio... (I've seen more detailed graphs, but I can't find any right now.) Also, I read about a study that showed that predictions of husbands having extramarital affairs could be made more accurately based on the age of the wife than on the age of the husband. The authors hypothesized that husbands looking elsewhere for sex, was, in part, a natural response to the wife going through menopause. (I can't find the study now.)
DennisP 12y ago
That's partly it. Sometimes another part is that you find yourself with the ability to do those things you wanted to do someday. I always feel a bit sorry for guys in this age bracket who buy expensive sports cars, only to hear everybody call it a midlife crisis. Maybe they wanted a car like that since they were 18, and just couldn't afford it until now. Personally I'm 48 and just resigned from my comfortable, well-paying job to spend a year on my own trying to build my own variation of Xanadu. Maybe it's a midlife crisis. But it's something I've wanted to do for over a decade, and I didn't feel financially comfortable doing it until now. But at the same time, in the back of my mind I'm also thinking that if I don't do it soon, I won't ever do it, and I'll always wonder what might have been. There's an alternative to guarding against desire because someday never happens, and that's to make it happen. Read that bedtime story, talk to that relative, get that masters, do that startup.
- judk 12y ago
  Buying expensive toys is adults acting like spoiled children.
pasbesoin 12y ago
Things also start changing physically (physiognomy), for men as well as women. Believe older people when they suggest you do some things before this happens. And, make your own physical health a primary personal priority, to help minimize its impact. Too many people and places will, directly or indirectly, try to get you to place them first (at a corresponding expense/detriment to yourself and your own health). This is a slippery slope.
IndianAstronaut 12y ago
I try not to waste my time on the trivial. Watching some random tv show or article. But I do make an effort to hang out with friends and family and other meaningful things.
- judk 12y ago
  Trivial activity with family is always better than trivial things on your own?
judk 12y ago
How is that all in a span of 5 years? Life is an ongoing series of psychological crises.
- johngalt 12y ago
  > Life is an ongoing series of psychological crises. Exactly. Commonly we tell ourselves things to get through them. "I have to work late and miss johnny's soccer game; but someday I'll leave this crappy job and do better." > How is that all in a span of 5 years? In your late 40s, your children are probably approaching independence while your parents are getting hit by senescence. Your career has peaked and meaningful progress in another field is unlikely. Obviously not everyone is the same, but it's statistically common for things to happen along a certain schedule. Experiencing a mid-life crisis is realizing two things simultaneously: 1. Large parts of your life/identity are over or changed permanently. 2. Loss of the ability to use the 'someday I'll do this right' as a tool to get through the day. A large psychological crisis combined with a removal of your normal method of coping.
jmgtan 12y ago
This is spot on! While I don't have problems financially, but I feel very much unfulfilled with my day job working as an architect for a big enterprise software company. Right now I do a lot of side jobs (architecture consulting) to get my creative juices flowing and keep me updated, and I always dreamed of starting my own boutique consulting company. I always say someday this someday that. It's hard to take that first step. Unfortunately, I don't have the answer, and just last week I closed another side project (which made me happy because their problem was very interesting), on the other hand, office politics is really stressing me out.

GuiA 12y ago

This sounds spot on. At 25, I find myself thinking these thoughts. Someday I'll finish this project. Someday I'll take this trip. Someday I'll spend a full week at my grandparents. And I'm realizing, as you aptly said, that the mere act of telling yourself "someday" is enough to comfort you that it will happen, that you shouldn't worry about it, until it's too late. My grandfather fought in WW2 in the French resistance, leaving his family at the age of 17 to live in the wilderness for 3 years, stealthily blowing up Nazi trains and doing various things like that. He got a fairly prestigious military decoration for it at the end of the war. He never really talked about it when we were kids though - he probably wanted to keep us blissfully ignorant. For about 2 years, my cousin and I talked of taking a few days to sit down, ask him questions about it, get him to share his story - and film the whole thing and produce a short oral history documentary out of it. We kept putting it off because I live in the US, she lives in Switzerland, my grandpa lives in France, and occasions were rare. Then he died last February. Despite a few surgeries, he was in fairly good health at 88 (still drove around, gardened, fixed stuff around the house, etc.). On a Monday morning he felt unwell, on the Wednesday morning he was gone. I'm trying to minimize those "somedays" now so they don't hit me in the face 100x when I'm 45. And yet it's always so easy to just say "someday".

LordKano 12y ago

I had what can best be described as a pre-midlife crisis. The summer before I turned 30, I was in a relationship in which I was not happy, my career had stagnated and my younger sister had just graduated from college. It felt like someone lit a fire under me. I went back to college, changed my career trajectory and ended the relationship. I spent 6 of the next seven years in college. I picked up two AS degrees, a BS degree and an MS degree. I roughly tripled my income, I enjoy my job and I'm now engaged with three children. "Someday" can happen but only if you make it happen. Don't wait for it, figure out what you need to do to make it happen and then do that. For me, the big incentive to get out there and make it happen was my angst over that digit on the left changing.

heygiraffe 12y ago

> A midlife crisis is simply when all your 'someday' bills are due. I'm sure that's an important component of it. But it is not the whole story. For example, incidence of clinical depression peaks in the late 40s. This page has a graph: http://www.medicographia.com/2010/10/the-timing-of-depression-an-epidemiological-perspective/ http://www.medicographia.com/2010/10/the-timing-of-depressio... (I've seen more detailed graphs, but I can't find any right now.) Also, I read about a study that showed that predictions of husbands having extramarital affairs could be made more accurately based on the age of the wife than on the age of the husband. The authors hypothesized that husbands looking elsewhere for sex, was, in part, a natural response to the wife going through menopause. (I can't find the study now.)

DennisP 12y ago

That's partly it. Sometimes another part is that you find yourself with the ability to do those things you wanted to do someday. I always feel a bit sorry for guys in this age bracket who buy expensive sports cars, only to hear everybody call it a midlife crisis. Maybe they wanted a car like that since they were 18, and just couldn't afford it until now. Personally I'm 48 and just resigned from my comfortable, well-paying job to spend a year on my own trying to build my own variation of Xanadu. Maybe it's a midlife crisis. But it's something I've wanted to do for over a decade, and I didn't feel financially comfortable doing it until now. But at the same time, in the back of my mind I'm also thinking that if I don't do it soon, I won't ever do it, and I'll always wonder what might have been. There's an alternative to guarding against desire because someday never happens, and that's to make it happen. Read that bedtime story, talk to that relative, get that masters, do that startup.

judk 12y ago
Buying expensive toys is adults acting like spoiled children.

pasbesoin 12y ago

Things also start changing physically (physiognomy), for men as well as women. Believe older people when they suggest you do some things before this happens. And, make your own physical health a primary personal priority, to help minimize its impact. Too many people and places will, directly or indirectly, try to get you to place them first (at a corresponding expense/detriment to yourself and your own health). This is a slippery slope.

IndianAstronaut 12y ago

I try not to waste my time on the trivial. Watching some random tv show or article. But I do make an effort to hang out with friends and family and other meaningful things.

judk 12y ago
Trivial activity with family is always better than trivial things on your own?

judk 12y ago

How is that all in a span of 5 years? Life is an ongoing series of psychological crises.

johngalt 12y ago
> Life is an ongoing series of psychological crises. Exactly. Commonly we tell ourselves things to get through them. "I have to work late and miss johnny's soccer game; but someday I'll leave this crappy job and do better." > How is that all in a span of 5 years? In your late 40s, your children are probably approaching independence while your parents are getting hit by senescence. Your career has peaked and meaningful progress in another field is unlikely. Obviously not everyone is the same, but it's statistically common for things to happen along a certain schedule. Experiencing a mid-life crisis is realizing two things simultaneously: 1. Large parts of your life/identity are over or changed permanently. 2. Loss of the ability to use the 'someday I'll do this right' as a tool to get through the day. A large psychological crisis combined with a removal of your normal method of coping.

jmgtan 12y ago

This is spot on! While I don't have problems financially, but I feel very much unfulfilled with my day job working as an architect for a big enterprise software company. Right now I do a lot of side jobs (architecture consulting) to get my creative juices flowing and keep me updated, and I always dreamed of starting my own boutique consulting company. I always say someday this someday that. It's hard to take that first step. Unfortunately, I don't have the answer, and just last week I closed another side project (which made me happy because their problem was very interesting), on the other hand, office politics is really stressing me out.