Our Choice: a) Wake Up, or b) Wake Up Call

Are mid-life crises inevitable?

Are all of us, especially of the male side of the tribe, doomed to stumble into an existential crisis, or a 40-ish funk, or an affair (or worse) at “halftime?”

That was the question posed to me yesterday by a potential new client and a certified new friend I’ll call “Silver.” Silver, who is really “Gold” (he just doesn’t know it yet), has had a couple of older mentors, both of whom gained their wisdom the hard way…

Through experience.                  Ouch.

They say that “experience is the best teacher.” I guess I buy that, having had so many lessons taught to me that way. Unfortunately, what they fail to tell us is that experience teaches by having us take the exam before we’ve received the instruction. We only get to ask “what happened, and why?” AFTER the brick has hit us in the face.

Like I say…                                   Ouch.

I have no doubt that Silver’s two mentors had gained wisdom by living through and learning from their own unique mid-life crises. They had experienced a proverbial “wake-up call” from the Universe. The Universe is very patient, and is only too happy to oblige us with wake up calls. Silver’s mentors had come to see these wake-up calls as major learning events in their lives, and were fortunate to have consolidated that learning into a package of wisdom that reflected the growth they had achieved.

The hard way.

No, mid-life crises are not inevitable. They are simply the action of shooting ourselves in the foot and later struggling to recover–with a limp–a limp that reminds us of what not to do. All this is caused by the inaction we are guilty of earlier in life. What do I mean by that? Well, a few examples are in order: blindly following our fathers into the field of study and career that they pursued; or failing to scrutinize our belief that the company will always look out for our best interests; or holding onto an outmoded expectation that our children will seek our advice even after they’re grown; or betting that true fulfillment could come from the stuff we accumulate; finally, and here’s a big one, making the youthful and foolish assumption that the original feeling of passion we had for our mates was actually lasting love.

You see, wake-up calls are necessary only if we are asleep. There is no need for a wake-up call if we are already awake. We can call the front desk and cancel them if we simply wake up earlier, before the scheduled time. And, of course, a full-blown, mighty mid-life crisis, with all its horrifying collateral damage of wrecked dreams and shattered relationships and trashed finances and ruined health, is the result of sleeping late through all the earlier opportunities to awaken.

This is not to confuse the mid-life crisis with the unavoidable crises imbedded in a long life. Sooner for some, and later for others, we will all be visited with major challenges not of our own making. We have a choice to  prepare for the pain they bring, or not. How do we “wake up?” By shaking off fear and laziness and training ourselves to build strong cores–coming into alignment with our true identity, our purpose and our calling, and choosing to live a life true to that identity and purpose. And how do we best prepare for the pain of major crises? By being willing to experience the pain of the minor ones. The discipline of dealing with pain in our younger years, in little doses, through minor crises, is preparation for the storms to come, and the most effective antidote to the artificial mid-life crisis.

One of our favorite authors, M. Scott Peck, is famous for his classic best seller, The Road Less Traveled. His opening paragraph in that book was one sentence comprised of three words: “Life is difficult.” This truth is surely one of life’s greatest paradoxes, for those who come to  know this truth, life becomes much easier. For those who refuse to see this truth, life becomes much more difficult. To have grown is to have experienced pain. Avoiding pain is slow death. It’s our choice. Choices have consequences.

Which road are are you choosing?

Which road do you want your children to choose?

With your hard-won wisdom, how will you choose to live this day?

Do the choices you make today matter?

Tell us more, traveller. We’re on the road with you.