Welcome to your Mid Life Crisis
The older you get, the more you’ll realize that life is often about the thing below the thing. Example: Someone desperately wants to make it in theatre, their only goal — Broadway. They describe the desire vividly to everyone around them for years. They have some success off-Broadway, but other than that nothing seems to pan out. Then, their father suddenly dies. Their world seems different and the lens with which they see it has changed forever. The intense need to “make it on Broadway” shifts and changes. They discover that what they thought was a passion for theatre and Broadway, was really a deep need to get the approval of their father. It was never about making it on Broadway, it was about love and acceptance. With this new lease on life, they admit to themselves what they really want. Their career path changes and they find profound joy in teaching inner city kids theatre.
You can see where this is going.
We all have areas in our lives that we think are about the thing. The need for a promotion, the child, the house… you can fill in the blank. We intensely focus on these areas. We are honest in our desires — so we think. We may make vision boards, journal or meditate on them. Then, one day, life slaps the book you’ve been writing out of your hands and you are given a chance to look at the thing below the thing. This moment of clarity can come in many different ways, but there is one common feature, nobody can make it happen for you.
For some, this looks like the window of opportunity or grace when you realize that a drinking or using habit needs to come to an end. For others, it could be finally admitting a long-term relationship has run its course. Regardless of what the thing below the thing is, when that window of clarity opens it will be a harsh, bright light. It may include a tsunami of feelings and a sense of, “Oh man, I do not want to deal with this.” It carries with it the weight of knowing everything will change if you go down this path but also, an inexplicable sense of peace that everything may be getting better.
These existential moments of awareness are heavy. They are world view shifters. Having lived through several, I know that if you heed their call you will be rewarded with synchronicity. There will be signs that you are on the right path. These windows of clarity carry with them a velocity for change at hyper speed. In the world of recovery, it’s very common to hear a relapsed alcoholic talk about how easy it was to get sober the first time… but how difficult it gets to remain sober each time after that. Grace is a privilege, treat it like one. If you’re stepping into the light of clarity and some things are flowing with ease, ride that flow I beg you. Do not shove your feelings down because it will make it so much more difficult to change later.
There are things in your life right now, that may not be working. On paper, you may be saying you want a promotion. In reality, you may want a new relationship. Nobody knows what these truths are except for you and you may not even be aware of all of them. But then again, you’re reading this so in a way — you’re kind of screwed. Welcome to your mid life crisis.
I am convinced that life can be more vivid and beautiful than any of our dreams. I am convinced that we don’t have to settle. I am convinced that it can be about more than “What’s for dinner tonight?” and “I want a luxury car.” Folks often roughly cite Thoreau by saying, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, live the life you’ve imagined.” I think it’s worth noting that the actual quote is far more powerful,
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
Your dreams are not castles in the air. They’re a northstar guiding your soul home. Will you heed its call?
There are times we live life on autopilot and it isn’t until things get shaken up that we change. Sometimes, those changes are messy and misguided because we’re still not ready to be honest with ourselves. We’re not ready to deal with the pain of “letting go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us” as Joseph Campbell said. When my mother was dying, I clinged to a bad relationship for solace. I couldn’t bear the thought of a. being alone and b. admitting that this dude was definitely not “the One.” When our relationship ended (with a miscarriage) four months after her death, my life was stripped bare. The pain was deafening. I had to look deep within and ask myself, “What do you really want?!” It was hard to answer. One thing was certain, I wanted respect and I would never again put up with a man who didn’t honor me or treat me like I was the prize. I have kept that promise to myself.
So, that is my challenge for you.
What do you really want?
What is the dream that you are too afraid to admit to yourself? Where are you too afraid to let go? Where are you shoving down your emotions because if you feel them, then you may have to contend with your life as you know it (or as you planned it) ending?
I am here to tell you, it will be OK. It will not only be OK, it will be better than you think because you will be free. As you step into your authentic truth, your whole world will shift. You will attract people who are vibrating on that level. If you’re stuck right now, I bet you can look at the friends around you and see how they’re stuck too. As you become free and step into your truth, you will attract people who are doing the same. It will not always be easy, it may involve tears and sleepless nights. In a way, it is a death. It is a mourning for a life you’ve been clinging to that just doesn’t work.
Life is short. In 2015, I wrote a piece on here called When Does it All Go South essentially about how my parents didn’t live their lives to the fullest. The piece went viral and I was deluged by messages from people re-examining their lives. Here’s the harsh truth: if you don’t admit to yourself, what you really want — it won’t change and you won’t get it. You could very well die with an unrealized dream. You have every opportunity right now to “advance confidently in the direction of [your] dreams” and meet “uncommon success.” Do it.
Btw, long walks, journaling and meditation are a great way to get to the bottom of whatever it is you’re ignoring. So are, interventions, break ups or seeing the one that got away. Choose the former path if you can, but even if it looks like the latter, the good news is that as long as you are breathing you have time to change.
Godspeed.
