Life and Death

I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
-- Woodie Alan

The next natural question is, what triggers midlife crisis? How come we live happily for the first 30-40 years of our life, pursue our careers for a decade or two that clearly fulfill our social values, and do not get into any crisis until some time later? What makes our inner values to finally come out?

The reason, or the trigger of midlife crisis is often the realization of death, of our own mortality. When we reach our 35th or 45th birthday, we may suddenly realize that, statistically speaking, we have lived about half of our entire life. The time ahead is about as long (or as short?) as what's already behind. Is this really how we imagined ourselves to be half way down the road?

Is it all there is to it?

This, or a similar question sets your inner values in motion. Or, more precisely, in emotions.

The realization of death comes in different forms to different people. Some see the death of their close ones: grandparents, parents, other relatives, sometimes friends, or even pets (yes, pets are often as important family members as other people, and their loss can be very hard on us).

Others meet death first-hand, through a near-death experience. There are countless stories of ER patients talking about their experience of clinical death, when their life depended on the mastery of doctors, and a sheer luck. They often talk about the tunnel of light, and some even come out of their bodies and observe the operating room as if from above, or from other unusual angles.

The near-death experiences may come in combinations. Mark Gerzon in his very powerful book Listening to Midlife tells a story of a man who survived a freak automobile accident. His friend, who was driving, steered to the right to avoid the collision, but was crushed by an oncoming bus and died instantly. The man who tells the story barely survived, being in the passenger seat. Later in the hospital, he realized that if his friend turned left instead of right, it might have been his friend lying in a hospital bed and thinking of him.

For many people, after having encountered death, their life takes a radical turn. Their value system often shifts dramatically, and they become less attached to the social values, and turn to personal relationships, religion, spirituality, or something else that is dear to their heart. They sometimes quit their extremely successful "dream jobs" and move to very unexpected places to become farmers or forest rangers. One of our trainers personally knows a man who had an almost magical recovery from a nearly fatal condition, and the same day the man came out of the hospital, he went to the first church that happened to be on his way, and became Christian.

What is really happening to these people? How do they find a life of their dream? A life that truly matters to them? How do we find our True Self?

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