What Is Midlife Crisis?

Our Social Self

It is not a secret that our identity has been strongly influenced by the society. From the very early childhood, as we grow up, we receive extensive training in what is "right" and "wrong", what we "should" and "shouldn't" do, what is "true" and what "cannot be true." At first, such lessons come from our parents, then from school, from our friends and teachers, and later from college or university, or from co-workers and managers.

We learn that, if we want to be "worthy," we must study for a profession, preferably one that pays well, because we have to support ourselves and our family. We learn that it is important to have a secure income, a big house, a fancy car, or better yet, two fancy cars. We are trained to believe that once we master a profession, we must stick to it for the rest of our live, because otherwise it will be a "waste of effort." We spend all these years (and our parent's money!) in college, then build our reputation at work, then climb up the corporate ladder - we cannot just dump all these assets and run in a totally different and potentially "risky" direction, just because we feel like it! "It's just stupid!" We should be making our decisions "rationally." And, in fact, to some extent it is a valid set of beliefs and values. And it is true that we all live in a society, we have to interact with other people, we have to take the reality into account. You wouldn't jump off the cliff without a parachute or a safety rope, would you? Neither would I.

The "profession for life" idea is even enforced in our everyday language: "I am an engineer," "I am a doctor," "I am a lawyer." As if when we stop being an engineer, a doctor, or a lawyer, we may somehow lose our identity and stop being ourselves. But is it really true? Does our profession really define who we are totally and completely? Fortunately, not!

Our True Self

There is another side of ourselves, another kind of identity, that we secretly acquired during our precious moments of pure happiness, sincere joy, or while being totally absorbed in a captivating activity, completely forgetting the time and space around us.

I don't know of anyone who on their deathbed would say, "I wish I spent more time in the office." What is really important to us, to our deeper, true self, is "What have I done that I will be proud of at the end of my life? What will I remember (or regret not doing enough) on my deathbed?"

What we will remember and be proud of at the end of our life, is what defines our true identity, our True Self, or our Essential Self, as Martha Beck calls it in her wonderful book Finding Your Own North Star.

Too often, we have a conflict between these two selves. Too often, the society imposes more pressure on our social self than we can comfortably handle. The society, the closest people around us are often trying to persuade us, and quite successfully, that our social self is indeed what we really are. When our career is lined up, when our bank account starts growing, people around us unanimously agree that this person is indeed becoming a success.

Why is it then that not all millionaires, or even billionaires, are absolutely happy? Why is it that some of the folks who are only doing "OK" but far from spectacular by social standards, may be beaming with happiness? Of course, there are just as many rich people who are happy, and just as many "middle class" or "poor" people who are not. In other words, money or social status clearly does not define happiness.

Then what really makes us happy? What is common across all genuinely happy people, regardless of their "social success"? And what is common across the not-so-happy ones? What's the most important difference between the two groups?

The really important question is, on your deathbed, will you regret that you haven't done something else instead of what you are doing now? What is this something else?

If you had an unlimited choice, what would you rather do that you will be proud of at the end of your life? Wouldn't you rather know an answer to that question while you still have some time left? While there is still a chance for you to do what you later would truly appreciate having done. Something you will never regret.

Internal Conflict

What is really going on during midlife crisis, is that our deeper, inner values of our True Self are coming out and letting us know that we are not taking care of them. Since these values are not socially induced, they are coming out in their primal form, through the feelings in our body, and not through the words or abstract ideas, the way we were taught to receive information. For many people, this is very unusual. For most of our life, we were often taught to ignore our feelings, and consider the voice of our rational mind as the primary source of wisdom and the only solid basis for decisions. Paying attention to feelings to understand what really matters is often an alien concept to many of us.

Therefore, midlife crisis is an internal conflict between our own personal values, and the values externally imposed on us. The conflict between our deep values that define who we truly are, and the social values of "what is right" for us.

To help you determine how deep your own conflict is at the moment, we have created an online test that estimates how well your social and true self are aligned. The higher your score, the better the alignment between the two, and the lesser the conflict. Go ahead, take the test now!

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