Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

I have my own theory about the mid-life crisis.

Average life expectancy in the 18th century was around 30 years and certainly not much different in the thousands of years before. It just exploded to our modern values in the last 150 or so years. Germany introduced old age insurance in the year 1889, applying at age 70, where the average life expectancy was only 40.

I am convinced: when the members of our species used to pass away between 30 and 40 over a duration of some hundreds of thousands years (more or less after the reproduction and upbringing phase) that is somehow built into our minds and cultural awareness and souls and bodies (and probably genes). We are aware of our life expectancy and are scheduling our lives accordingly - on a subconscious level - according to our biological legacy, not today's statistical figures.

But now we turn 40, and we don't die. We go on for another 40 to 60 years, but there is no plan for that time in our souls.

In my believe, the mid-life crisis is actually an end-life crisis. It was for me, 15 years ago. I had no urge to buy a muscle car or look after younger women or whatever is considered typical for the mid-life crisis (but it might be one quite logical model to just start over with life if it doesn't end as unconsciously expected)!

In my case, I developed a very strong feeling, that I have lived my life, found my love, fathered two lovely children, seen some nice parts of the earth, liked my work, made my errors, had my woes and that if faith would hit me here and now and I would die of illness or accident, that would actually be ok. This feeling was not depressive at all and absolutely not suicidal! Just accepting, that what one would expect from life has been granted and from here on, everything else is an addon or a reward. My wife and my kids do not like me talking like this as well. It makes them afraid, that I might be tired of life.

But I am not. I still have a million ideas and plans for the future. But I realized with 45 that I will only fulfill a small fraction of them, no matter how old I will get. I made peace with it. I am not so driven any more, and less afraid of death and both are good things.

Everything you describe makes complete sense for me! Try to project it into my model of the end-life crisis: our species knows what to do until we are 40. After that, we have to invent ourselves anew. That is why you feel lost. You are! Accept the challenge, try something different, do not fall for mid-life crisis cliches and do not hurt your beloved ones on the way!

I had a major crash and burn a year or so into my 40s. According to my post-collapse thereapist this was a really predictable thing among single, male academics, and not all that uncommon amongst other academics entering their 40s as well as non-academics of the same age. The blind rushing forward for the sake of not much more than blindly rushing forward tends to start to get frayed at the edges due to a number of things, not the least of which is the inevitable ravages of age starting to invade your psyche. I got out of the funk via self-administered cognitive therapy. You just have to keep asking yourself questions about why you're anxious, afraid, upset, etc. about various things, find reasonable answers, and keep telling yourself those answers until you've changed how you internalize and react to such things. Staying busy with things you enjoy - i.e. typically NOT work - also helps given how busy hands and attendant busy minds have less time to attack themselves. Such phrases as "don't worry, be happy", "live for the day", "gain the wisdom to know what you can and can't change", etc. have become hoary, cringeworthy cliches, but like all cliches they do contain a kernel of substance. We live in accelerated times where we're in a mad rush to get somewhere, although we typically don't have a really good idea just where. The last stop on the train route is the same for everybody. Those who reach the end are differentiated by how much they enjoyed the ride, and if you're not enjoying the ride you really, really need to ask that mirror why and get some honest answers.

I am glad that you are in your early 20s and understand this fundamental life truth - I am in my mid-40s, met some friends this past weekend, friends since elementary school, some more successful than others, in the capitalist sense of the word, although all of us are pretty well grounded. One of my buddies, who had more fun than the rest of us was complaining how his 20's and early 30's were all about experiencing life - and he wished he had focussed on his career and saved more. But at the end of the day, he has more stories to tell that anyone else. At the tail end of life, those stories are all we have..

I wrote specifically that comment above because I've wasted a few years of my life with this mindset and after therapy and a lot of struggles, I've figured out it has been what made me depressive and hate my life and myself.

But I was lucky enough to change the situation around with therapy, friends and a framework that enabled me to... and now I live in peace with a degree of peacefulness with myself.

I recognize that I can easily get addicted into something that gives me that feeling of self-improvement, money arriving in my bank account, stocks going up, being recognized by my peers. This at a modest level, it is actually great, because it will provide you a good standard of living and confort, but too much will make yourself miserable, only when I saw that I was basically like a cocaine addict and couldn't enjoy anything in my life and finally hit the breaks that my life changed.

42. Experiencing some of the same stuff. Don’t have answers, but happy to listen. Contact in bio.