Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Never waste a midlife crisis

austinkleon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 461 posts

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#281

Post by vasco »

ctrlp wrote: post #169
soligern wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting help from mental health professionals is just a way for that individual to foist their opinions onto you. Psychology is a highly subjective field whose studies have startlingly low reproducibility. You’re much better off finding someone in your circle that’s willing to listen to you and shares your values (though not everyone might have this available to them).

This is good advice. Sadly, many on HN are very pro "mental health professionals". I see the opposite advice proffered frequently. These "professionals" make things worse by pathologizing normal life. Their availability to function as ersatz "friends" discourages people from making the real kind, imho.

It's just inviting downvotes but I also agree with you.

Therapy is a scam and no doctor can explain how or why anti-depressants work (also why they have people "try" many before finding the "right one for you").

But people are too cool for friends and family now and hearing hard truths so they pay someone to be told they matter and how to run their lives.

I have seen different approaches to therapy being done to different friends and only one friend got better - this tells me it can work for some, but the odds are you're getting a grifter. In this case their therapist told them they didn't need anti-depressants (shocker) and after ~15 sessions said they were fine and didn't need help anymore. Everyone else is medicated and still going every month, presumably til they die.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#282

Post by maxbond »

mstipetic wrote: post #178
SamPatt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the person you're responding to, but both my parents passed away in their mid-50s, and after my startup failed at 35 I hit something like a midlife crisis. If you believe mid 30s is middle-aged, then it becomes middle-aged - and unfortunately, for some that might be true. Fortunately for me, this crisis led to a serious investment in my health and fitness, and though I obviously cannot predict my future, I'm…

I’m 35 and I feel like I’m just getting properly started.

"Categorical age", if you'll allow me to coin a term for this phenomenon (infancy, childhood, adolescence, middle age, ... - your conception may vary) is more or less a qualification of our personal relationship to time and mortality. So while we might have broad consensus that a 5 year old is a child and a 70 year old is a senior, it's not determined by numerical age. Just a near 1 correlation.

After all, we never know our numerical middle age except in retrospect.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#283

Post by manmal »

kekebo wrote: post #277
manmal wrote: post #251

The stereotypical concept of the big singular midlife crisis has been debunked. Crises occur in every age span, and they are highly individual. I agree though that a crisis should never be wasted.

Can you recommend a source re:debunking?

My wife is a psychologist (MSc @ university) and psychotherapist (system and family therapy, which is a modern & rather evidence based variant), and we've talked about this recently. According to their training, the stereotypical midlife crisis is a plot device for stories and not rooted in actual observation.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#284

Post by pdiddy3g »

When I was 38, I took upon a challenge to start my 40s on a high. The challenge was simple. I would run 40 half marathons before turning 40.

Before this, I was running occasionally.

For about 18 months, I ran 2-3 half marathons every month and completed my challenge. By the time I reached 40, I was in the best shape of my life. Also, I figured out that my mind and body can now take any challenge and complete it.

I turned 41 in June and already ran more than 70 half marathons and one full marathon (Copenhagen full marathon).

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#286

Post by aftoprokrustes »

4ndrewl wrote: post #244

Never waste the chance to comment "but survivorship bias"

Totally agree. When he started saying "just write books and readers will come" I had to think about https://xkcd.com/1827/

Not to say that all he says is rubbish. "Pennyless beats bitter" is a good heuristic and shows that he does not claim that it could not have gone south.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#287

Post by pantulis »

To take into cosideration: midlife crisis sometimes happens at 40, mine happened at 50. Don't ever think you are going to get away. The realization that there are more years behind your back than in front of you is huge and it will come.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#288

Post by bloqs »

Midlife crisis is simply myth. It is a description of the long awaited convergence of money and youthful desires.

Additionally, middle age starting is not robustly defined by your 30s. It varies across cultures. In the UK, having kids much later and having adolescence dragged out due to education and lower wage years is very normal. This is also due in part to life expectancy shifts, and the period of middle age for boomers extending far longer than many realised.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#289

Post by saiya-jin »

heyoni wrote: post #147
Clubber wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means you'll never be 18 or 23 or 30 or 35 again. The youth that you took for granted is gone forever and time will march with you until your death. Death may be maybe be 2 years from now or 40 years from now, fully knowing that you body will start failing. Even if you have 40 years, not all of them will be good years, especially the last ones. Once you are gone, that's it, all the time you spent improving yoursel…

So, not for naught? Seriously, we’re social creatures that live for others. You can have 40 good years serving the next generation, building wealth for them and sharing in their joys. I’m sensing this strange notion in older generations where they absolutely refuse to let go and insist on keeping their youth and the spotlight to no or some avail. Technology is getting better and making people hold on for longer but I…

> building wealth for them

Maybe not the best idea if you mean material wealth beyond staving off being poor. I know its all good intentions, but it more often ends up in spoiled entitled brats than it doesn't. People simply need a bit of struggle to stay humble and nice human beings, not too much but sweeping the road ahead of kids too well is one of the worst things a parent can do.

But its true this is US forum, so in that case one needs to build massive wealth just to send kids to university or have safety net for any kind of bigger health issues in family.

I agree though with kids being great for such a crisis, they give more purpose in life than anything else, give depth to otherwise often rather shallow life. Its like a computer game, playing on easiest difficulty (no kids) will make you progress faster and easier, but that doesn't translate well into overall worthiness of experience. Plus seeing your little ones play, having fun at 100% or grokking new stuff is such a nice heartwarming experience that it could melt a glacier or two, good luck getting such a kick elsewhere (and I do quite a bit of extreme sports so can compare a bit).

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#290

Post by kortilla »

xyzelement wrote: post #2

I wonder if the mid life crisis is a completely modern and secular malady. Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community, it's very hard to imagine them going through one. Because they are too busy, but mainly because their life is oriented from the get-go around what is very meaningful to them

Lol no, I saw religious cousins’ families go through major shakeups during midlife crises. One ended with divorce after a nice string of affairs and a departure from the church. Another was quitting a stable white collar job, buying a motorcycle, and spending nearly every night at a bar.

A community does not prevent them. A spiritual life definitely doesn’t prevent them (disillusionment is frequently a cause). Kids don’t help, but they certainly put immense pressure on you to not upend everything so it gives the appearance that it might not be happening to outsiders.

Post reply on HN