Hallelujah, I am Mid-life Old
Posted on September 07, 2022 by Efie Vogel, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
With a bit of thought, it is easy to see that midlife offers more new opportunities than disadvantages.
Initially, many people assume that most humans will have a bell-shaped life cycle.
Children develop rapidly while trying to understand basic skills. As the year’s pass, the learning curve will tend to be more moderate and less steep, but the new current challenges will have an important impact on the preferences of everyone. From young adulthood, development can be expected to address core issues that affect the foundations of life, such as how to tackle the initial direction of an upcoming profession, establishing a family, creating a social and political identity, developing chosen values, and so on.
In later years, physical and mental abilities start mellowing, creating the scary intuitive instinct that reaching midlife is like attaining the summit of a mountain. At the midlife peak, the view can be fabulous, and all one’s dreams are hopefully emerging and consolidating, but the consequence of obtaining top levels of success and the feeling of conquering the hilltop inevitably invites comparisons to what the coming years will offer. We become conscious of the weakening of our major abilities and skills, knowing this will result in potential decline and thus divert our focus from the magnificent hilltop view to the declining slope ahead.
When reaching midlife, one’s achievements can be noted, and accomplishments can be impressive, but pride can give way to the internal discomfort that is now the skipper at the helm of distress at the assumed forthcoming limitation of one’s abilities and skills. The gloomy anticipated remaining lifespan resembles an hourglass when most of the sand has already flowed through the narrow neck and is resting motionless on the bottom.
The midlife peak can resemble the “Sad Clown Paradox”. Externally, a grin is painted on a face with bright colors due to previous accomplishments; nonetheless, internally, sadness stemming from an awareness of the restricted opportunities ahead drains the happiness and self-esteem from behind that camouflaging smile.
The alternative is found at two levels.
Level one is realizing that life is not a bell-shaped curve. The graph does not hit a pointy tip to describe midlife. Midlife is represented by a graph topped by a plateau. Midlife is a continuous period, the part of life that encloses the maximum potential for living life to its fullest. Midlife is the time to harvest the attainments generated during the previous decades and the fruits of earlier efforts. One’s physical strength has probably seen better days, and maybe the ability to engage in complex calculations and deep insights were sharper when one was younger. Also, health issues may demand additional attention. Still, elite performance kicks in at midlife because one’s years of crafted maturity and accumulated life experience overcomes the loss of outgrowing youth.
The second level is to develop the attitude that midlife will be an upward-leaning plateau that still provides elevating adventures and enriching experiences. Progress need not stop during one’s middle years. Fifty can be a speed limit, but surely shouldn’t be an age barrier.
Midlife offers opportunities that didn’t exist before. Midlife can be the best financial period of one’s life, a prime point of stability in many aspects, and feature days that can shine the brightest. Setting new goals and creating new dreams can transform midlife into the prime years they are theoretically designed to be. Unlike in the days of youth/ early adulthood, plans and goals are not highly influenced by potential future results. Midlife offers one the luxury of making plans for today and less worrying too much about the future price tag. In midlife, it’s acceptable to invest time in a subject that generates immediate enjoyment without accounting for how it will be beneficial in the long run.
Repeating the old saying “Age is only a number” will inevitably lead to despair and disappointment. Sooner or later, nature will demand that you outgrow youth; the event can be postponed, but not denied. Disillusionment will hit, and one should be prepared for it. Take note: age exacts a toll. It’s wise to mature and act your age by adopting a lifestyle that will boost your life experience. Invest in goals and dreams that will ignite your prime years into prime sensations.
