That mid-life shi(f)t

Why is this embarrassing?

Why did nobody tell me about this. My opening sentence has no question mark because it is rhetorical, as I do not expect an answer. Something drastic happens mid-life for many women (and men I imagine, I just haven’t spoken to enough of them), and it has come as a surprise to me.

I’m not speaking about the physical stuff here, I’m speaking about career. The activities you fill your days with. The things you do to make money. No one warned me that this existential crisis was coming, so maybe this post is my little way of speaking about it, so that other people are not as bewildered when it happens to them.

First up, I acknowledge that it’s a complete privilege to have the time/mental space/resources to even contemplate the meaning behind what you do to make money. Most do not have this luxury. Most have to sit with these feelings for the rest of their lives and not examine them. But for those who are at this particular life stage and reevaluating their careers, deeply analysing the value they are adding to the world, this time is helluva confusing.

Picture this: You’ve spent the past 20 years or so becoming reasonably proficient at one particular thing. Now you can do that thing quite easily, and people pay you for it (you may have even written a book about it). But, like some sort of petulant toddler refusing to take the easy way out, you now no longer want to only do that one thing you’ve become good at. At least not in the same way. Mmkay.

This conundrum is compounded further, however. Throw in some political instability - from all geographies and angles. Sprinkle in some truly terrible wars, seemingly endless suffering, various madmen at the helm. Oh, and don’t forget to glaze it all over with a new form of technology that is changing the face of work, irrevocably.

Now you find yourself standing with your hands on your hips, surveying the work landscape of the past smouldering below you, and you go, OK Universe, ENOUGH. I get the message. I agree that I don’t want to do exactly the same thing I’ve been doing.

So, do you have any ideas of what to do next? Well, us nerds among us will reach for wisdom from scholars and thinkers and writers who’ve been there before. One such resource is a book recommended by a close friend called Falling Upward, by Richard Rohr. Rohr is a monk, a global speaker and the author of over twenty books on spirituality, and therefore seems qualified to give at least a little bit of wisdom on this topic.

While I’m still only reading the forward (so do not consider this a comprehensive review), it is the basic premise of the book which caught me and made me go, YES, I need him to help me unravel this.

Rohr outlines a simple, yet striking principle: that our lives are split into two distinct halves. The first half is all about ego. Establishing our names, climbing ladders, striving, carving out a space for ourselves in this world. Rohr calls this creating the ‘container’ of our lives. We are shaping what we want our lives to look like, to us and to others, and how we want to appear to the world.

But then, once you have done this sufficiently, you have created this particular vase or container, you find that you are not satisfied with just gilding that vase, polishing it, or making it look pretty. Instead, you realise that you want some stuff to put in that vase. So you go out seeking the contents to actually fill that container with. Because that’s where the true value lies.

Mind. Blown.

This is probably because we are a society with a ‘first-half-of-life’ culture and we do not talk enough about the second half of life. Which is precisely why we must.

This is where I (and some of my peers) find themselves right now. And it can be embarrassing to admit it. Maybe because we think it makes us look flaky. Uncertain. Or a bit delusional. But is it truly foolish to want to fill our containers with beautiful, meaningful things? To opt out of staying the same, and saying, yes I want to grow? I am not the same person at 45 than I was at 25 and that’s ok. In fact, it’s wonderful.

We are not here for long, on this earth. Taking agency and making changes is not compulsory, but it is GOOD. And also a tad scary. I’m in the process of laying out some new goals for myself, and this comfort zone is going to be well and truly stepped out of.

Who’s with me?

P.S. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, the biggest compliment would be if you forwarded it to someone else you think would like to read it:)

Photo by Larisa Birta on Unsplash