MIDDLE AGE CRISIS: Man In Search Of Meaning

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

"A crisis is an opportunity for transformation, and growth and recovery are possible only when the old, used one is separated," abandoned "and it dies." Ursula Wirtz

“If a person starts from the point where knowledge does not help, he goes in the direction of meaning” Merab Mamardashvili

“In the middle of my life, the morning came when I realized that I CANNOT LIVE THIS anymore.

That to be unshakable - I hesitated, that the ability not to change the principles, spouse, vocation and expectations of others - not my dignity, but compulsion. And only I myself force myself to do this. That what was acquired by back-breaking labor has depreciated to a penny. And what is expensive now, I myself do not yet know. Ignorance is frightening, but I'm used to being literate and competent - that was my face - the face of a modern successful person. Now it writhes in a grimace of horror at not knowing what is happening.

And I started TRYING. Try very hard NOT TO NOTICE, NOT THINK, RESIST CHANGE, in the hope that everything will be as it was. Decent and noble, and no one will notice, and I myself will forget.

I go to work, kiss my wife, walk the dog, drink beer with friends … Or maybe to the gym, or maybe read smart books? Or maybe ….?

But AGAIN MORNING MORNING COMES … And again … And again …"

MIDDLE AGE CRISIS – this is a hell that most people have to go through, regardless of gender, material status and religion.

Main characteristics:

- psychological and physical fatigue;

- depression;

- feeling of inner emptiness;

- loss of the meaning of life;

- lack of any desires;

- a feeling of complete loneliness;

- exacerbation of psychosomatic diseases.

“… I have absolutely no desire to wake up, no desire to go to work, no desire to continue living.

An internal revolution is brewing - I still can’t live, but I haven’t learned how to do it in a new way. This is the period of the struggle of “life on the knurled” - stable-understandable-accessible and “life at the call of the heart” - chaotic-incomprehensible-unknown.

This is a period of emptiness. The period of the fall of all the former significant idols from the pedestals, the principles imposed by someone, the rules of the RIGHT life suggested by someone. Zeroing.

I am scared that I have lost everything that I had. I lost my world - understandable and accessible. I don’t understand what’s going on, and how I could get myself into it.

I was left alone with myself. The period of inner loneliness is a period of powerlessness, fear, helplessness. And if outwardly I hardly manage to preserve the face of a modern successful person, then the body is torn from pain and disease …"

“The cure for the fear of losing the whole world is to stop clinging to it. The way to get rid of loneliness is to fall into his arms. Here, as in homeopathy, trauma is healed by taking a certain dose of poison. " James Hollis

MIDDLE AGE CRISIS - this is a period of revision of all our own values and the foundations on which they stand. The period of searching and accepting one's own individual meaning of life.

“Values are an expression of existential freedom and the ability to choose, they guide and orient us in making a specific decision … Human development is accompanied by a constant process of choice, decision-making and, therefore, a constant focus on values. In doing so, we reject old values and at the same time develop new ones. Both processes are in a dialectical interchange and are inseparable from each other. " Ursula Wirtz

Philip Lersh identifies three categories of basic human values:

1. Life values - attraction, desire, pleasure, craving for activity, striving for experiences.
2. Self-worth values - the desire for self-preservation, the will to power, the desire to be recognized and ambition.
3. The values of meaning - enthusiasm for something, giving meaning to experiences and actions, willingness to contact others, erotic love, craving for creativity, interests, ideals and the search for the absolute, as well as a meaningful desire to give oneself to the service of the surrounding world.

With such a division of values, it is easier to understand the accents that a person places at different stages of his life. Young people imagine the meaning and quality of life differently than middle-aged and older people.

In his youth, a person adopts values from his parents, appropriates them indisputably and uncritically from the society in which he lives, trying to be like someone and necessary for someone. Material wealth, appearance, prestige and the ability to impress are the foundations on which the values of the modern young person are built - for example, career, family, money.

In the middle of life, a person becomes necessary to understand the meaning of his existence and justify it through his own, and not imposed values.

It is in the middle of life, at point "0", a person is faced with the inevitability of the finitude of being, with the desire to leave a trace and memory after himself, the desire to do and create not for something, but in the name of something.

It is the desire to know that life is not lived in vain that makes you enter Hell called the midlife crisis and come out of it renewed.

Although the values themselves may surprisingly remain the same - for example, the same family, career, money - the reasons for them will be different anyway.

To survive this difficult crisis period of your own life, you can turn to psychotherapists for help, or you can independently look for a justification for further existence.

In this case, I recommend taking a piece of paper and spending one of the evenings getting to know yourself.

Trying to look inside and deep into himself, touching his feelings and desires, the call of his heart, a person in a midlife crisis has the opportunity to see the world around him and himself differently than before. After all, as Antoine de Saint-Exupery said

Only with the heart does a person see well. The main thing is invisible to the eye

Exercise # 1:

“Draw a segment where the left point will be your birth - the beginning of your life, the right end point - the end of your life. Mark a point on this segment that will show where you feel your presence in this period of life. Think how long you have lived before and how much it seems to you, intuitively, you still have to live. What color will you paint over the left line segment? Which one is right? Come up with a name for each point on the line - left, middle and right. Describe with adjectives the resulting two segments that characterize the past and future periods of your life. What is your attitude to the past and what are your hopes for the future?"

Then focus on the midpoint. This is your "0" point. The place where you stand now.

Answer your questions:

What am I doing well now? What aspects of life, what kind of activity, what kind of relationship with the outside world suits me best as a person? How does the melody of my life sound? The motive of what song could I quietly hum in order to go to sleep peacefully in the evening, and rejoice in a new day in the morning?

What lifestyle would work best for me to feel elated?

What kind of life would I lead if I could create the world I want?

Exercise # 2: “Imagine that you have met a fairy who said that in six months your inner life and the world around you will be the way you want it to be. You can change anything: your feelings, life circumstances, etc. Do it now, in the next ten minutes."

Exercise number 3. “Imagine that your life is a novel and you are its author. Now its second edition is coming out, and you can still revise this book. What changes would you make to it that you would leave as it is?"

Continue answering questions:

What could fill your life with joy, inspiration and meaning?

What should be your feelings, actions and relationships with others to make you feel that life is filled with meaning?

What dream of yours hasn't come true? Where and when did you realize that it was not feasible?

What prevented you from leading a life filled with meaning until today?

What do you need to complete it without regretting it?

If your life were an experiment that allows you to learn something, what would be the lesson that you should learn?

What role did you play in your life before this period? What kind of masks have you ever worn?

In what moments in your life were you yourself? What helped you with this?

Exercise # 4: “Imagine yourself in 10 years. Describe yourself, what kind of person you have become, how you feel your body at that age, your state of mind. Do you regret the past 10 years or, on the contrary, are you proud that you have lived them so richly? What could you tell yourself to the present from the future, you can give yourself advice or recommendations, answer all your questions."

We know a lot about ourselves and our true desires ourselves, but we are afraid to admit this to ourselves., BECAUSE BY THIS RECOGNITION, WE PUT RESPONSIBILITY FOR OWN LIFE ON OUR SHOULDERS.

The midlife crisis puts a person before a choice - to accept the challenge and become the Author of his life, bearing the burden of responsibility for everything that happens to him on his shoulders, or to reject it, and in the future to hope for someone's tips and advice, to live according to someone established the rules of the RIGHT life, feeling dissatisfied and offended by the lack of understanding of others, constantly hoping that someone will one day create comfort and absolute happiness for him.

The duration of the midlife crisis directly depends on the choice made, which in any case will be made independently

“… I was still trying to control the situation - to understand logically and draw the right conclusions. I still hoped to get away with it. But it was during this period that I felt that I have a soul. I heard that she was asking for something. Quiet at first, and then louder and louder …

There was absolutely no strength left to resist, and one day something burst through, everything collapsed, as if I was turned 180 degrees and carried away.

It was carried in a stream of emotions, feelings, discoveries.

It took me to the search for why I live here, and why and who should I live here further. Powerlessness and helplessness no longer cause disgust, but are saturated with humility, and fear opens my ability to take risks and try to create my future life anew.

Now I understand that there are many questions to which I myself want to find answers for myself in order to write my own encyclopedia of life, to become the Author of my life.

Surprisingly, slowly getting used to this stream, I understand that to which bank I will not be nailed, on which path life will not push me - it will be MY bank, MY road, because I find the SENSE OF LIFE in this stream of SEARCHING FOR MY TRUTH …"

Psychologist Svetlana Ripka

Literature on the topic:

1. Ursula Wirtz, Jörg Zobeli "The Thirst for Meaning".
2. James Hollis "Pass in the middle of the road"