The Real Work Of Midlife

What is the point of being middle aged? Like, what are we trying to achieve in midlife? The purpose of youth seems to be well defined. Learn. Experience things. Discover the world. Old age is also defined. Share wisdom. Mentor. Volunteer. Help hold communities together.

But what are we supposed to do with the middle of our lives? Especially since the middle can last so long. Some say you’re middle aged by your thirties. Most would consider those in their sixties to still be middle aged. Even if we round off the edges, it’s still a lot of life. Most of our adulthood. The bulk of our most productive years.

Sometimes, it feels like midlife is defined in terms of accumulation and obligation. Climb the career ladder. Acquire a home. Then try to get a bigger home. Fill it with a progression of ever larger TVs and appliances. Find someone to marry. Have kids. Send them to school. Then university. Buy and do. Spend and fulfil.

I’m oversimplifying. There is more to it. But it can still feel like that’s all there is. Especially when we go through crisis after crisis. Relationships break under the strain of it all. Friendships fray. Marriages break down. Finances falter. It can feel hard to find meaning in it all.

It can be easy to lose sight of the most important purpose of midlife.

In our quiet and reflective moments, we know we will get older. We might not care to dwell on the way old age and, eventually, death are coming for us. But we know it. Unfortunately, our sense of how to prepare for it feels limited to questions about money and resources, as if it’s hard to think about life in anything other than capitalist terms. But this isn’t an essay about savings and pensions and superannuation.

Instead, it’s about how the way we understand ourselves needs to evolve in midlife. To prepare for later life, we need to solidify what we learned in early adulthood.

Redefining Self

It’s not just that we will perform less well as we age. It’s that some of the things about ourselves that we’re proud of might become hinderances in our later years.

Maybe you’re proud of how much you can carry around in your head. You tell yourself you’re good at remembering names, internalising directions, recalling dates for appointments and commitments. But what will you do when your memory becomes slower and less reliable?

Or maybe you’re proud of how quickly and efficiently you can move through life. You can shower and get changed in no time. You can slice through airport security lines and supermarket checkout aisles faster than anyone else. You can smash through chores and checklists like a knife through soft cheese. Until, of course, you can’t.

When we’re a young adult, being the smartest person in the room, the one making the cutting and insightful comments, can be an asset. Once we’re old, that kind of behaviour can feel combative and heavy handed.

When we’re younger, being self-reliant and independent can feel like a strength. But as we age and life gets harder, being open to receiving help can make life lighter and better for ourselves and those around us.

The big challenge of midlife is that as the world encourages us to run fast, do much, achieve a lot and acquire everything, we need to slow down, reflect, understand our values. We need to make hard choices about where we invest our time and who we share it with.

“Much of the work of midlife is learning to tell the difference between people who are still dealing with their issues through you and those who are dealing with you as you really are.”
– Richard Rohr, American priest and writer

Most of all, we need to consider what it will mean to be older. To inhabit an older body. To what extent we will accept the narrowly defined roles our society stipulates for older people.

Freedom and Happiness

This needn’t be a negative experience. In fact, research suggests a lot of people become happier once they reach their mid-fifties. And this happiness can extend well into old age.

This happiness comes from having fewer priorities, a clearer sense of who we are, more choice over who spends time in our orbit, and less drama in our day-to-day existence.

There’s a lot of freedom in being honest with yourself over who you are and what your life consists of. This includes the freedom to love more deeply and openly. And the freedom to be more truthful.

“I’ve long thought of old age as a time when all that’s left is to tell the truth – trying to remember to tell it in love. It’s liberating to be at a point where I no longer need to posture or pretend because I no longer feel a need to prove anything to anyone.”
– Parker J. Palmer, American educator and activist

Being more open to the world and less inclined to hold onto grudges and prejudices helps us be less self-obsessed and better able to help others. We can be of greater service to those who will follow us in whatever work and craft we have devoted ourselves to furthering.

The achievement and acquisition model of midlife feels burdensome. There’s no freedom in comparison and competition.

But by making time to look calmly at ourselves and start to imagine our future honestly, a more satisfying picture emerges.

Eternal Activities

Over recent years I’ve looked for the eternal activities. What are the things I can imagine myself doing well into old age, and what would it look like to do those things when I’m 60, 70, 80 years old?

Writing feels like an obvious choice. But some time ago I realised the writing needed to become less frantic. More sustainable. And while writing might be compatible with getting older, the cadence of writing that is required to keep up with the internet, with the relentless churn of content creation, might not be. Writing every day is one thing. Trying to hit publish every day, or even every week, is not the way.

Skiing is a different challenge. I’m in the mountains of Japan again, and here it’s common to see people in their sixties and seventies skiing. Even older at times. These skiers might not be charging though the deepest snow or down the steepest slopes. But they’re out there having fun. Even if they ski shorter days. Take longer breaks. And spend more time warming up and looking after themselves.

Perhaps most of all I think about those going into old age mentoring, encouraging, and supporting younger people in their field. Generativity, the service of the generations that will take the work on once we’re gone, is a huge part of a happy and healthy old age.

The best first step in this is letting go of things. The competitiveness. The need for validation. The desire to the be the smartest person in the room. Or the urge towards self-reliance and independence.

By becoming lighter, softer, gentler and more open, we can be ready to face what will come, and help those around us along the way.