A plan for a mid life Crisis. What was yours?

[Rupert]

OK, I am 47, happily married, still reasonably fit, and get scared easily  

I don't want a mistress, I love the woman I married. But, there is a great opportunity looming to do something exciting. 


THE MID LIFE CRISIS!!!! 

I already have a motor bike, and  Sues car is a softop.  I need for my own sanity to do something to make the most of this opportunity, but I am undecided as to what. 

If I went walkabout, it would be with the family, as I would want to share it with them both.

I am thinking of a series of cross continent bike trips.  I cannot take everyone without a side car, Sue wont come without Lucy, and wont let Lucy come with me (She is only 10 )

Start with cross Europe, then America (on A harley), then India on an Enfield, then South America, and so on. 

What was yours?
What is yours?
Or What do you think yours will be?

[eurotrash]

I had mine a little earlier.

I packed in my job, sold my house went to Seattle and learned to fly helicopters.
I then went to a Kibbutz for 2 years and worked as a barman
I then backpacked around South America for a year with the Israeli I hooked up with on the Kibbutz

I then went to NY and started working again without any money and no house.

[Drastic]

Go help some people out in a third world country for a week or two, or more.

You'll never have a crisis again.

If you just want something new, exciting and time consuming, get a boat. Or a plane.

[Rupert]

eurotrash...  blimey, that is some crisis    

I would miss my family going away for that long.

Drastic.  Good idea on the helping out... That has given me good food for thought.  There are enough disasters out there in the world too.

cough:  I have a boat too.  Friday night is waterski night this week.  We try to do that as family and friends on a Monday through the Summer. Wednesday is sailing  (racing) 

That is part of my problem.  I am a lucky chap.   

[Gurtie]

you can now do a lot of very cool things for charity - climbing mountains, trekking with orangutans, walking the great wall of china - all stuff which would be awesome to do.

Mine will ideally involve chucking in the day job and buying a smallholding. Unfortunately that means I can't really have my mid-life crisis until I can afford to retire so it'll have to hold off for a fair while yet.

[Rupert]

you can now do a lot of very cool things for charity - climbing mountains, trekking with orangutans, walking the great wall of china - all stuff which would be awesome to do.

Funny that, I always have to separate the two.

If I do something for fun, then it is for me. Asking others to contribute always seems mean. When I do something that asks me to get sponsorship, then I donate.

[grnidone]

What's a Smallholding?

And, I agree with Drastic.  See a third world country and you'll realize how stupid it is to be unhappy with all we have.

I remember seeing all the people in Peru and how little they had.  Living, literally in shaks where you could see the outside through the cracks.  But every Saturday night, the people of hte town would gather together in the town square and dance and laugh and hang out.  I've never seen people who were so poor...yet so happy.

[Rupert]

Unhappy?  Naw I' m the village idiot.  Happiest man in the village 

more looking to make the most of an opportunity.

Sue has given me a pass out to do... something....

[Gurtie]

traditionally you should cultivate a combover and buy yourself a porsche. Perhaps throw in an inappropriately loud jacket?

Grnidone - smallholding = basically a play farm. 20 acres or so, some wood to coppice, few sheep, bees, chickens and ducks, wouldn't mind a few cottages as holiday lets (but only for 3 months a year, don't want to have to do it to survive) and serve cream teas in the orchard to holiday makers willing to pay stupid money in the farm shop afterwards.

[dogboy]

Short Answer:


Long Answer:
It all depends on your 'crisis'.  Since I don't have a great sense of moderation, I've had more than one... although I apparently like to space them about 5 years apart.

If it is because you are just plain miserable, like I was after my dogs got sick and died and we all went down in flames, I threw myself back into full time non-profit work for a year plus.  Overall, I would guess I've donated almost 3 full years of my time to causes that I felt warranted the attention, mainly environmental organizations and finding missing children.  (I still do random one off food drives and stuff like that, but thats kinda off topic.)  Personally I find when I'm miserable it is because I can't seem to change the situation, and I'm too self absorbed.  In cases like this, I finally stop beating myself up and turn that energy towards helping other people.  In that way, it is very selfishly motivated but the outcome benefits others, and so even if I'm doing the right thing for the wrong reason, well, at least I'm doing the right thing. Overall, I also think it gives you a better perspective on things.

If its because you never achieved what you wanted in life, and you realize you probably never will, I guess time and drinking will deaden that pain until you die, unless you can recalibrate yourself with reality.  I never had this type of crisis but I would guess, taking time away to do other things probably wont work, unless you stumble upon some life changing event in the process.... which might happen.  Unfortunately, it isn't guaranteed and if you got yourself into this jam in the first place, I might be a little suspect as to your judgment with this new goal too.

If its because you did achieve what you wanted in life, but once you achieved it you realized it was a hollow victory (like you spent your whole life amassing wealth and shallow women) then you will need to define 'success' along a different dimension.  I never had this crisis either, since I've tried to fight it my whole life, but I do have hope for someone solving this because it means at least they have what it takes to reach a goal, so they just need to find a more worthy one, which will actually be much easier now that their primary goal is not clouding their view.

If its because you did achieve what you wanted in life, and it was worth the effort, but now you simply don't have a plan for the day after... well, thats the crisis I've been battling myself.  For me, the last one was coming across that finish line in 3rd in Siberia, the fans screaming, the old style flashbulbs popping, standing on stage as they lit fireworks over head and raised the American flag behind me.  It was a 10 year goal in the making...



And then it was all over.  Now what?  How the fuck do I top that?

It's been a real issue for me.  And I haven't really solved it.  But in the meantime I've dealt with it by moving as far South as I could, and away from everything I was comfortable with.  I got rid of every living thing, including plants, that are dependent upon me.  I started training jiu-jitsu.  And now hopefully my escape pod is coming in the form of my new app that I'll be releasing next month.  And I'm praying it will go over huge so I can checkout, and go travel the rest of the world... hence the no pets and the fight training.  Will this solve the crisis?  I have no fucking idea. But it sure as hell is better than watching TV and looking some photos and some ribbons on the wall.  Right now is just about getting enough money to retire in the next year, or at least enough to spend a few years seeing another country.

[Rumbas]

Not getting there yet, but a nice round of golf in a sunny spot, a martini and some southern bbq on a daily basis and I could be happy.

[agerhart]

Right...is it really about not being happy with what you have, or trying to get things done that you want to do before you die? 

[ergophobe]

>>how stupid it is to be unhappy with all we have

Happiness and unhappiness is so much more complicated than that. Thinking back on my blackest depressions in my early 20s, there is no unhappiness like the one that comes when you realize that you have most things you want and yet you are still deeply unhappy. I would never take someone's unhappiness from them, if you know what I mean.

Anyway... I think something fun would be to take an amount of money that made me feel a bit uncomfortable, go to a city and just spend a day handing out 20s or 100s to people who looked unhappy. I've done it before as a one-off and it's a kick, but to do it many times in a day would probably be really memorable.  Not sure if it really fits the MA crisis model though. See dogboy's picture for that ;-)

[ergophobe]

Actually, I'm so full of sh## (newsflash).... just took me a second to realize it.

I suppose I'm having a midlife crisis right now, it's just that it doesn't feel like a crisis at all. More like an adventure.

Same boat... 47, happily married, reasonably fit. I always dreamed of moving back to the mountains, falling madly in love with a woman who shared my passions (rock climbing, skiing, hiking, books) and who loved me more than I knew how to love myself, having modest but stable standard of living, and making a living from books as a scholar. And that's pretty much where I am. Great wife. Live in Yosemite. We've climbed the steep sides of El Capitan and Half Dome together. I've made my living for the last 20 years mostly as a historian turning out obscure scholarly works.

A few years ago I took the winter off and taught skiing, mostly to kids. It was a blast, but I went back to scholarship. But lately I've gotten really tired with how solitary my work life is and how "indoor" it is and decided I wanted a change.

So.... starting May 9, I'm becoming a US National Park Ranger, Interpretation (meaning naturalist guide), GS 05, $38,000 per year.  I get to wear govt issue wool/poly pants in the summer and a silly hat and introduce tourists to the wonders of Yosemite. I swore after quitting at Domino's Pizza in 1985 I would never take another job that required a uniform or dress code, but I'm really looking forward to this. In fact, I think it's the first time in my life I've been excited about a job (when I started as a historian I was excited about the work, but it wasn't exactly a "job" back then since I was a grad student).

My wife had been trying to get me to apply for this for years because she said "You're always going around doing essentially the same thing for free on your time off. You might as well get paid for it," but before our rental business started earning money, I didn't feel I could afford it. Now we have some rental income, so when my dear friend, teacher and mentor died in December, my wife told a mutual friend to call me and ask me to apply for a job in his department. He did. I did. Went up against 300 candidates and to my great surprise, got the job. The beginning of a great adventure.

[littleman]

I think that if you are planning for your mid-life crisis you aren't really having one.