Midlife Mastery Journal

The World As You Never Saw It

When I was growing up, way back in the old days of black-and-white television (in the very early 1960's), the US Army produced a weekly half-hour program that they called The Big Picture, and it opened with a graphic depicting the globe. John Glenn had not yet taken his first manned orbital ride and we were still almost a decade away from the first moon landing. The subject of the amazing photograph from the Apollo 8 mission that we call "Earth Rise" (that shows the Earth rising above the lunar horizon) existed only in some sci-fi imaginations. I remember an earlier time when experimental jets reached the stratosphere and we got our first images of the curvature of the earth. What had been well-documented theory was, for the first time, directly humanly observable. During that scientifically critical age, all of humanity gained a whole new perspective on the earth.

For men, the midlife transition offers a critical opportunity to connect — for the first time — with the Big Picture. Think of all the dissociations that hit you during midlife: dissociation from your naive imaginings of what marriage and family life would be like; dissociation from the mad scramble to land that dream job in your perfect career; dissociation from imaginings of what accomplishments you were going to get to enjoy by this time. One by one, your assumptions and the expectations that relied on them have been stripped away. Whatever bright goals you had been striving for have, by thins time, been tarnished by the brutal forces of time and the realities of life. Even your highest achievements never turned out to meet your expectations. Perhaps, as you look at your personal world at midlife, you feel cheated and resentful. "Is that all there is?" you may well wonder.

Anger and Gratitude Don't Mix

I wanted to write an article that somehow relates the midlife transition with the Thanksgiving Holiday (as I'm writing this, it's the day before US Thanksgiving). The answer that came to me was surprisingly simple: all that would be necessary would be for me to point out that you can't be angry and grateful at the same time. I'll get to that matter a little later. In the meantime, I suddenly realized that, in all my studies of the how men behave before and during the midlife transition, the subject of 'gratitude' never came up. Ever. At all. Even in my presentations about the culturally-enforced poverty of men's emotions that suggests that negative emotions are expressed only as anger, while positive emotions are translated into sex (with the possible exception of 'pride' that seems  permitted as an expression on its own), the question of feeling grateful never even came up. How telling!

It may well be "more blessed to give than to receive," but, at least sociologically, it's also more powerful. It's been recognized for almost a century that gift-giving establishes a relationship of inequality between the giver and receiver, where the receiver becomes socially obligated ('much obliged', as they say) to the giver. Expressing thanks is not only a recognition of the giver and his or her generosity, it's also an acknowledgment of the inequality of the social bond that now binds them together, the receiver entering into a dependent relationship with the giver. I expect, because of the cultural requirements of his maintaining his masculinity, a man would find it more difficult to express genuine gratitude than a woman would. In fact, shouldn't we actually consider the feeling of needing to express gratitude a negative emotion, since by it the person acknowledges a submissive position?

The Masculine Mystique - Field of Lost Dreams

Each of us begins his or her life at the center of a perfect 3-pronged conspiracy. Born into an established environment, you immediately commence your cultural formation. After the initial explosion of neural and synaptic formations, for the first three years of your life, your environment plays a 'use-it-or-lose-it' game with your neural pathways: those that meet little external challenge tend simply to fade away, leaving those pathways most in demand to serve your life-long needs. In the game of your life, genetics determine the rules, and only the most essential players make the final cut.

The second element in the conspiracy that unwittingly determines your future was provided you by your family of origin. Only at midlife can you really appreciate how uncommon the 'common sense' approach that they took to raising you really had been. Every glance, every word and gesture, every fragment of information that they provided you came packaged within a set of cultural biases of which they had little or no conscious awareness. Through their eyes, you gained your own appreciation of the world into which you were born. Through their example, you learned how to interface with that world.

Finally, the last element that set your worldview in concrete arrived under the guise of your formal education. There, as you assimilated the knowledge that was made available to you, you also absorbed the presuppositions and the value systems in which this knowledge was embedded. Presented with an outlook that sold itself as 'objective facts', you learned to distrust your intuition, to discard socially discordant values, to accept the assumptions of the crowd over the evidence of your own perceptions and observations. You learned to replace your own hopes and dreams with more socially-acceptable goals. Together, these three influences (like the sheep in George Orwell's Animal Farm) taught you to bleat, "Objective good; subjective bad."

The Male Brain - Hardwired to Fail?

As if the emotional, social, cultural and hormonal changes that overtake a man during the midlife transition aren't severe enough, he also has to factor in a biologically-based uphill battle that he has to fight to maintain his place in the world. Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen from Cambridge University writes, "The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy; the male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems." Natural selection has favored the male for processes like figuring things out and building things. It has favored women for making and maintaining connections.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the world of commerce and industry has remained, up until now, male-dominated. After all, we men invented it. It should also come as no surprise that women have had a more difficult time breaking into the system because these male-dominated organizations can seem to women like a visit to a foreign country. For the most part, from the time human society became agrarian, men most often made the tools and taught women how to use them. This has remained true until the end of the Twentieth Century; since then, everything has started to change very rapidly.

No Little Pill Will Fix It

Over the past number of years, there has been an explosion of advertising around pharmaceuticals that are designed to alleviate problems with ED [erectile dysfunction] in men (for the drug companies and advertising agencies, the embarrassment of ED has apparently replaced the heartbreak of psoriasis). Of course, this condition can be a serious problem: according to the drug company sites, almost 50% of all men between the ages of 40 to 70 experience some form of ED. I fear that men (and their partners) who are very concerned with performance issues may be rushing off to find a quick-and-easy solution without fully appreciating the situation. ED is just one of the symptoms of andropause, and unless you address the broader spectrum of symptoms, the results are apt to be a temporary 'fix' at best, and very likely wholly unsatisfying.

Rather than focusing on just one symptom of andropause, Dr. Jed Diamond lists ten symptoms that need to be recognized and addressed. They are:

1.Reduced libido or sex drive
2.Reduced potency or ability to obtain and maintain an erection
3.Fatigue or loss of vitality
4.Irritability and grumpiness
5.Aches,pains,and stiffness
6.Depression that often manifests as anger or boredom
7.Night sweats or “hot flashes”
8.Dryness and thinning of the skin
9.Restlessness and a longing to break free
10.Weight gain,especially acquiring a potbelly.

Turning Obligation into Celebration

Remember Charles Dickens' opening lines to A Tale of Two Cities? "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." These words apply to more than just Paris before the French Revolution. Welcome to the holidays! If you're older than 5, these are the days that we genuinely love to hate. Depending on who you are, it's either a time to squeeze an enormous amount of work into your already over-full schedule and pouring out money that you can ill afford so that you can entertain people (some of whom get on your nerves unmercifully). Or, you find yourself depressingly alone with no one to care about or for. Has the Grinch got me this year? No, not really. Only, as a student of the midlife transition, I see holidays as an opportunity for an already difficult situation to become desperate.

One of the principal difficulties with the holidays every year derives from the fact that people go into them without sufficient reflection. Isn't this the same issue that lies at the heart of so much of the unpleasantness that surrounds the midlife transition? People (especially men) charge headlong into potentially stressful situations without forethought and without sufficient mental and emotional preparation. It's all about your expectations, when you come right down to it, isn't it? Somehow, you really want this year to be 'perfect'. You couldn't manage to squeeze out a hearty 'Bah! Humbug!' regardless of how much you want to shout it out. Because we as a culture have, for the most part, forgotten how to celebrate, we replace what should be celebrations with ritual obligations that, if not performed 'correctly' cause us shame. That's an emotion that people in midlife can ill afford!

Balancing Your Needs against Your Wants

Let's assume for the sake of argument that you're going to pass through a number of careers in your lifetime (because you are). Let's also assume that retirement isn't in the picture for you (because it's not). That means that, sooner or later, you're going to be asking yourself some difficult questions, chief among which is, "What do I want to do with the rest of my life?" For men, this may be a question that you haven't asked yourself in a very long time — if ever. For women, it may be something that you've been pondering over for some time. Men and women both will find themselves in a quandary with some fairly serious consequences depending on how they choose to resolve it.

First and foremost, you have the need to make a living to support yourself and your family. Over the past number of decades (since the Second World War), that list of 'needs' has grown beyond the basics of food, clothing and shelter. When you come down to it, your list of life's necessities need to be a significant upgrade from a tenement, a hovel, or a Brazilian slum. Walking or taking public transportation (although good for you and the environment) ought to be an option for you, rather than a requirement. Your employment choices are limited by your minimum definition of 'quality of life' for yourself and your family.

How Stuck Are You in Your Job?

Do you remember a time when your work was fun? Do you remember when you looked forward to going to wok? (If you don't remember these things, then you'd better start taking a closer look at the career you've chosen for yourself!) When you remember these good times, see if you can make a list (preferably written) of all the things that have changed since then. You might consider making two lists: one list of things that have changed for the worse and another list of things that haven't changed but should have (like a raise you didn't get or a promotion you were passed over for).

You may not be aware of it, but, if your list is quite extensive and if you're feeling restless, irritable and discontent with the current state of your career, this can prove to be very damaging not only to the future of your career, but also to your relationship with your spouse and your family, and even your health. Everyone's job description has changed over the past (relatively) few years. Downsizing — if it hasn't dumped you on the open market — has forced everyone with any responsibility at all to do more with less. Have you discovered that you've become your own support staff? Do you find yourself working later and later to try to catch up with an ever-increasing backlog? Are you and your laptop now joined at the hip, or do you find yourself handling business at all hours away from the office on your Blackberry or iPhone? If so, you have a lot of company!

What Will Your Next Career Look Like?

Thinking of retiring? If pundits are right (and it certainly looks that way from here), the concept of 'retirement' has been put to rest — permanently. Take a look at the recent history of employee benefits. Pensions were the first to go. They relied on a continuous growth model that has since proved to be unsustainable. They were replaced by IRA's and 401K's. How are yours doing these days? At the same time, employers woke up to the fact that, with mushrooming costs for medical care, insurance companies were continuing to hike the cost of corporate health insurance. To survive, even the most generous of employers had no choice but to cut benefits, increase co-pays, and reduce the percentage of insurance costs they would assume . . . very often down to 0. Many cut out corporate medical coverage entirely. Of course, there's always Social Security and Medicare to fall back on . . . for now. And, incidentally, with what kind of life would those benefits provide you?

If you want my recommendation on the subject: forget about retiring. Regardless of whether you're currently employed, facing a layoff, or already 'semi-retired', there's a very high probability that there's yet another career in your future. Do you enjoy and want to continue in the career you currently have? Again, that's a nice thought, but chances are that's not going to be a viable option forever. Look behind you. What do you see? There's a hoard of younger, better-educated, more tech-savvy, cheaper applicants chasing after your job. If you're in a highly-paid career, it's also highly probable that the demographic of all those who are hungering to displace you from your position has changed enormously. Look carefully now! What do you see? That's right: they're mainly women.

How Powerful Is Your Denial?

There's a qualitative difference between the male ego and the female ego. I've never heard of anyone demanding of any female that she prove that she's a 'real women.' It's just assumed. It's taken for granted. A woman is born a woman. That's exactly the opposite condition from the one that all males are born into. Norman Mailer once wrote, "Nobody was born a man; you earned manhood provided you were good enough, bold enough." Dr. Jed Diamond writes that among one tribe of native North Americans (the Fox), "manhood was seen as being 'the Big Impossible,' an exclusive status that only the nimble few could achieve." What, I wonder, about all those who couldn't achieve it?

I have no idea what happened to the (perceived) failed men from the Fox tribe, but I do know what happens in our Western world. As reported by the Ministry of Social Development in New Zealand:

"Males have a much higher rate of death by suicide than females, with 20.3 deaths per 100,000 males in 2003–2005, compared with 6.5 deaths per 100,000 females. The male suicide rate increased sharply in the late-1980s, declined after 1996–1998, and in 2003–2005 was the same as the 1985–1987 rate of 20.3 deaths per 100,000 males. In comparison, the female rate has been relatively stable over the last 20 years. Because of the small numbers involved, it is more reliable to consider the trend over several years."