Midlife Mastery Journal

Living at Statistical Ground Zero

"Life," they say "begins at 40." In so many ways, 'they' got it right for a change! Regardless of how we might be feeling about it inside, by age 40, the world is ready to take us seriously. We have achieved a degree of success, and everyone around us is prepared to take us seriously. By 40, we're firmly ensconced in 'adulthood' and we've had at least some opportunity to wield a power and authority that we only dreamed of when we were adolescents. I have to say 'regardless of how we might feel' because secretly every adult retains some of that sense of the 'little child in the big world' and the 'terrified teen' inside an often very competent adult exterior. If you haven't figured it out by now, let me assure you that it takes a long time to 'finally, really, truly grow up.'

Whether or not you're ready for it, midlife also marks your shift from the sidelines to mid-field in the game of life. If you were very fortunate in your early years, you may have been spared from having to deal with what I'm choosing to call the "ten terrible transitions." Few people are given the burden of having to endure all ten; however, most people have to endure most of them, and, the longer you live, the higher the statistical probability that it's going to be your turn to face each them. Of the ten terrible transitions, nine of them generally happen at midlife. The longer you've been able to avoid having to endure them, the closer they're coming to you — at least the ones that you're destined to have to endure. Let's look at them.

The Midlife Master's Rules of Engagement

I often talk about the three arenas where the drama of the midlife transition plays itself out: in the career or workplace, in the primary relationship (or, indeed all relationships), and in your own health and well-being. Today I'd like to discuss one aspect of that transition that has more impact all three of these arenas than perhaps any other: the aspect of communication and, even more specifically, disagreements. Although disagreements occur only in the first two arenas (we seldom, if ever, 'disagree' with ourselves), unresolved or poorly-resolved disagreements can have a very serious impact on our personal health and well-being. We'll do well to take a close look at what we can do as Midlife Masters to manage disagreements skillfully.

During my discussion last week with Jim Duzak, "The Attorney at Love" who was my guest on the Midlife Matters internet radio program, I learned that many people who still care for each other break up because they have given up on trying to communicate with each other. When communication breaks down, then relationships break down, and then both party's sense of personal well-being becomes compromised. I truly believe that many work and personal relationships (and egos) could be salvaged, if people only worked at perfecting the skills involved in resolving conflict and coming to consensus (meaning, "I can live with that decision"). As a coach, I've learned a great deal about how people communicate, and as a partner in a committed relationship (fourteen years last Friday), I've learned how hard it is to implement those lessons. What follows is the result of my personal knowledge and experience.

Distracted by Life

Wow! It's been a long time (almost a week) since I've been able to write about all things midlife! Sometimes, events conspire to take your attention off the duties of the day-to-day world and force you to focus on what's more pressing and immediate. That's one of the great stressors of life: midlife or adult life, and even child life. I've been distracted by a return to another parallel program I'm involved in, called The Frazzled Entrepreneur and, ironically, it's nudged me over the line into what I call 'frazzled focus' where important issues have become urgent. There are serious consequences for non-performance, and those consequences are imminent. Also, as often happens in these sorts of situations, once you're thrown into frazzled focus, the precipitating causes suddenly seem to evaporate, leaving you up in the air, half-finished, with an urgency that's passed. Is it best to leave things half-finished to go back to your routine, or does it serve you better to complete the project at hand, only to put it up on the shelf? For people like me (high Myers-Briggs 'P'), it's very dangerous to leave things half-done: I never seem to make the time to get back to them.

What does getting distracted from my daily routine have to do with the challenges of the midlife transition? Isn't it just a fact of life even during your (more-or-less) 'stable' periods? Yes; only at midlife the possibility of falling into frazzled focus becomes, not only a more likely occurrence, but one with more consequences as well. As you progress into the midlife transition, and your life as you experience it becomes increasingly less satisfying (for all the dozens of reasons I've been talking about in many of my articles), you experience the need to make changes — sometimes major changes — that can thrust you quickly and easily into frazzled focus, because these changes recommend themselves as an answer to the pain of the present moment. Pursue a promising extra-marital relationship. Consider telling your boss where to put your job. Give your pastimes an importance and urgency above and beyond everything else. Presto! You're in frazzled focus.

Are You a Midlife Entrepreneur?

Here's to a new beginning. You're off to a fresh start. You have new hope, new prospects, new horizons, a new vision. Your life is half over, you're dissatisfied with what you've accomplished, and here's your chance to get moving. No time like the present, you say. You look at what your boss does; you see so much wasted time; you know that you know more about your product than he does; you see what he's doing wrong, but you wouldn't dare tell him. There's got to be a better way to do all this, hasn't there? Here's a thought . . . why don't you organize your little corner of this business (that you know so well and have so much experience doing) and strike out on your own. There's got to be a lot of people out there who would pay you (a whole lot more than you're currently getting) to do what you do best for them. What's more, you'd get to keep all the profits, rather than have so many other people take advantage of the proceeds from your work. Besides, you're feeling trapped: trapped at work; trapped at home; so trapped that even your time isn't your own. Here's your chance!

Taking your show on the road — particularly at midlife — very often seems to be a really excellent choice. My own father did it in 1955 (at age 49); I did it, too (at age 38). There are a few folks who start their own businesses in college (or even in high school). Even more of us start businesses after 'retirement' or after being laid off. When you look around us, most (actually, almost all) of the entrepreneurs you see are in their 40's or later. Are you aware of all the forces that are dragging at you as you struggle with these 'What's next?' decisions? Being on the verge of taking that giant step into the entrepreneurial unknown can be a really scary place to be, and for good reason: you're about to walk that tightrope between business success and failure without a net. What's more, you're about to volunteer to be that net for other people: your spouse, your family, your customers, and anybody you may in the future hire. You're about to paint a target on your forehead, and invite the world to take a shot at it. Just hope that William Tell doesn't show up with his bow and arrow!

Repent! The End Is Near! (2)

Once more, the Grim Reaper is coming up the pathway to visit the old year, 2008. The economic forces that were put in motion over the last ten years have finally tipped the scales, particularly over the last six months. Huge corporations are dropping like flies or are begging to be propped up by the very people most hurt by their business decisions (us). Jobs that once-upon-a-time were taking flight overseas are now just evaporating as our artificially super-charged economy runs out of gas: an energy crisis of an entirely different sort than the one we were anticipating. When these things start to happen, who gets hurt the worst? Men in midlife, that's who. Merry Christmas; here's your furlough papers. Happy New Year; here's your pink slip. Happy Holidays; and, by the way, your hours are cut, your salary's reduced, your contract is being terminated. See you around!

What happens to you when you find yourself sitting at home scanning the 'Help Wanted' ads online? What's going on while you're putting the finishing touches on updating your resumé for the umpteenth time? What makes up that black cloud that seems to be swirling around you: that feeling that the world's a nasty place and it's got your number? If you really want to appreciate the reasons why facing the prospect or experiencing the fact of being unemployed can be so devastating (although 'appreciate' may not be the best word), you might want to take a look at what having a job means to you as a man at the height of your career or the pinnacle of your productive capacity. What exactly does your work or your career mean to you?

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.

A Sneak Peek at the Future

As the world financial situation continues to unravel before our eyes, the last vestiges of that sense of security that we've all been led to believe in has been exposed as the fairy tale that it's always been. We've always had plenty of evidence all around us that 'security' was an illusion presented for our consideration by those who thought (rightly) that they could win people's loyalty by promising them the impossible; but, like many aspects of the world of our understanding, it always seems easier to believe in the improbable than to have to deal with the unpalatable. One of the challenges that confronts us as we undergo the midlife transition derives from the pain we experience as we realize the need to give up many of our pet fantasies: the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause, and Financial Security.

There are two basic aphorisms that I believe everyone must learn by the time he or she finishes passing through the midlife transition: 1) the only constant is change, and 2) we see only what we want to see. Even after having hung around on this planet for a reasonably long period of time, I never cease to be amazed at the incredible capacity men and women have for self-delusion. Denial, particularly for men, and even more particularly at midlife, is less an aberration than it is a way of life. Yet, the powerful lessons of the first decade of the 21st Century are starting to wear away at our comfortable, if not very realistic, façade. I think the first such illusion to fade was the myth of 'retirement.' The career men and women of the present and future are going to have to embrace quite an attitude readjustment, compared with the attitudes of the quite recent past.

When Your Clock Strikes Midnight

What happens when your clock strikes twelve? There's no fairy godmother, no pumpkin coach or coachmen, no ball gown or glass slippers, no Prince Charming. Nothing left but some very hard work. Everybody's clock hits midnight once in a while. When it does, especially when you're in the midst of the midlife transition, it lands with quite a blow. Even when you've been doing everything right, even when you've done your best to create a reasonable risk assessment and done all the contingency planning in the world, when you come to the end of a road, you're going to need to stop and take a breath.

In this case, I don't mean the end of the road for your life . . . only one segment of it. If you're reading this, by this time in your life, you're already quite familiar with the feeling that comes when you suddenly come face to face with that 'Dead End' sign: that feeling of being kicked in the gut; that feeling of getting weak in the knees as the reality of your situation slowly sinks in; that experience of a shudder crawling up the back of your neck. The first thought is, "This can't be happening," then, "Maybe there's a way around this," then, "This is so unfair!" then, "What am I going to do?" and, finally, "OK . . . it is what it is." How quickly you get to acceptance is a sure measure of how far along the midlife transition you've come.