Midlife Mastery Journal

After the Fall: Recovering Your Initiative

What happens when you run headlong into one of life's 'ten terrible transitions'? You probably know what they are — I've written about them before: 1) Death of a loved one, 2) Making a life commitment, 3) Breaking a life commitment, 4) Changing careers, 5) Going into business, 6) Retirement, 7) Bankruptcy, 8) Serious illness or accident, 9) Spiritual awakening (including addiction recovery), and 10) Embracing sexual identity (as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered). All of them (even the 'good' ones) have the same effect on your experience of day-to-day living: it stops! Everything comes to a screeching halt until the transition is completed. You've fallen. So, what happens then?

Everyone goes through the same four sets of experiences, according to his or her temperament and the nature of the transition. I call them "the four 'R's": realization, reaction, reflection and result. At each experience, you encounter a different set of emotions, all of which have to be dealt with before you can get on with the life you've chosen for yourself. Let's look at each one.

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.

Your Cultural Obstacle to Growing Up

So you think you're all grown up, do you? You might want to think again! If you haven't navigated your way successfully through the midlife transition to full (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) maturity, then you're not 'all grown up' . . . yet. There's no shame in growing, mind you. As a matter of fact, that's what life is all about: becoming. The only time that someone can truthfully say that you've 'made it' is after you're dead. Then, there's no more becoming to be done. You'll be finished, in every sense of that term. If you're not 'all grown up' yet, don't fret. Wear it as a badge of honor that, as the saying goes, "God isn't finished with me yet."

Whether you're 15 or 50, you've got some growing to do. Yet most people who are reading these words are unaware that there exists a huge obstacle to your growth that you're just taking for granted. In fact, if you're like most people, you probably think that this major obstacle to growth belongs there: it seems like that's the way things are supposed to be. What could it be that's slowing or stopping your progress, and yet you just accept it as 'normal'? It's your culture. You can think of your culture as the lens through which you view yourself and the world. Or, as sociologist Geert Hofstede describes it, it's the mental 'operating system' that underlies the functioning of your reason and your judgment. Culture consists, in fact, of the unconscious assumptions that you make about how life in this world ought to function. The sad truth is that, for most people, culture stands in your way, however: so long as you don't confront your cultural assumptions, you're powerless to grow beyond them.

The Second Hallmark of Maturity

Have you completed the midlife transition from adulthood to maturity? It's really quite easy to judge: there are two major hallmarks or characteristics that set maturity apart from mere adulthood. We've already said quite a bit about he first hallmark, which involves replacing the 'borrowed' values, goals, aspirations, and expectations of adulthood (inherited from family, peers, teachers, religious and political leaders, the media and culture) with personally-significant core values that are generally independent from outside influences, opinions and judgments. Maturity replaces the phrase 'supposed to' with 'choose to.'

However, this is only the first hallmark of maturity. The second hallmark is almost a corollary of the first, although it doesn't always follow upon it. Once we make the decision to adopt a core value system that resonates with the person who we are (or discern that we are meant to be), we have the option to choose the goals toward which we are going to strive. The hallmark of a mature person who has successfully completed the midlife transition appears as a set of goals that are concerned more with giving back than getting. An adult is someone who has achieved a certain amount of independence and is pursuing goals that foster and promote that independence and personal well-being. The mature person is one whose energies are focused on forwarding the prosperity and well-being of his or her family, community, nation, culture, and humanity as a whole. Midlife transition moves a person from enlightened self-interest to making a lasting contribution to human progress. I don't think that we consider this seriously enough as a sign of the midlife transition.

When You Care Enough to Put It On The Line

Some people think that heroics are best left to the young. After all, haven't we heard — haven't we said — "I'm too old for that"? Yet, in fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. Youth may be the time for idealism, but maturity is the time when standing up for your values really means something. I remember when we were kids, we used to play "Bang, bang! You're dead!" And, after a short while, we'd come running over to our 'victim,' pat the 'hurt' place and say "Fix, fix! You're all better!" At midlife, we get to see all too clearly what "You're dead!" really means, and how seldom "You're all better!" really works. The deeper we pass through the midlife transition, the more conscious we become of the cost of standing up for what we believe in.

Am I saying that younger people are unaware of the cost of heroism? No. It's just that, on one hand, we have learned to become skeptical of the ROI for our commitment — we've lost faith in the 'quick fix' — and on the other hand, we come to realize that there are many false values that aren't at all worth fighting for. It takes a certain length of experience and a lot of missteps before we can discern what's worth standing up for from what's not with any clarity at all.

My reflections today are inspired by my guest this week on my internet radio program, Midlife Matters. He's Eric Proffitt, a singer and song-writer who's married and the father of five daughters. He's also just completed a 500-mile run in heavy chains from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC to the tomb of anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce in London, England to draw attention to and raise money to counteract worldwide child sex slavery. Eric has truly put it all on the line, not only for his own values, but for the sake of others who have no voice or power. And, I believe, therein lies the hallmark of mature values worth living and dieing for.

Confronting Change -- Opportunity or Opposition?

We here in the United States are witnessing a very strange — but at the same time very human — reaction to changes in the way our citizens pay for their health care. People are fighting fiercely (some would say irrationally so) for their point of view to win out. It's no secret which side of the debate I stand on: I'm all for change. What I'm observing, though, is that those who are fighting the most fiercely as those who are opposed to the change. It's a perfect example of systems theory at work, which says, "A system faced with change will resist it, even fiercely, in order to maintain the status quo even when the change is for the benefit of the organization." That's why I say that what we're experiencing in this country seems so strange: attempts to fix a system that's admittedly broken, unfair, and resulting in needless deaths are met with unbridled fury.

What does this have to do with the midlife transition? I think it offers us a powerful lesson. If we're going to be successful at navigating the many life-altering transitions that we have to face at midlife, we're going to have to be prepared to be fierce about it. As in all things worth doing, "Half measures avail us nothing." We are facing . . . and we're going to continue facing . . . serious changes as we continue to evolve from child through adolescent through adult and finally to maturity. Changes confront us . . . and will continue to confront us . . . in each of the three principle circles of influence: our families, our careers, and our own health and well-being. Many of these changes are . . . and will continue to be . . . radical and upsetting. In every case, we're forced to confront these changes fiercely, or allow them to overwhelm us. How our lives play themselves out — as success or as failure — will depend to a great extent on whether we choose to confront these changes as opportunities for growth or in opposition to our own stubborn wills. Either way, our battle for survival will be fierce (or none at all). How can we turn the ferocity of our determination into an evolutionary transformation that will result in our becoming stronger, more committed and more powerful people than ever before?

Do You Speak 'Heart'?

Ever since I was young, I've had a fascination for language. Over the course of the years, I've learned a little of a lot of them. I noticed that each one required not only learning a new set of vocabulary (you could get that in a phrase book or a dictionary) and a specific set of grammatical and syntactical rules (they sell books with that stuff in it); what you learn when you embrace a new language is a new way of thinking about the world. 'Translation' never means simply replacing one set of words and phrases with another. It also means trying to migrate an experience from one cultural context and create a space for it to live in another, foreign, context. There are always things that you can say in one language that can't be said in any other.

What a poverty of outlook we impose upon ourselves and our children when we turn against multilingualism (and, therefore, multiculturalism)! People who insist that theirs is the best (and, therefore, the only reasonable) perspective on the world condemn themselves to a narrowness of viewpoint that only reinforces their distrust of others as a cultural norm (that Geert Hofstede calls 'uncertainty avoidance'). Don't get me wrong: we are all most comfortable when we're in familiar surroundings and most uncomfortable when our surroundings (physical or cultural) seem unusual or strange. At midlife, it's common for everything to feel unusual and strange.

In fact, at midlife, we're being challenged to see life and our place in it from an entirely new perspective. The language of the adult — and particularly the language of the adult male ('sports' 'business' and 'the military') — is particularly ill-suited to grasp and communicate about things that really matter. There's another language that talks about these things (dreams, passions, values, integrity, compassion, commitment, and spirituality), the language that I'm calling 'Heart'. I could as easily call it 'Spirit'. Either way, it has little in common with our language of the every-day.

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.

'Twas the Night before Christmas

And all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. There's not a person in our Western culture alive today who wasn't brought up hearing or reading Clement Clark Moore's poem from 1823, "A Visit from Saint Nicholas." Regardless of your religious beliefs and traditions, the spirit of warmth and generosity of the season can't help but touch all but the most broken of hearts. I think it's important to note that absolutely none of us has escaped life's great transitions and traumas without some woundedness and brokenness. At some level, as we pass through the transition of the year, a part of us must connect with the images of abject poverty that appear so often in the traditional seasonal stories. Despite all that we have, despite all our personal successes, there remains a corner of our soul that, especially today, needs a hug.

When I was small, we had a cat named Boots: a sturdy black fellow with pure white paws, a white nose and a white star on his chest. He was fluffy, part angora, with a plume of a tail. One day we discovered that Boots had an infection in one of his eyes. It was weeping and rather a mess. In the bathroom, my mother held Boots gently and cleaned off the signs of infection with warm water and a soft cloth. Boots struggled, but only half-heartedly. He went after my mother's hands with his claws, but was careful not to scratch. He opened his mouth to bite, but didn't sink his teeth in. At the same time that he was in pain, he know that Mom was trying to help him; so he let her know that it hurt, but never hurt her back. In a very short time, the eye healed and Boots was as good as new, but the lesson made a big impression on me.

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.