Beware the Life Not Lived

Musings from a midlife malaise

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted through the air.

I’m pretty sure I’m in my midlife crisis.

I blurted it out to my wife during our Valentine’s Day breakfast date. It wasn’t the most romantic thing I could have said at that moment but it was the truth.

I’ve been plagued with feelings of disconnectedness and a belief deep inside me that I’m meant for more.

Patricia Katz gave an inspiring TEDx talk where she summed it up pretty well:

I had all kinds of reasons to be celebratory but there were a lot of days that were somewhat gray and dull and colorless. Not that black cloud of depression but more like an annoying fog rolling in that made it a little bit difficult to feel excited about the day. I didn't really have a word to describe it then but I certainly do now looking back and I would describe it as a midlife malaise.

I always wondered when my midlife crisis would hit. I imagined a day when I would buy a Porsche and cruise around town with the top-down and the wind blowing through my balding, grey-streaked hair.

And the crazy thing is that it just kinda snuck up on me.

I used to be a different person — carefree, hanging out with friends, going out drinking, not worried about tomorrow.

But before I knew it, I had a wife, teenaged boys, a mortgage, and a 401k.

How quickly time flies by!

So here I am at the ripe old age of 43 reflecting on where life has taken me and what else it has in store for me.

The ever shifting goal posts

In elementary and high school I did my best to get top grades so I could get accepted to a good university.

In college I studied hard with the hope of landing a high-paying job upon graduation. Too bad so sad for me but I wasn’t able to find something in my chosen field of electrical and computer engineering. So I took a temp job in the HR department of a shipping firm.

I eventually found full time work and met my wife the following year.

A couple years later we had our first son and soon after purchased our first home.

My life’s mission became providing safety and security for my growing family.

Disclaimer: I’m sensitive to the fact that I may very well have been part of the last generation to have been able to live the American dream.

The only debt I carry is my mortgage. And while I’d like to move into a larger home, I’m handcuffed by one of the lowest home mortgage rates in US history.

I also have a healthy nest egg that I could theoretically stop contributing to and still be set up for retirement.

I share this not to trigger anyone. It’s only to say that I’ve met the goals I set for myself and now I’m left wondering where I go from here.

Regrets of the Dying

You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there.

- George Burns

Bronnie Ware worked in palliative care for many years and wrote the best-selling book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing. She shares the 5 most common regrets her patients had as they faced their own mortality.

The top 2 were:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

As I think about where I want to take the next phase of my life, I can’t help but reflect on these regrets and wonder if there are pivots that I need to start making today.

No one “expected” or forced me to live the life I have today. I made the best choices I could at every stage of my life. And while I didn’t end up designing circuits for NVIDIA, I’ve put in the work to climb the corporate ladder in another profession.

But… if I were lying in my own deathbed, what else would I wish I had done with my life?

It certainly wouldn’t have been to clock in more hours at the office.

Or sock away even more money into the nest egg.

And maybe the answer isn’t a complete change in work. It might just be building new relationships or starting a new hobby.

Reframe how you think about midlife

For many a midlife crisis is prompted by the fear of opportunities missed and the realization that time is a finite and dwindling resource.

Perhaps a more useful strategy than living with regret is to instead reflect on how best you can spend the remainder of your time.

You get so caught up in running from one meeting or errand to another that you neglect (or run out of energy) to take a pulse on where your life is at today.

Ask yourself:

• If I “had the courage to live a life true to myself”, what would I do differently?

• What’s the one thing I would change to more align myself to who I truly am (or want to be)?

• On my deathbed, what aspect of my life would I want to be the most proud of?

You don’t have to have it all figured out. I certainly don’t claim to have done it myself.

But I would urge you to give it some thought.

You’ve heard it said before that none of us are promised tomorrow, but how many of us truly live that way?

How would you live your life differently if you only had 20 years left? 10 years? 6 months?

What’s stopping you?

I wish for you to have the courage to live a life true to yourself.

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