Who’s Afraid of Middle Age ?

Unfortunately many people are -- and they reactwith panic at the thought that life is passingthem by, and that old age and death are fastapproaching. What can be done about the "mid-life crisis"? First of all, people should see theirmiddle years as a time of expansion and renewal.They could be the best years of your life...

[] Dictionaries are of little use in defining middleage. The Oxford merely calls it the period of lifebetween youth and old age, which leads to a trebleconundrum of three vague terms instead of one.The lexicographers may be forgiven their short-comings in this case, however, because middle ageis well-nigh indefinable. For more than anythingelse, it is that mysterious condition, a state ofmind.

The one sure thing about the term is that it isa misnomer. If you took the average life expectancyof modern Canadians and split it down the middle,a woman would be middle-aged at 371/2 and a manat 35. This hardly coincides with our commonunderstanding of what constitutes middle age;modern western people are not considered to bemiddle-aged until they are at least 40, and most40-year-olds would deny they reach the plateauof life that early. The state of middle age can bebetter understood if we abandon the chronologicalyardstick and look for more imaginative ways ofexplaining what it is.

"Middle age is when you’ve met so many peoplethat every new person you meet reminds you ofsomebody else," Ogden Nash wrote. It’s a timewhen policemen start looking young to you, andyou find yourself in the midst of a party wishingyou were home in bed. It’s when you can’t recall thename of a girl or boy you once loved madly, andwhen you meet young grown-ups you knew as

babies. It’s when you conclude, like GeorgeBernard Shaw, that youth is wasted on the young.

"Age will not be defied," wrote Francis Baconin his Regimen of Health. Certainly not- but ifBacon were 50 today, he would probably be a muchmore youthful physical specimen than he was inhis own time 450 years ago. Modern methods ofnutrition and preventative medicine, plus anawareness of techniques to foster fitness, havedramatically slowed down the aging process.People in North America today live, on average,a full decade longer than their counterparts at theturn of the century. And they retain the physicalattributes of youth much longer as well.

Thus in the past few decades middle age hasbecome less of a physical, and more of a psychologi-cal, phenomenon. To a large extent, it sets in whenyou don’t feel like being young any more. Thatday comes to all well-adjusted adults, and it shouldbe anything but unwelcome. "Though age fromfolly could not give me freedom, it does fromchildishness," says Shakespeare’s Cleopatra toAntony. If nothing else, middle age is a relieffrom the inevitable trials and errors of beingyoung.

"There is no such thing as a young man, for heis not a man until he is middle-aged," wroteAnthony Trollope. That, of course, is a statementwith which no male under the age of 40-odd wouldagree. But--whether they are being subcon-

sciously defensive or not -- the majority of middle-aged people polled in surveys state emphaticallythat they have no wish to be young again. A manquoted in Strip Jack Naked, a fine collection ofwritings on the aspects of middle age published byGentry Books, London, put it this way: ~’There isdifference between wanting to feel young and beyoung. Of course, it would be pleasant to maintainthe vigour and appearance of youth; but I wouldnot trade these things for the authority andautonomy I feel- no, nor for the ease of inter-personal relationships nor the self-confidence thatcomes from experience."

Reaching the mental state of middle age is anachievement which some people never enjoy; thereis something desperately forlorn about a person inhis forties or fifties who still has a juvenile mental-ity. On the other hand, there is a splendour to theflowering of maturity -- of knowing who and whatyou are, and where you stand. There is exhilara-tion in flexing the powers of judgment acquiredthrough years of living, and deep satisfaction inthe exercise of well-polished skills.

It should not be overlooked that most of the greatachievements in history, in philosophy, statecraft,science and the arts, have been by people from theages of 40 to 70. This makes it puzzling that middleage should so often be regarded as a period ofmental, as well as physical, decline. The bestavailable scientific evidence on the functioningof the human brain suggests that what middle-aged people lack in intellectual adaptability theymake up in knowledge and understanding. ABritish researcher recently investigated theproductivity of deceased artists, scientists andscholars in 16 different fields of endeavour. Themost productive ages were from 40 to 50 in almostall these groups. In only one field, chamber music,did the greatest productivity come earlier. Notuntil the age of 60 did the mathematicians includ-ed in the study hit their productive peak.

Yet it is understandable that the physicalslowing-down that takes place in middle ageshould be equated with a similar slowing-downin the mental processes. A heavy, ponderous man

or woman simply does not look as bright and sharpas a lean, agile youth. Middle-aged people them-selves might conclude that their minds are slippingalong with their waistlines. This is sometimesjustified: if they are out of shape, they tire moreeasily, and fatigue can retard the workings ofthe mind.

We have been aging all along,but in middle age we notice it

The physical changes themselves can be discon-certing. Grey hairs and wrinkles show up in themirror in the morning; clothes seem to growtight. The menopause, with all its attendantdiscomforts, serves notice on women that theywill never be the same again in that they mayno longer bear children. Men, too, undergo naturalphysiological changes which are often mistakenfor a diminution of sexual powers.

We have been aging all our lives, of course, butit is in middle age that we really start to noticeit. The inexorable march of age, coupled withthe wear and tear of living, makes us more suscep-tible to illness than we were before. We becomemore likely to spend time in the hospital for onereason or another. Our physicians tell us to curtailactivities that might be harmful to us -- smoking,drinking, working too hard, etc. For our own part,we come to feel, rather than think, that a littlemore self-discipline might not go amiss.

"Since we cannot promise our selves constantHealth, let us endeavour at such a Temper asmay be our best support in the Decay of it"-this from Sir Richard Steele more than 250 yearsago. Clearly we should become reconciled to a morevulnerable state of health in our middle years, andcompensate for it by cultivating peace of mind.But nowadays, most of us have the time, meansand knowledge to do something practical about it.Temperate habits and exercise not only help tosafeguard our health, but have the added advan-tage of making us feel good.

"If you compare a naked man of 25--the ageof peak physical perfection -- with a naked man of45, there need be very little external physical

difference," writes Dr. Hugh Pentney in StripJack Naked. "If our man of 45 has taken care ofhis body he will almost certainly be as wellequipped to cope with every normal physicalactivity- apart from supreme feats of athleticism--as a man of 25. And he can stay that way foryears, for it is not our bodies that are faulty butwe who make them so. We do this through acombination of strain and abuse which is frequent-ly the product of our own folly, both in the environ-ment of our work and in our private lives."

A heightened awareness of whatinevitably is at the end of it all

Nevertheless, middle age brings with it aheightened awareness of what inevitably is at theend of it all. There cannot be a person past 40 whohas not experienced the loss of a close relativeor friend. We all know we have to die sometime,but in our middle years we are conscious that that"sometime" might not be too distant. We findourselves at funerals, pondering the capriciousnessof the grim reaper. It could be anybody lying therein that coffin. It could be you.

The frequency of death and illness among one’scircle of acquaintances in middle age is a reminderof how quickly time passes. It has never beensatisfactorily explained why a year seems half-again as long at 20 as it does at 30, and twice aslong as at 40; which may be why it is impossibleto convey to a young person how soon he or shewill be middle-aged. It is this sense of time speed-ing up that sets middle-aged people brooding overtheir "wasted years"--about what might havebeen if only they had followed this or that courseof action. It is also a factor in the malaise whichLondon psychiatrist Elliot Jaques calls ~’the mid-life crisis", which stems basically from a feelingthat time is running out and life has passed you by.

~’Ask yourself if you are happy, and you will sooncease to be so," John Stuart Mill wrote in his

autobiography. People in mid-life cannot helpasking that question, and sure enough, unhappi-ness often follows in its train. It is doubtful ifany sane person is wholly satisfied with his or herperformance up to middle age. We have all donethings we wish we had done differently. In asociety that glorifies success (whatever thatmeans) the greatest danger in our middle-agedself-examination is disappointment. The balancedperson knows how to deal with it, even to laughat it. ’~The youth gets together his materials tobuild a bridge to the moon, or perchance, a palaceor temple on earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed of them,"Henry David Thoreau lightly wrote.

The perils of trying to get outof a rut should be recognized

But in some cases disappointment can lead todisaster as people struggle against their circum-stances. An American psychologist tells of a manwho suddenly took up motor cycling in his fortiesin an attempt to recapture his youth; he crashedand was killed. Most of the tragedies of mid-lifeare less spectacular: the nagging depression, thealcoholism, the broken marriages. What can bedone about them? Some of the prophets of themid-life crisis recommend a sharp change in life-style, and it sometimes works, as when a long-sequestered housewife takes a job or goes to schoolor university. But the perils of trying to "get outof your rut" should be recognized. Many attemptsto change one’s life result in more unhappinessthan ever, especially divorce, with the lonelinessand grief it can bring.

~’The mid-life crisis is not a single event thatcan be isolated from the rest of a person’s life. Itssymptoms generally occur slowly and may not benoticed until they are well-developed," Dr. HomerR. Figler writes in Across the Board, the magazineof the National Conference Board. These symptoms,he says, "may include insecurity, depression,indecision, feelings of impending disaster, feelingsof conflict between what a person knows he is andwhat he wants to be, nervousness, restlessness, afeeling of being ’trapped’, and an obsession withdeath, illness and old age."

Middle-aged people of both sexes are subject tothe feeling that their lives have ceased to berelevant. A mother no longer needed by herchildren may have difficulty adjusting to thechanged relationship; a father may miss hisdominant position as king of the castle when hischildren come of age.

At work, middle-aged people come to feel over-looked and unwanted as their younger associatesrise to more senior positions. They may react withhostility or timorousness. Sufferers from the mid-life crisis on the job become inconsistent, bitter,resentful, defensive, and faltering in leadership.They sometimes retreat into ~’playing it safe" onevery decision, which only makes their positionworse.

’~The problem of middle age is flatness," writesProfessor Michael Fogarty of the Centre forStudents in Social Policy in Great Britain. ~’ ... Itis the case of the worker who is stuck in the samerut for 20 years; the marriage which loses itsvitality out of sheer familiarity or boredom; or themiddle-aged couple, with their family grown upand more time and money on their hands than theyever knew before, who could break out into a wholenew range of interests, but all too commonly failto do so."

At the same time, as C. S. Lewis remarked in hisScrewtape Papers, the ~long, dull, monotonousyears of middle-aged prosperity and middle-agedadversity" make excellent compaigning groundsfor the devil. People who fear middle age areprone to bad judgment at a time of life when thevery reverse should be true. Their panic at theapproach of old age may propel them into extra-marital affairs which frequently end in heart-break. Or the seeming hopelessness of their livesmay make them turn to the bottle, which can cometo rule -- and ruin -- their lives.

Professor Fogarty points out that there is no"rite of passage" to mark the start of mid-life as

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there is with marriage, the birth of a first child,or retirement. So the first step in dealing with theproblems of middle age, he says, is to ~’get peopleto recognize it: to see the opportunities of themid-life turning point and to think constructivelyabout them."

This is doubtless the best way of looking atmiddle age: as a time of opportunity rather thanthe dead end for which it is too often mistaken.When a couple’s offspring leave home, for instance,it opens up both a new, potentially satisfyingparental relationship and a lot of free time whichcan be used for constructive purposes. If a personfeels in a rut at home or at work, there are newand different things to be learned and experienced.And a willingness to expand one’s horizons andcultivate new interests can do much to relieve theboredom that makes marriages stale.

The best things are those whichcan only be acquired with age

The opportunities for renewal and expansionfor people in their middle years have never beenbroader--opportunities to learn, take part infresh activities, see new places, meet new people.A person grown tired of his job these days canfind many other restorative interests outside of hiswork.

The best part of being middle-aged is, of course,the solid background that one can bring to freshexperiments or challenges to one’s abilities. Peoplein mid-life possess a degree of wisdom and discern-ment that can only be acquired with age.

What we make of middle age is up to us; it isthe time of our lives when we are most on ourown, and least reliant on others outside of ourfamilies. It is a road we must travel by ourselves,and it is not without its pitfalls, dead ends andfalse turnings. But if we find the way, it is thehigh road to fulfilment. It is nothing to be afraidof if we come to it prepared.

©THE ROYAL BANK OF CANADA 1979/PRINTED INCANADA