Midlife crisis

Midlife crisis?

The other day, I had the most interesting conversation about what is popularly known as "mid-life crisis" with a client.

This client at first struck me as a well balanced and highly intelligent individual, my impression hasn't changed, but after 3 months of 2 hour weekly appointments, I was intrigued by his reaction to the word, "mid-life crisis"

The conversation had started with the topic of major life changing events and slowly came to dwell on mid-life crisis. Though he refused to admit it, he seems to me to be struggling with being 40something.

When I asked what he understood by "mid-life crisis", he answered that its when people suddenly realize that it would be impossible to change their life. He did give some very interesting example.

Like: it would be totally impossible for a forty-something year old guy to turn out and become a popular basket ball player, a doctor or a millionaire if he hadn't achieved any of these before his 40th birthday.

And given that I'm an unrepentant optimist, I disagreed with him. Add to that the fact that I'm still in my 30s  and you'll understand why I absolutely refuse to accept that once I clock 40, my possibilities will begin to take a free fall. 

I am and will always be a strong believer and advocate of the fact that you can be anything you want to be, you can achieve anything you want to achieve regardless of age(amongst other things). Well, of course, if you weren't playing really mind-blowing basketball at 15, you can totally forget about becoming your national team's version of Karim Abdul Jabbar or Micheal Jordan at 20. I mean, that might be asking for too much.

Given that he's already in his 40s and obviously struggling with it, I didn't convince him.