My first lazy post of all time: Mid-life crisis

In response to today’s Washington Post article, “Middle age shouldn’t be a drag. How a 'chrysalis' mind-set can help.” Subtitle: “Author and hospitality guru Chip Conley wants to replace the midlife crisis with a midlife renaissance.”

I’d recommend not listening to fake-happy fools who tell you how to goose your mind into feeling better. If you’re facing the ‘crisis’ of being 50 or 60, it’s likely to be an identity issue – a dormant depression issue – that has roots all the way back to childhood. Many people wake up in middle age and realize they ‘don’t know who they are’ or feel like imposters or lack a sense of meaning. It’s not because half their life is over or they’re spooked by a number. It’s mostly that by then, the big challenges of life (college, career, marriage, house, kids grown, savings) have been met or normalized, there is no next-big-thing to distract them, and they’ve plateaued. The past is opportunistic: Without distractions in its way, it will percolate into the brain and materialize its dormant depression. A good time for therapy.

The past is opportunistic. It will always catch you, despite your aluminum foil hat, your Cognitive Therapy, your halcyon here-and-now life. Face it or be replaced by it.