What Mid-Life Crisis?

What Mid-Life Crisis?

I am 54 and been married to the same woman for 32 years. My daughters are grown up and left home, one married. My life has lost its parental focus and family history suggests that I will live another 30 years before I pass over into oblivion or the after life.

So why aren't I experiencing a mid-life crisis, wearing a diminutive ponytail scraped together from a failing crop of grey flecked hair? Or driving a recently acquired shiny over-powered sports car unsuited to the slow crawl of my peak hour commutes and the ability of my middle aged bones to extract themselves from a tiny ground level cockpit?

Travelling at 20 miles per hour on the main east west artery through southern England's silicon valley is an ideal time to solve the problems of the world or to consider the meaning of life, at least the past five decades that have constituted my existence within this mortal coil. How come I wasn't getting a divorce and running off with a younger model only to die of a heart attack five years later whilst in flagrante delicto? A popular male fantasy perhaps, dying with the ultimate smile on your face, but with no place in my personal agenda.

Am I a saint without physical interests? Absolutely not. Do I ever think 'is this all there is from here on in'? Of course I do. So why am I continuing to live the daily round with no thoughts of rebellion or escape? The answer lies not within myself but in what I see around me as I drive along the freeways, check into hotels or use the men's room.

If there is one philosophy of life that I have followed consistently, and passed on to my children from an early age, is the seventy-year rule. Imagine that you have reached that venerable age when nature has not quite exercised its worst and most of your marbles, with luck, are still in place. Visualise your life and count how many times you say 'if only' or 'I should have' then see how you would feel in that imaginary future time. If you feel good then you have lived your life, the one you wanted to live full of achievements, every possibility explored and all opportunities exploited.

You may not have millions in the bank, bought an oversized house in a much sought after district, or become the CEO of a major international company. But you will be able to look back over your life with a smile and tell yourself that you had a worthwhile existence and made a difference to the world?

But what if the peak of your achievement was to be the guy with the spade who spent all his working life digging holes in the cold and rain while suits and ties passed by above you on their way to warm dry air conditioned offices? How would you feel if the apex of your career was to be the one who moved orange traffic cones into place on a busy freeway as commuters drove by on their way to the city in executive cars you could only dream of?

What would go through your mind as you swabbed down the rest rooms used by people who travelled all over the world on business or vacation? Staying in big fancy hotels and resorts whilst the best you would ever get is a new mop every twelve months and barely enough money to sustain a meagre existence in a small two-bedroom apartment?

My career has been good to me and I have travelled all over the world, most of it courtesy of my various employers. I have now reached the position of senior manager in a large international company with the prospect of climbing a few more rungs of the corporate ladder before I retire. Today I can apply the seventy-year rule and I can smile. Life has been good to me; I do not need the ponytail or a four-wheel macho substitute. But I do wonder how it would have been if my laptop had been a shovel or a wash cloth instead.



	I am 54 and been married to the same woman for 32 years. My daughters are grown up and left home, one married. My life has lost its parental focus and family history suggests that I will live another 30 years before I pass over into oblivion or the after life. So why aren't I experiencing a mid-life crisis, wearing a diminutive ponytail scraped together from a failing crop of grey flecked hair? Or driving a recently acquired shiny over-powered sports car unsuited to the slow crawl of my peak hour commutes and the ability of my middle aged bones to extract themselves from a tiny ground level cockpit? Travelling at 20 miles per hour on the main east west artery through southern England's silicon valley is an ideal time to solve the problems of the world or to consider the meaning of life, at least the past five decades that have constituted my existence within this mortal coil. How come I wasn't getting a divorce and running off with a younger model only to die of a heart attack five years later whilst in flagrante delicto? A popular male fantasy perhaps, dying with the ultimate smile on your face, but with no place in my personal agenda. Am I a saint without physical interests? Absolutely not. Do I ever think 'is this all there is from here on in'? Of course I do. So why am I continuing to live the daily round with no thoughts of rebellion or escape? The answer lies not within myself but in what I see around me as I drive along the freeways, check into hotels or use the men's room. If there is one philosophy of life that I have followed consistently, and passed on to my children from an early age, is the seventy-year rule. Imagine that you have reached that venerable age when nature has not quite exercised its worst and most of your marbles, with luck, are still in place. Visualise your life and count how many times you say 'if only' or 'I should have' then see how you would feel in that imaginary future time. If you feel good then you have lived your life, the one you wanted to live full of achievements, every possibility explored and all opportunities exploited. You may not have millions in the bank, bought an oversized house in a much sought after district, or become the CEO of a major international company. But you will be able to look back over your life with a smile and tell yourself that you had a worthwhile existence and made a difference to the world? But what if the peak of your achievement was to be the guy with the spade who spent all his working life digging holes in the cold and rain while suits and ties passed by above you on their way to warm dry air conditioned offices? How would you feel if the apex of your career was to be the one who moved orange traffic cones into place on a busy freeway as commuters drove by on their way to the city in executive cars you could only dream of? What would go through your mind as you swabbed down the rest rooms used by people who travelled all over the world on business or vacation? Staying in big fancy hotels and resorts whilst the best you would ever get is a new mop every twelve months and barely enough money to sustain a meagre existence in a small two-bedroom apartment? My career has been good to me and I have travelled all over the world, most of it courtesy of my various employers. I have now reached the position of senior manager in a large international company with the prospect of climbing a few more rungs of the corporate ladder before I retire. Today I can apply the seventy-year rule and I can smile. Life has been good to me; I do not need the ponytail or a four-wheel macho substitute. But I do wonder how it would have been if my laptop had been a shovel or a wash cloth instead.