Hmmm. This L.A. Times headline immediately caught my eye.
Is this true for you?
I realize that many questions and issues concerning career, marriage and relationships in general crop up at midlife. It’s obviously that time in your life when you assess where you are and where you want to go. When you evaluate relationships and when circumstances arise that result in the pruning of such relationships, resulting sometimes in the end of some friendships and the beginning of new ones.
Maybe it’s all the havoc caused by confronting these issues that create the anxiety? I have been spending quite a lot of time with women in the age 42 to 45 category and I find that these situations I have posed above are universal. I look at my own mid-life journey and find that I have had to settle issues in all these areas over the last three to four years. Little by little, the road ahead has become clearer. Perhaps the challenges faced by 40somethings is what causes the unhappiness.
However, the article also says that “…midlife misery is not inevitable. In fact, his research shows that when such factors as income and marital status are included in the calculations, midlife is the happiest stage of life.” Having gone through quite a lot these last four years, I can tell you that the road is long and can pose many twists and turns but yes, happiness, or rather, contentment can be found.
Sometimes, you just really need to journey, often to the center of yourself, to find that everything you’ve ever needed has been there all along. God prunes us, to make us better. That is his way of disciplining us so that the second half of life becomes an even more productive and peaceful one. More than ever, if there is one piece of advice I give to other midlifers I meet, it is this — develop a deeper spiritual life and a closer relationship with Jesus Christ because only he can lead you in the right direction. Hand over the rest of your life to him and I can guarantee you that though the road ahead will still have it’s requisite hills and valleys, true joy and contentment is just a prayer away - whether you are at midlife or not.
