Refusing to Wallow in Mid-Life Crisis

Strike everything you’ve heard about life beginning at forty. Actually, I don't think I've ever heard that expression, but with hordes of boomers waxing nostalgic about mid-life, one can’t be too sure.

A new study has discovered that mid-life depression is not gender, geographic, or economic specific, but rather, universal. Throughout our early years, the world is our oyster, a wide open field of endless opportunities where dreams and desires are still within reach. Only after age forty do we slowly realize we won't ever become that world famous celebrity, Nobel Peace Prize winner, or doctor who cures cancer. This epiphany causes deep set depression from which some people never recover. According to researchers, forty-somethings wallow in mid-life depression not because of external forces like divorce or getting pink-slipped, but because people are intrinsically wired to recognize unfulfillment. Only by abandoning lifelong dreams can forty-somethings ever hope to achieve a semblance of happiness.

Wow. How depressing.

As a late forty-something, I refuse to believe any study dictating who I am now is who I’ll ever be and better make peace with that or die a depressing death. Don’t tell me my childhood aspirations are unattainable. If I didn’t believe people have the ability to reinvent themselves at any age, I wouldn’t be blogging. I’d be slogging away in a profession I hate having the life blood sucked out of me just to make a dollar. No thank you. And I can’t be the only one who thinks this way.

Using my i-Lighter bot to search and gather, I assembled a smattering of turnaround stories, proving once again it’s never too late to become who you want to be rather than who others say you are. I hope these success stories inspire accomplished readers to add a few of their own.

A mentally-ill mother, homeless and destitute, had lost her child to foster care and hit rock bottom. Then, a minister at a local soup kitchen took a shine to her. She liked horses. He helped her find a job in the Florida thoroughbred industry. She did a little bit of everything, grooming, manure removal, eventually learning enough to become a racing jockey. Today, 40-year old Sylvia Harris is proud of her winning record, but even happier to have a career working with her favorite animals.

Seven guys from Tulsa, Oklahoma. All former members of garage bands. All with big aspirations. All with families and bills to pay. For twenty-five years, they toiled away in various jobs until one day in 1995 when they be jammn’. Since then, The Fabulous Mid Life Crisis Band has gained a following, issued a recording, and scheduled appearances throughout most of 2008. Their music careers may not make them millionaires, but they seem to be enjoying the ride.

Conchy Bretos toiled away in a government job and ran an unsuccessful campaign for political office. At age fifty, she found her true calling as the head of a consulting group providing assited living services to low income seniors. Her successful second career garnered a $100,000.00 prize from a local foundation and noted attention from the U.S. Congress. She is currently lobbying for the passage of legislation between the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

No sense reinventing the wheel. Throughout this article, determined seniors start new careers and strengthen existing talents after middle age. Their encouraging stories are heart warming examples of age as a number, not an obstacle.

Oh, and that “life begins at forty” saying? Much more widespread than originally realized.