[bdangubic]

lovely! my personal belief is that midlife crisis is an exponential function of how many times in your life you said “I’ll ____ later”

- would love to travel, “no time/money/… now, will do it later”

- learn how to play an instrument, no time/money/… now, will do it later”

- have kids/family, no time/money/… now, will do it later”

- become UFC champion, no time/money/… now, will do it later”

then midlife hits and you haven’t left Bismarck, ND all your life, you play no instrument, have no kids (both you and spouse are now too old) and of course UFC dreams are long gone…

[bruce511]

Interesting. So I think you're saying that the crisis happens for precisely the opposite reason- ie a lack of success in reaching any goal. And a realization that those goals are now unachievable.

I would agree that this certainly contributes to mental angst, depression and so on.

But I'm not sure it matches the things we usually associate with "mid life crisis" (ie the buying of toys like a Ferrari or Harley.)

[bdangubic]

Lack of success might be a stretch because I think there are plenty of people at McKinsey etc having an amazing career but working 90/100/… hours per week and never getting to enjoy life. Speaking from my personal experience of seeing various people go through midlife crisis it has been mostly “time passes while we do other things.” then when it hits one goes “I have never ____” and “I have never ____” and there is now very limited time left. you know, like “bucket list” is exactly what it is, list is loooong and you are 48.5