Midlife Midlife Crisis Quotes

You know that you have officially HIT at total midlife crisis when you get acne on your wrinkles. ~ Tanya Masse

Spiritual crises happen to us every day. Most of them are sufficiently low grade, devoid of enduring consequences, so we pay no attention and keep on rolling. A spiritual crisis occurs when our identity, our roles, our values, or our road map are substantially called into question, prove ineffective, or are overwhelmed by experience that cannot be contained by our understandings of self and world. ~ James Hollis

But what the measured prose of psychiatrists and the carefully calculated statistics of social scientists rarely capture is the experience of inner struggle. These "significant changes" do not occur automatically. In fact, they must often fight against our resistance. In this sense, midlife is a drama more worthy of a playwright than a scholar. We are characters in the play, caught at the opening of the second act, and we do not know what will happen next. ~ Mark Gerzon

You know you've officially hit a midlife crisis when you finally start feeling like you have your life together and your body starts falling apart! ~ Tanya Masse

MIDLIFE is that pivotal moment when you can FINALLY say that you basically have all your shit together and then your body starts falling apart! ~ Tanya Masse

In the second half of life, our old compasses no longer work. The magnetic fields alter. The new compass that we need cannot be held in our hand, only in our heart. We read it not with our mind alone, but with our soul.

Now we yearn for wholeness. We yearn to remember the parts of ourselves that we have forgotten, to nourish those that we have starved, to express those we have silenced, and to bring into the light those we have cast into the shadows. On this quest for wholeness, we must let go of cliches of adult life, both positive and negative . . . Using the best information available , each of us must find his own way.

To varying degrees, all of us are trying to break out of . . . the "life structure" that we have built during the first part of our lives. ~ Mark Gerzon

Mrs. Miniver suddenly understood why she was enjoying the forties so much better than she had enjoyed the thirties: it was the difference between August and October, between the heaviness of late summer and the sparkle of early autumn, between the ending of an old phase and the beginning of a fresh one. ~ Jan Struther

We watch our bodies and our brains slow down as younger bodies and brains zip past us, and we just accept it, not realizing there is a whole world offering to sharpen and improve us. We simply need to look for it. ~ Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Every idea in this book runs against our natural tendency to want to relax, take it easy, reward ourselves for decades of work and childrearing. Our default mode at midlife is entropy. The default is not destiny, and on this, the research is unequivocal: for every fork in the road, you are almost invariably better off making the harder choice. Harder in the moment, that is, but easier over the years, as your body and mind remain strong. By resisting entropy, but pushing through the inertia the beckons us to rest a little longer, to slow down just a notch, until your life has narrowed to a pinprick – by resisting those forces, you dramatically up the odds that your life will be rich to your final breath, deeply entwined with family and friends, engaged in intellectual pursuits, and infused with a purpose that extends beyond yourself. Yes, it's hard.

Yes, it's worth it. ~ Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Midlife is not the time to disenchant ourselves. It's a time to turn on all our magic in full force. ~ Marianne Williamson

Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you. ~ Richard Rohr

Just as a father feels it is all ending and his children are off to start their own families, a new role begins. In midlife, Dad may experience his second "fatherhood" as a grandparent. ~ Alvin Francis Poussaint

Stages of life are artifacts. Adolescence is a useful contrivance, midlife is a moving target, senior citizens are an interest group, and tweenhood is just plain made up. ~ Jill Lepore

On differing perspectives:

"At birth, we're yanked from a warm, safe place and thrust into a world we have no way of comprehending. Childhood is a constant routine of punishment and confusion. Hell we're depressed and misunderstood as teenagers, then frightened and unprepared as we become adults. In midlife, we watch as our youth slowly slips away; our dreams for greatness becoming pathetic memories. Old age brings loneliness, infirmity, and the constant fear of death."

"At birth, we're rescued from a dark, silent place and ushered into a world full of wonder. Childhood is a magical time, free from responsibility. We're curious and filled with energy as teenagers, and then challenged to reach our full potential as we become adults. In mid-life, we watch as our pretensions slowly slip away, our dreams for happiness finally becoming realized. Old age brings wisdom, wonderful memories, and a passionate love of life. ~ Rick Reynolds

In midlife, we're as dumb as we get. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Midlife is when you have to accept what you've created, knowing that the life you have is is the only one you'll live. And that can be terrifying, until you accept it, and then you are free of terror. ~ Dean Bakopoulos

Allowing the pain of personal growth to be a crucible of your spirit-the alchemical grail through which the metal of your former self turns into gold-is one of the highest callings of life. Pain can burn you up and destroy you, or burn you up and redeem you. It can deliver you to an entrenched despair, or deliver you to your higher self. At midlife we decide, consciously or unconsciously, the path of the victim or the path of the phoenix when it is rising up at last. ~ Marianne Williamson

Since the tragedy of Marina's death, her parents have heard from strangers around the globe surprised to find themselves writing to share the impact of "meeting" Marina through her words: Jewish teenagers visiting a series of concentration camps while on "The March of the Living" and finding specific comfort and renewed purpose in her writings; college peers living more mindfully; musicians writing songs inspired by her; older readers making midlife recalibrations and career changes, whether they are returning to school or shifting to a nonprofit or finishing that manuscript; people simply rediscovering a sense of hope. These new life paths all build from Marina's own sense that it's never too late to change, that we must take action, that we are indeed "in this together. ~ Marina Keegan

How come only curmudgeonly old men are considered endearing, discerning, and honorable? My own Shamanic journeying on this matter has shown me that at midlife women are invited beyond the nurturing Moon-Earth embrace into the vastness of the Milky Way, where we have light, darkness, stars, moons and meteorites at our creative, reflective, and destructive disposal. ~ Mary Trainor-Brigham

One reason why the cycle of archetypes recurs is that each youth generation tries to correct or compensate for what it perceives as the excesses of the midlife generation in power. For example, Boomers (a Prophet generation, whose strength is individualism, culture and values) raised Millennial children (a Hero generation, whose strength is in collective civic action). Archetypes do not create archetypes like themselves, they create opposing archetypes. Your generation isn't like the generation that shaped you, but it has much in common with the generation that shaped the generation that shaped you. ~ William Strauss

What are the things that make adults depressed? The master list is too comprehensive to quantify (plane crashes, unemployment, killer bees, impotence, Stringer Bell's murder, gambling addictions, crib death, the music of Bon Iver, et al.) But whenever people talk about their personal bouts of depression in the abstract, there are two obstructions I hear more than any other. The possibility that one's life is not important, and the mundane predictability of day-to-day existence. Talk to a depressed person (particularly one who's nearing midlife), and one (or both) of these problems will inevitably be described. Since the end of World War II, every generation of American children has been endlessly conditioned to believe that their lives are supposed to be great -- a meaningful life is not just possible, but required. Part of the reason forward-thinking media networks like Twitter succeed is because people want to believe that every immaterial thing they do is pertinent by default; it's interesting because it happened to them, which translates as interesting to all. At the same time, we concede that a compelling life is supposed to be spontaneous and unpredictable-- any artistic depiction of someone who does the same thing every day portrays that character as tragically imprisoned (January Jones on Mad Men, Ron Livingston in Office Space, the lyrics to "Eleanor Rigby," all novels set in affluent suburbs, pretty much every project Sam Mendes has ever conceived, etc.) If you know ~ Chuck Klosterman

Middle age is youth without levity, and age without decay. ~ Doris Day

The earliest portions to shrink are generally the frontal lobes, which govern judgment and planning, and the hippocampus, where memory is organized. As a consequence, memory and the ability to gather and weigh multiple ideas - to multitask - peaks in midlife and then gradually declines. ~ Atul Gawande

You know what's funny? I don't ever feel the need to escape. I have a strong marriage. I like my life. You hear about these guys having midlife crises - I don't see that happening to me. ~ Harry Connick, Jr.

At midlife, you're pregnant with the best self you can be - someone who has learned enough from both successes and failures to add up to a fine human being. ~ Marianne Williamson

At midlife, I think a woman has more in common with her teenage children than anybody else. We all are kind of uncertain. We realize for the first time in either our lives or decades that we're in charge now. ~ Jane Pauley

Our brains resist change, they rail against it, our amygdala will always want the safe bet. But are the obstacles truly insurmountable? Is it a brick wall? Or is it a sliding door, which, once you decide to approach it, begins to swish open? Because even though our brains prefer safety in the short run, in the long run they crave meaning, challenge, and novelty. ~ Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Gen Xers are in 'the prime of their lives' at a particularly dangerous and divisive moment,' Boomer marketing expert Faith Popcorn told me. 'They have been hit hard financially and dismissed culturally. They have tons of debt. They're squeezed on both sides by children and aging parents. The grim state of adulthood is hitting them hard. If they're exhausted and bewildered, they have every reason to feel that way. ~ Ada Calhoun

We don't understand life any better at forty than at twenty, but we know it and admit it ~ Jules Renard

How many of those who are insecure seek power over others as a compensation for inadequacy and wind up bringing consequences down upon their heads and those around them? How many hide out in their lives, resist the summons to show up, or live fugitive lives, jealous, projecting onto others, and then wonder why nothing ever really feels quite right. How many proffer compliance with the other, buying peace at the price of soul, and wind up with neither? ~ James Hollis

The struggle of midlife is fundamentally rooted in the idolatries of the heart. ~ Paul David Tripp

Midlife: when the Universe grabs your shoulders and tells you I'm not f-ing around, use the gifts you were given. ~ Brene Brown

It'll always bother you, wondering what you missed out on," Merrin said now. "That's how men are. I'm just being practical. I'm not waiting to get married to you so I can fight through your midlife affair with our babysitter. I'm not going to be the reason for your regrets. ~ Joe Hill

Greatness is never appreciated in youth, called pride in midlife, dismissed in old age, and reconsidered in death. Because we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst, we do all we can do destroy it. ~ J. Michael Straczynski

The new midlife is where you realize that even your failures make you more beautiful and are turned spiritually into success if you became a better person because of them. You became a more humble person. You became a more merciful and compassionate person. ~ Marianne Williamson

Observing others go through them, he used to admire midlife crises, the courage and shamelessness and existential daring of them, but after he'd watched his own wife, a respectable nursery school teacher, produce and star in a full-blown one of her own, he found the sufferers of such crises not only self-indulgent but greedy and demented, and he wished them all weird unnatural deaths with various contraptions easily found in garages. ~ Lorrie Moore

Nothing bad is going to happen to us. If we get fired, it's not failure; its a midlife vocational reassessment. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

It wasn't getting easier because it isn't supposed to get easier. Midlife was a bitch, and my educated guess was that the climb only got steeper from here. Carl Jung put it perfectly: "Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life," he wrote. "Worse still, we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will by evening have become a lie."
... I was writing a new program for the afternoon of life. The scales tipped away from suffering and toward openheartedness and love. [p. 182] ~ Dani Shapiro

I spent a good deal of time going back over my childhood, my midlife, to try to understand who I was. We're supposed to be complete and whole, and you can't be whole if you're trying to be perfect. Doing a life review helped me get over the disease to please. ~ Jane Fonda

A goddess is born and discontentment dies in this relatable tale of self-discovery. Christine Roberts is quickly approaching the "midlife" age bracket and experiencing all the typical rewards and regrets associated with it. Her adult life has followed a traditional path-marriage, career and starting a family. But when the pillars of her identity as a mother and wife begin to crumble, she decides to reinvent herself. This awakening exposes her to new temptations but also reveals new potential. Christine soon encounters an irresistible and married man from her past and together they discover a new realm of sensual pleasure. The thrill of their forbidden relationship becomes erotically addictive and their reckless behavior quickly leads to danger. ~ Brassie Kinson

The Gospels and the Epistles say next to nothing about emotional stability or midlife crises or a bad day at work. But they are practically overflowing with this one word: hope. ~ Ted Dekker

Because nobody knows you better than somebody who knew you way back then. ~ Claire Cook

In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves. ~ Saul Bellow

You see, as kids, my friends and I assumed we'd grow up to become like our heroes--that someday, like them, we'd do great things, make a difference in teh nonsensical world that belonged to adults. Now, watching Space PAtrol crew resist Agent X, the kid who dreamed of living heroically snaps out of a long, deep sleep. It's like awakening in the middle of the night--or in midlife-- remembering something you forgot to do. Something very important. ~ Jean-Noel Bassior

Perceptions are always profound, associations deceiving. No watermelon tastes red. Apropos: while waiting for a bus once, I saw open down the arm of a midfat, midlife, freckled woman, suitcase tugging at her hand like a small boy needing to pee, a deep blue crack as wide as any in a Roquefort. Split like paper tearing. She said nothing. Stood. Blue bubbled up in the opening like tar. One thing is certain: a cool flute blue tastes like deep well water drunk from a cup. ~ William H Gass

In sum," Midlife said, giving the room his best you-the-jury baritone, "Our defense will be...?" He looked to Matt for the answer/
"Blame the other guy," Matt said.
"Which other guy?"
"Yes."
"Huh?"
"We blame whoever we can," Matt said. "The CFO, the COO, the C Choose-Your-Favorite-Two-Letter-Combination, the accounting firm, the banks, the board, the lower-level employees. We claim some of them are crooks. We claim some of them made honest mistakes that steamrolled."
"Isn't that contradictory?" Midlife asked, folding his hands and lowering his eyebrows. "Claiming both malice and mistakes?" He stopped, looked up, smiled, nodded. Malice and mistakes. Midlife liked the way that sounded.
"We're looking to confuse," Matt said. "You blame enough people, nothing sticks. The jury end up knowing something went wrong but you don't know where to place the blame. We throw facts and figures at them. We bring up every possible mistake, every uncrossed t and dotted i. We act like discrepancy is a huge deal, even if it's not. We are skeptical of EVERYONE. ~ Harlan Coben

Loneliness and rootlessness are just symptoms of an insecurity that assails us all when hitting this midlife moment. The world appears intent on blanking you out. ~ Mariella Frostrup

We're still living with the old paradigm of age as an arch. That's the old metaphor: You're born, you peak at midlife and decline into decrepitude. ~ Jane Fonda

Much violence against women originates in emotional territory that they already command. By midlife and early old age, as the hormones of both genders change, women are in total, despotic control of their marriages. ~ Camille Paglia

We don't see people as they are. We see people as we are. ~ Anais Nin

None of these things define you as a person: Your education The size of your bank account Your job title Your failures Your successes And sadly, we let so many of these things rule our lives. Obsession with crossing off the checkboxes of society's life plan leads to little other than therapy, midlife crises, and depression. ~ Srinivas Rao

I suspect that twenty years down the road they'll be having midlife crises, feeling they were in a straitjacket. Failure to recognize that an education has to be seized rather than delivered to you is the harm that's really done. ~ Julie Lythcott-Haims

That's because both the job title and the job itself have never existed before. We used the term 'ground-breaking' to describe this position because that is exactly what it is." Leonard Scott leaned forward. "The current Administration is committed to solving the greatest problems of our time - climate change, sustainability, the deficit, the impending crisis stemming from shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare, healthcare, and the problems that our nation faces as a result of an aging population. We are implementing a plan that will address all of these issues and will revolutionize the way that this country looks at retirement. Rather than continuing on in a bankrupt, broken system that meets the needs of no one, we are going to introduce American seniors to a new way of life - a holistic community that will engage them like nothing ever has before. ~ Alexandra Swann

The nearer any disease approaches to a crisis, the nearer it is to a cure. Danger and deliverance make their advances together; and it is only in the last push that one or the other takes the lead. ~ Thomas Paine