Midlife Crisis and ERE...

[vexed87]

Do you think those that discovered ERE lifestyle, either independently or via the blog/book etc have already had their midlife crisis, albeit earlier than the typical person?

By typical standards the midlife crisis is the sudden realisation that I haven't been living life the way I really want, or I haven't experienced enough of X or Y, and most people's answer is to buy a new car or road bike, or go travelling, or return to study and change career etc.

I wonder for those that RE'd, did you experience a midlife crisis after the event, or was the awakening around consumerism your last major turning point in life? I wonder, do the turning points ever really end? Or do most midlife crisis stem from realisations of our mortality and limited time left on Earth?

[OldPro]

I experienced my 'eureka moment' at age 35 vexed. One day I just got the thought (i've no idea what triggered it) that I did not want to work till 65, retire and play golf and drop dead on the golfcourse at age 67. That's when I sat down and figured out how to reitere early and did so after 7 years.

I don't think you can say that it was an 'early midlife crisis'. But then again, maybe you can say that. Personally, I think the term 'miflife crisis' is just a convenient catch-all phrase used to explain anything anyone can't think of any other explanation for. Nor do the 'experts' even agree that such a thing can be proven to even exist at all. I think someone can have a 'eureka moment' or 'epiphany' at any time in their life. If someone wants to call it a 'midlife crisis' rather than an epiphany, what's in a name?

I've also noticed that generally, 'mid-life crisis' is used as a derogatory and negative term. ie? 'Oh, he ran of with his 20 years younger secretary, he's having a mid-life crisis'.

[Tyler9000]

When explaining to coworkers why I decided to quit my job and just not work for a while, I would occasionally joke "Maybe I'm just going through a mid-life crisis. See ya when it's over!" That would always elicit a chuckle. It's a good way to diffuse any confused looks.

There will always be changes in mindset in life. How you label them is irrelevant. How you deal with them is most important. Personally, I see ERE as a kind of career anti-crisis. It's hard to feel regretful when you are also so empowered.

[steveo73]

I don't know. I'm 41 turning 42 so I think I fit perfectly into the midlife crisis age.

I also think a midlife crisis is more like a eureka moment or an epiphany that you want something different or more. I don't really see this within myself. I've never really been consumerist and I don't feel that I've wasted my life or followed the crowd. In stating that I never really realized that you could retire early (50 to me is early).

[Dragline]

It's too bad the term "mid-life crisis" has such negative connotations. Think of the implicit assumption behind it -- that you started down some path in life and now you are "stuck", such that any deviations are deemed abnormal and problematic. Foolish consistency, indeed!

We all ought to have such a "crisis" -- which might be more neutrally described as "a period of self-realization and reassessment" -- once or twice a decade. I think its the sometimes stupid things people do in reaction to it that give the whole idea a bad name. But if we experienced it more often, maybe we would make better adjustments and not the destructive ones you often read about.

[henrik]

I think I've been having a constant midlife crisis since I was about 15. I don't mind.

[jacob]

FWIW, there's also a quarter life crisis. My main crisis occurred at age 25 or so when my previous paradigm of eternal techno-optimistic progress (a'la MMM) was rudely shifted to my current one. That was the progenitor of ERE. It wasn't that I hadn't been living my life the way I really wanted. On the contrary, I was quite happy with that. Rather, it was learning that there was much more to the world than what's loosely promoted by Startrek, gadget magazines, and the last 200 years of western civilization---especially science and technology---wasn't representative of other times and even places; somewhat an awakening from consumerism ... but there was a little^H^H^Hmuch more to it than that... possibly more importantly a shift from a paradigm of exponential progression to a cyclical paradigm. Basically I was compelled to rewrite my entire worldview. I suppose ERE is the formalized version of that world view.

Any change since then has just been polishing the rough edges.

[TheWanderingScholar]

Errrmm....considering I joined at 15 I don't if Quarter-Life Crisis, let alone Mid-Life Crisis, actually represents me.

I guess for me, I was always the son who did consume or want much (my brother being the one who wanted "stuff") which is shown in my willingness during the early parts of my life to become a Franciscan friar when I was religious. So ERE was a natural fit and saw it as interesting.

....And I am rambling and not answering the question .

Basically short answer, when I was younger I was horrified at the thought of death and the idea of retiring at age 67, when most of my family died before in their 50s sounds mentally insane.

[Noided]

Errrmm....considering I joined at 15 I don't if Quarter-Life Crisis, let alone Mid-Life Crisis, actually represents me.

I guess for me, I was always the son who did consume or want much (my brother being the one who wanted "stuff") which is shown in my willingness during the early parts of my life to become a Franciscan friar when I was religious. So ERE was a natural fit and saw it as interesting.

It is funny that you say that. Since I remember I was always very conservative with spending and consuming in general. Ok I would have my shopping impulses, but they were very diminute compared to other people. When I started reading about ERE it just came so natural and right to me. But when I try to explain it to my girlfriend for example, it doesn't go so easy with her.

I remember when I started working I wanted to save as much as possible to have control over my destiny, but I did not knew about FI or ER.

[McTrex]

I think I've been having a constant midlife crisis since I was about 15. I don't mind.

You took the words right out of my mouth!

[almostthere]

ERE is certainly a part of my mid-life crisis. I don't think I realized just how much until about a year into non-working status. There is a lot on interesting research on life satisfaction dip that occurs between 41 and 45 or so. For example,

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... is/382235/

I must say, the autonomy of ERE, that is choosing my own activities versus having them chosen for me at work, has helped me deal with the mid life drop in satisfaction.

[steveo73]

Almostthere - I enjoyed that article although I didn't read it all. I've noticed that I have been feeling those feelings of "is this all there is" ? In stating that I feel that its cool if this is all there is. I sort of feel that work really isn't that important and life is fairly meaningless apart from what I get out of each day.

So I'm happy posting some shit on the Internet, playing chess, reading books and exercising. I just want to more of this stuff rather than work. My work though has been intense lately but its also been enjoyable. I have a team working for me that are freaken great and a great management team. The thing is at the end of the day I'd rather not turn up to my job.

[almostthere]

@steveo73, Yep, ditto, I could have written that while I was working at age 41. I think the thing to note is that you are not unique - in a good way. This dip in life satisfaction is also happening to many of your friends, colleagues, and acquaintances that are approximately your age. If you look closely, you will see many signs of it. For me it was liberating to realize, 'it's not just me, this is natural'.

As to your comment on work, that's the thing about work that it took me a year and a half with outwork to realize, work is not all bad and it certainly has satisfying parts. One of the biggest challenges post work, for me, is recreating the enjoyable aspects of work without a job.

[steveo73]

^^^

Some good points here. I like my job in a lot of ways. I work with some great people. We are under a tonne of pressure but I have such a great team that getting wins feels really good.

I'd just rather have more freedom to do what I want and my job is the most free job that I can imagine. If I don't turn up for some reason there is really no problem. So long as I do the work its cool.

[jacob]

I wonder whether part of it is the hormonal keel-over. Women reach menopause. Men reach andropause. This physiological change might spur some mental changes/reframing as well in order to align the mental perspective to the new sense of mortality/decline?

To wit,

Age 20ish --- realization that one is done growing up.
Age 40ish --- realization that the body is no longer providing a free boost.
Age ??ish --- ???

IOW, is a midlife crisis just a concurrent rationalization based on the possibly oblivious fact that various ailments are beginning to pop up?

[JamesR]

It might be a little less age-specific, and more phase-specific. For example, for the current generation a lot of twenty-year olds in the western world don't really hit adulthood until at least 27, but that varies a lot depending on maturity & life.

[jacob]

The physiological timeline doesn't respond to economic conditions though. In contrast, the number age has changed a lot. A century ago, you would captain a ship across the Atlantic at age 19 or be a full professor at age 24 or be a general at age 28. Now these ages have changed to 40+ or even older.

[Noedig]

@Almostthere Good article.

Looking back I was lost and without purpose or means.

Around age 48 I re-evaluated my life, looking around behind and ahead and thinking, more or less, "This is all suboptimal, and I am not enjoying it!"

Made some changes, decided some goals. ERE has helped, as it has values that support what I'm doing and lends it purpose.

[GandK]

IOW, is a midlife crisis just a concurrent rationalization based on the possibly oblivious fact that various ailments are beginning to pop up?

Maybe it's more the point at which you realize that many of the traits society most prizes - and which you used to possess in greater abundance and likely did not fully appreciate or capitalize upon (youth, beauty, energy, possibility) - you are losing. And what does that "loss" mean?

I cried when I turned 40. It sounds silly now, but I did. "I'm halfway to dead, my life doesn't look like I wanted it to, gray hair and wrinkles are appearing," etc. Panic occurred.

To my intense astonishment, however, my 40s have been much happier than my supposedly-ideal 20s. All the issues that plagued me most during my 20s are gone. No more who am I, what do I want, where am I headed, who will I spend my life with, what is the meaning of all this, etc. In fact, I'm so much happier, and so comfortable in my own skin, that I find myself wondering why we glorify that part of our lives at all. I guess it's the sense of possibility. That's when most of us pick a train and get on it. And maybe that's what a midlife crisis is... the sense that you picked the wrong train.

[J_]

At 41 (1988) I quit job and started as entrepreneur. At 46 I decided to get FI which I reached at 51. Midlife and ER came more or less together.
(Since then me and DW do (small) RE projects. Withdrawal rate diminished and is negative now)

Since 2000 I am focused more on health (food, motion, rest), no ailments, experience of freedom.
Experimenting with a little bit more open mariage now, is difficult.
Perhaps a 3/4 life crisis? I am 67 now.