There’s a familiar old saying that says, “Better the devil that you know than the devil that you don’t know.” Whether you are aware of it or not, midlife provides you with a tremendous opportunity to get to know the devil so much better. Leaving aside, for the time being, the question of whether or not the negativity in the universe has evolved into a genuine persona (personality), there’s no question whatsoever as to whether or not negativity is a force to be reckoned with: it is.
Remember that our characterizations of evil personified (the ‘devil’ and ‘Satan’) are symbolic names, which refer to a ‘tearing apart’ (diabolein) and to a ‘prosecuting attorney’ (ha satan). Prior to the midlife transition, the destructive negativity that we identify as ‘evil’ appears outside us. Our prospects for ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ seem threatened by the external world: natural ‘disasters’, ‘enemies’ (foreign and domestic), bad ‘luck’, and, perhaps most powerfully of all, the judgments and opinions of others. Our collective unconscious has internalized these ‘gaps’ or ‘lacunae’ in our experience of the world into what Sigmund Freud called the ‘superego’. He described it as a scolding, parental ‘voice’ constantly critiquing our thoughts and actions. Others have described that voice in different terms: the ‘gremlin‘ (Richard David Carson, Taming Your Gremlin) or ‘Self 1‘ (W. Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Work), what A Course in Miracles calls the ‘ego’ or, what one of my mentors (Alphonse Wright) called ‘The Stopper‘. What we learn at midlife is that, as Walt Kelly once wrote in his comic strip, Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
At midlife, what prevents us from becoming the woman or man we so ardently desire to be reveals itself as our own fear. 
The older I get, the more I realize how nothing but my own lack of trust in myself and my Higher Power has held me back (and it has held me back!). So long as you continue to experience that existential threat as external to yourself, you will continue to find it threatening your present and your future. So long as you seek the remedy to that threat within your own knowledge, experience, and skill set, you will remain powerless before it. You see, the “devil that you know” is your own fearful ego that tells you that you’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re not capable enough, you’re not lovable enough, and, at the bottom line, you’re a failure and a fraud. Your devil, your ‘posecuting attorney’ is that part of you that secretly believes, “If you really knew me, you could never love me.” It’s that part of you that is afraid that, at any moment, you’ll be “found out.” Is this the “devil that you know”? Of course it is!
Furthermore, there’s a reason why the devil has been called “the father of lies”: it’s because your self-absorbed, people-pleasing self has forgotten who you really are: a child of God who is perfect and inviolable and lovable just exactly as you are. And that, my dear friends, is the one Great Lesson that midlife has to teach us, and that opens the great doorway into full Maturity. Our fears are groundless. Failure is an illusion. The Grace of God both guides and protects us regardless of the circumstances.
The only failure that we are able to experience derives from a lesson not learned. You can be a failure only if you pretend that you are someone who you are not, that wrong is right, and that you are capable of running your own life absolutely independently of God or your fellows. Listening to the voice of your fearful ego is the only path that will take you to perdition, because your Higher Power will never force you to grow, force you to love, or force you to do what is best. Free will is essentially the freedom to deny your own identity and refuse whatever is in your best self-interest. You can always say ‘No’ to God.
Here’s what I’ve learned in the midlife passage and beyond: “Go for it!” The only stupid question is the one that’s not asked. The only useless proposal is the one that’s not proposed. The only missed opportunity is the one that’s not considered. The only failed plan is the one that’s never tried. The only tragedy is the one from which nothing is learned.
You need not worry about “the devil made me do it” — your worry should be “the devil stopped me from doing it!” Here’s a chance to look back at your life and examine your supposed ‘failures.’ If you can consider any area of your life today a success, can you see how it would never have come about without the “hard knock” lessons? Whatever good that you may have in your life today came through the Grace of God, and seldom without your making some scary, hard decisions. An acient theological truth says, “Grace builds upon nature.” That simply means that the Grace of God cannot reach you unless and until you’re willing and able to make the scary decisions that make that possible.
After only less then three months with my current agency, I saw a position opening up that suited me far better than the one I was hired for. I decided that nothing was gained by wishful thinking, so I actively pursued. Just last week, I transitioned to my new position. It’s new for me and new for the organization. I’m their first hire in the realm of strategic workforce planning. As soon as I came on board, I jumped into learning all about what this position would entail, and my mind quickly filled with new ideas. Prudence suggested that I should keep quiet and listen tuntil I was certain that I had learned all I needed to know. Yet ‘prudence’ means taking care to do the best work, not the safest. It was my fearful ego that urged me to hang back and not take a chance. Midlife grace, however, gave me the courage to speak up, to risk being wrong, to take a chance on not being accepted by my supervisors. Yet, I asked myself, what could they do to me? Shoot me? Fire me? No! The worst that could happen would be that I would learn something. So I took the chance, spoke up, and, at least for today, my efforts helped move me and the program forward.
How about you? What are you waiting for? What reserves are you holding back because you believe that you are weak and vulnerable, rather than powerful in the Grace of your God? What in your history can you point at as proof that God has abandoned you and fails to guide and protect you? What’s the “devil that you know” trying to tell you? More importantly, what strategies do you have in place to confront its nagging voice with a strong, “begone, Satan!” You stand beofre the Mystery of life innocent and beloved, and the challenge to that understanding comes, not from the outside world, but from within. To silence the ‘Stopper’, you need only remind yourself of one thing: “I am a beloved child of God in whom God is well-pleased. There is nothing to fear.”
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown
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