Midlife Mastery Journal

A fundamental option represents a turning-point in your life. It can come at any time, as entropy hustles you along the path of least resistance from your commitment to an idealized vision of your life toward that brick wall (or, alternatively, that abyss) that awaits you along your chosen (however unfortunate) course.

At once, those who can both sense and embrace the flow of their personal destinies are empowered to transform their efforts from futility into greatness.

Talk about taking a bounce back into a less mature and less stable period of your life! There’s the bad news: just because you’ve reached some stability and serenity doesn’t necessarily mean you’re always going to keep it.

The Buddha taught that the cause of all suffering is desire. You don’t have to go far to prove him right: just ask any one of the thousands of men and women who’ve lost their homes through foreclosure in recent months. For those whose sense of self-worth remains fixed on acquisition, loss of their assets represents the greatest tragedy. And yet, isn’t this a very childish attitude?

In a future article, we’ll explore a little more deeply into what these people think midlife entails. For now, I’ll be satisfied to know that my experience and predictions (in perfect agreement with Dr. Hollis) were essentially correct: midlife makes up the period of actual transition from childhood (even masquerading in an adult body and hiding behind an apparently adult life) to genuine maturity.