Midlife Mastery Journal

If we’re going to be successful at navigating the many life-altering transitions that we have to face at midlife, we’re going to have to be prepared to be fierce about it. As in all things worth doing, “Half measures avail us nothing.”

I’ve said all along that the midlife transition is essentially a spiritual one. It’s a transition from being externally-focused to becoming interiorly-focused. ‘Maturity’ in this perspective means shifting your focus from the superficial to the essential in your life.

Wisdom dictates that, for every life element that we humans are required to relinquish, there opens a new creative possibility. Although I genuinely subscribe to that belief (“When God closes one door, he opens another”), grieving must occur for every door that closes, and few (if any) of us can fully enter the opening door before fully grieving the closing one.

It’s a fact of the human condition: transitions never come easily. They always appear as an interruption in the kind of life we desire and even plan for: a life of security, tranquility, ease, and peace.

Real failure leads directly to transition. Real failure at midlife leads to transformation. When you finally reach that moment of desperation when all your best thoughts and efforts lead you to the brink of catastrophe (and perhaps over), you may then be ready to let go of what you want in favor of what you need.