Midlife if roughly defined as the period between the ages of 43 and 62. The Canadian psychoanalyst and organisational consultant Elliot Jaques was the first to use the term midlife crisis in 1965.

He defined it as a time when “we come face-to-face with our limitations, our restricted possibilities, and our mortality”.

The baby boom generation don’t want to hear about crisis in their lives but they still have to deal with changes that are inevitable. Dealing with anxiety is the most pressing of these changes. Many middle-aged people face financial uncertainty as a result of the economic crisis.

They fear that the comfortable retirement they aspired for up to some years ago is becoming increasingly unreachable. Others fear for their jobs as companies continue to shed workers to save their business.

But many others who seem to enjoy good job security are still unhappy with their lives. They yearn to change course, not by taking up a second career but by starting to enjoy a second life.

The reasons for this yearning can be varied. Many just cannot put up any longer with the toxic atmosphere and the people that create it in some organisations. Don’t we all know of nasty bosses whose only purpose in life seems to be to make their employees miserable?

Some may face an irresolvable conflict with their superiors and leaving the company could be the sanest option. Others may have been passed over for promotion and feel that their self-respect is threatened if they do not seek opportunities elsewhere.

There are also many hangers on who enjoy the status quo, even if deep down they are no more useful to the company they work for than an expensive piece of furniture.

They attach immense importance to the paraphernalia that accompanies senior management posts: secretaries; overseas travel; smart phones that ring at all times of the day and night; business entertainment; the adulation of subordinates with a sharp instinct for survival that makes them experts in guile; chauffer-driven cars; illusions of grandeur and indispensability; the misplaced admiration of neighbours and friends for one’s imaginary achievements and social status; and other hollow symbols of success.

Middle-aged people have more than two decades of experience that enables them to handle new challenges successfully

These people are attached to their post like a limpet to rock. A useless executive may hang on to his job indefinitely until some uninhibited person tells him that he does not envy him because, like the proverbial pompous king in the Danish fable, ‘he really has no clothes on’.

Managing midlife risks can be done successfully as long as one is prepared to dispel certain myths.

The first myth is that midlife represents an onset of irreversible decline and that one should not take the risk of leaving at such a difficult time. There is some sense in this belief. In midlife we face more physical limitations. Doctors are fond of quoting an unidentified source who once said: “If you are 50 and nothing hurts, you’re most likely dead!”

As long as one is realistic and has reasonable expectations, then the physical limitations of middle age can be harnessed to enable people to enjoy a second life.

Middle-aged people have more than two decades of experience that enables them to handle new challenges successfully. They are no longer riddled with anxieties to over-perform to gain the acknowledgment of their bosses.

They are often in less of a hurry. With age they would have acquired the ability to put emerging problems into perspective.

Another myth that needs to be addressed is that midlife can bring about magical transformations.

Self-help books and seminars often lead people to believe that, as long as they really desire something, there is nothing that can stop them from achieving it. It is good to dream in life, but dreams must be connected with our potential.

Otherwise, we will face painful frustration as dreams become just idle fantasies.

Living in a small country like Malta often means additional challenges for those seeking a second life. Ageism is ingrained in our society. Our economy has for long not generated enough jobs that appeal to middle-aged people who want to do something different with their lives.

Certain aspects of our labour market remain stubbornly rigid, making job mobility in later life that much more difficult.

Midlife changes give us the opportunity to grow internally and appreciate aspects of life that we may have ignored in the first years of our careers.

By listening to our inner selves we can all become better people.

johncassarwhite@yahoo.com