Dissection of a Midlife Crisis

I turn 40 this year. Some of my peers have already passed this milestone. Others are like me seeing it just ahead. What are we to make of 40?

40 is when you begin to realize that your life is half over. There is more behind you than ahead. Just yesterday, you were graduating from high school. Now, you are old. Where does the time go?

Midlife is about regrets. You hit 40, and you take stock. Am I rich? Am I famous? If you answer no to these questions, you have a crisis. You compensate by buying a Corvette and dating college girls. You get a tattoo and a earring. You ride a Harley. It is sort of pathetic.

For me, I look at 40 in the same way I looked at losing my hair. I just shaved my head and went on with my life. 40 is like hair loss. It is only tragic if you give a fuck. Like me, you can shave that melon. Or, you can fight it by joining Hair Club and wearing a silly rug on your noggin.

When you hit 40, you try and remake all the decisions in your life. You make all the right choices, and you end up in that parallel universe where you made all the right decisions. But this is make believe. Even the lives of the rich and famous aren't all that great. Ultimately, we should have bought stock in Apple and Microsoft back in the 80s. But who knew then? Who knows now?

The problem with this thinking is that life is not a series of bets at a blackjack table. Over the course of a lifetime, good fortune and bad averages out. This is why so many lottery winners end up broke. This is why Aristotle said you could not take sum of a man's life until it had reached its end. Aristotle was a big believer in averages.

For most people hitting 40, the big tragedy is they realize they are just average. Their lives have been lived firmly in the fat portion of the bell curve. Trying to act young is some vain attempt to hit the RESET button on life. But I don't believe in parallel universes. Even if they exist, they don't matter. The bottom line is that you can hit RESET on just about anyone's life, and they would end up almost exactly where they are right now. This is because life is mostly comprised of the daily choices we make. For someone who smokes, it isn't when they decided to take that first puff at age 14. That wasn't the mistake. It was the second, third, fourth, and fifth puff that was their undoing.

Big time events in a person's life don't seem to make much difference. Some people have been hit with all sorts of bad things like accidents, divorces, bankruptcies, and the like. But they just shake that shit off. Others manage to fuck up their lives no matter how much good fortune comes their way. This would be rock stars who can't even manage their own lives. I'm sorry, but you aren't a Master of the Universe if you can't even control your own appetites.

You are what you repeatedly do. At 40, it is clear what you like to do. If you are fat like me, you are someone who likes to eat. If you are a triathlete, you are someone who likes to exercise a lot and show off your genitals in a Speedo. If you are rich, you are someone who likes to make money. If you are twice divorced because of numerous affairs, then you are a sex addict. When we measure people not by their wealth, fame, or status but by their virtues, a much different picture emerges.

My regrets are not that I didn't buy stock in Apple or Microsoft or Google. I had neither the knowledge nor the money to make those things happen. I would have bought AOL or some other loser. It makes no sense to tie your regrets to hindsight bias. On that basis, everyone is a complete loser. I bet Bill Gates wishes he could take back a lot of business decisions he made.

My regrets are these:

-I am fat and out of shape.

-I am not neat, clean, and organized in my affairs.

-I don't work more.

I don't regret not being rich or famous. I don't regret getting old. I do regret not being better as a person. I regret my vices the chief of which is laziness. Owning a Corvette and dating bimbos is not going to change this regret.

The reality is that life is not a blackjack table but a scale in which you weigh yourself. It is not about luck but about making those consistent decisions day in and day out. When I was a kid, I used to envy child stars for being rich and famous at such a young age. I've lived long enough to see those same people go on to lead pretty shitty lives. The weighing machine is relentless. Some of those kids turn out to be Jodie Foster. Others turn out like Corey Haim. The weighing machine always has the last word. It is the only word that matters.

It is said that Julius Caesar cried like a bitch when he saw the statue of Alexander the Great who at age 30 had conquered the world while Caesar was a complete loser. Later on, Caesar would make his own conquests and get stabbed in the guts by his friends. But for me, the glaring fact is that Caesar had a really bad combover. He was a terribly insecure individual who compensated by seeking fame and glory. Caesar was the living embodiment of the midlife crisis.

We all know someone like Caesar. They are ambitious and driven and often achieve a great deal. But they hide a massive case of inferiority. That is the cool thing about getting old. You learn to accept yourself as you are. I believe this self-acceptance is what makes old people so much happier than middle aged people. You get to a point in life where you get over yourself. You become happy just being the person you are.

I will be conceited and admit to it. I've got that self-acceptance thing down. It helps to have failed in life a lot because it accelerates this process. It also helps to be on the ugly side in the looks department. I am very candid about my shortcomings, and I have learned the value of self-deprecation. I get accused of having a massively low self-esteem, but you have to remember something. I have a logo and a blog. I am also called arrogant and narcissistic and selfish. I just shrug it all off. I am just me.

I am fine with getting older. I want to be old. This is because it beats the alternative which is being dead. And in my encounters with youth, I am always struck by how stupid many young people are. I never want to go back to that state again. As for the decline of my bodily functions, most of that is because of being out of shape. A 70-year-old ran a sub-3 marathon, and I can't even run a mile at 39. Youth is no substitute for virtue which is the point I am getting at.

Going forward, my only real ambitions are to conquer these bad habits of mine. I figure everything else will take care of itself. I'd rather be in shape than be rich. I prefer a simple house to a McMansion. I'd rather work a job I love than climb the ladder. I would like to upgrade to a pickup truck. No Corvettes for me. No plastic surgery or hairpieces either. What you see is what you get.

Here's to 40. I'm glad I am alive, and I will make the next 40 better than the first 40.

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