The Biggest Midlife Myth

Of all the things people get wrong about midlife - and there are many - here's one I hear most.

"Oh midlife crisis? That's not me. I'm only 37."

Yah, I was 37 when it happened to me. I just didn't' know what it was.

Midlife is a developmental phase, more than an age. The "crisis" often erupts during life-altering transitions like divorce, empty nest, moving, retirement and career change. Sometimes it shows up out of nowhere as holy and unexplainable discontent.

It's normal and it's necessary.

David Brooks, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, totally gets this. His latest book, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, explains how we can tumble into the midlife valley whether we're chronologically there or not.

The first mountain we climb, Brooks writes, is all about building our lives, our careers, our families, our egos, but there is a summit and eventually, we get bored and wander off it, or we tumble off or we get knocked off.

Tumbling into a valley - sometimes a deep, dark one - feels terrible but that's the base camp for our second mountain: The place of preparation.

The valley is all about deconstruction, identity formation, and mettle testing. If you plan to climb the second mountain with any seriousness, it's a clarifying and necessary stage.

That's because the second mountain isn't about the individual, it's about the collective. It's about calling, purpose, and service to the world. Preparing for that is serious work that won't suffer trivial remedies like Botox or a nicer car.

This is why midlife is not a crisis. It's an opportunity to become who you were before you got scared. The ego did a good job building you a safe container, but the second mountain is about love, and that container is too small.

Now doesn't the valley make perfect sense? No matter what age you are?

This is what we do at Girl Catch Fire. We link arms and follow our shepherd through the valley so he can prepare us for the second mountain.