If there were ever a time for existential questioning, midlife is it. You’re old enough to confront the fact that there are roads you’ll never take, but young enough to still have miles to go, both professionally and personally.
While most of us wouldn’t label this a full-on crisis, it’s normal to grapple with midlife dissatisfaction. And sure, relief is in sight, with evidence from social science that happiness is U-shaped, with a positive upswing to look forward to around age 50.
Still, what to do about today’s doldrums? That’s more of a metaphysical question than anything else — and the reason MIT philosophy professor Kieran Setiya decided to write a book on the philosophy of midlife instead of buying a muscle car to address his own malaise.
Reframing FOMO and regret
It’s easy in middle age to let both nostalgia for what was and regret over what might have been color your present days.
From a philosophical perspective, this is related to the plurality or incommensurability of values. In other words, what you value isn’t arranged on a single scale where one compensates for the loss of others. Even when you’re confident that you’ve made the “right” choices, you may still have remorse about past decisions.
A way to reframe this existential FOMO is to recognize that that regret about the life you may have lived is the inevitable consequence of something positive — and worth embracing.
Setiya quotes philosopher Robert Adams for the proposition:
If our lives are good, we have reason to be glad we’ve had them, rather than the lives that would have been even better, but too thoroughly different.
A work in process
Another common midlife puzzle is knowing you’re successfully doing worthwhile things, yet somehow the prospect of continuing on the same path feels hollow. And it makes you wonder: If all’s well, what more could I possibly want?
The answer may be found in the nature of how we define success. The midlife hamster wheel of work, parenthood, and caring for aging parents is driven by tasks that we fly through as quickly as possible. Satisfaction is constantly either deferred or archived, with nothing to savor in the present.
The answer to filling up this inherent hollowness, according to Setiya, is to right the balance between project-focused, “telic” activities (those with a clear beginning, middle and end) and “atelic” activities, where pleasure is found in the process. It’s the difference between running an errand, and taking a walk with no destination in mind.
In other words, it’s time to get a hobby, like gardening or playing an instrument. Riffing in the present is one of the best ways to stop singing the midlife existential blues.
- Getting the Most from a Midlife Crisis (MIT Alumni Association)
- Midlife: A Philosophical Guide (Amazon)
