The Young Adult And The Ostrich

Once upon a time, there was a man. Although he was still young, he was an extraordinary man in many ways. Yet, in spite of his many talents and successes, he was very much like the other men of his age: he didn't want to hear bad news. So, he did the same things he saw all the other men around him doing. He had questions, but he didn't ask them. He had doubts, but he didn't talk about them. He felt dissatisfied, so, he started to do all the things he saw his friends doing that made them seem very happy. But, for him, it didn't work. The more successes he had and the more he filled up his life, the more dissatisfied he felt. He was sure that he was the only one in the world who felt the way he did. He didn't know that other people felt the same way, because he was afraid to ask.

Although this may at first sound like the opening paragraph of one of Grimm's Fairy Tales (pun intended), regrettably, it's more like one of Aesop's Fables. There is certainly a moral attached which, just to add to the cultural soup here, I'll quote from the Pennsylvania Dutch: "You're too soon old, and too late smart!" There's a wonderful freshness to youthful optimism, isn't there? We definitely need to have the 'never-say-die' attitude on our team to get us through the rough spots. I make sure that I pay equal attention to the optimists as well as the pessimists in our midst. At the same time, as someone on this side of the midlife transition, I make sure that I do pay attention to those pessimists. I can no longer afford to bury my head in the sand.

One of the fears that I face as I build my Midlife Mastery program comes from my suspicion that, when younger guys see the topic, they'll think it doesn't apply to them and pass on by without another thought. Of course, as the principal architect of this program, I don't want them to do that. But even beyond my enlightened self-interest, I know that they risk unnecessary hardships by passing this topic by. Passing it by presents the single most effective way of guaranteeing that your struggles to build a career and life for yourself and your family will end in the midst of a midlife crisis. Ignorance of the risks you're taking can't in any way save you from them. To handle this situation effectively, you must have a knowledge and awareness of what you'll be facing. If you're a young man with midlife ahead of you, do you know what's coming? Will you be ready for it when it does? The stakes may be much higher than you know. Here's another famous quote for you: 'Forewarned is forearmed.'

You face two very strong and culturally-supported attitudes that make it more difficult than necessary to prep yourself for hitting midlife. The first attitude believes that pain may affect others (and that's too bad), but it's nothing you have to worry about because you're too young, too experienced, too clever, too strong, too educated, too whatever. So, you ignore all the warning signs, dismissing them as passing issues or just stuff you need to get over. We see the effects of this deeply-entrenched denial system in every person who hears from his or her doctor, "If only you'd come to me sooner!" It says things like, 'It's not a problem,' or, 'It's not a serious problem,' or even, 'It's not my problem.' You should be very wary of denial: it's an incredibly powerful belief system that, if not effectively addressed, could take you to your grave.

Just as denial blinds you to the problems that confront you, so does arrogance blinds you to the solution for these problems once you've seen them. Arrogance causes you to think, 'OK, I may feel dissatisfied with how my life is going, but I know what's best for me, and I can fix this situation on my own. I don't need anybody else to get involved in my business.' We can talk more about the related devastating effects of this arrogance another time. However, right now, I want to focus on one thing: the damaging effects of overestimating your abilities to the point of self-sabotage. If you're like most guys, when you discover a problem, you're going to want to fix it yourself. Unfortunately, this often leads to the 'Ready! Fire! Aim!' approach to problem-solving.

So, I'm hoping that young adults will take my Midlife Mastery program seriously. We have start-up events that address the fundamental questions that young adults especially need to look at. Just because you're not thirty (or forty, or fifty, or more) doesn't mean that you're immune. Wouldn't you like to be able to see it coming before it becomes a crisis? I wish I had!