Why is this book 'timely'?
Despite the increasing interest in adult development, there
is still reluctance to study the course of adult life in some
depth. The wish to learn more about the possibilities of
personal growth is hampered by the fear that careful scrutiny
will reveal only decline and retriction.
Adults hope that life begins at 40 - but the great anxiety is
that it ends there. The result of this pervasive dread about
middle age is almost complete silence about the experience of
being adult. The concrete character of adult life is one of
the best-kept secrets in our society.
People in the middle years generally find it difficult to
discuss the course and meaning of their lifes with their
peers, younger co-workers or youthful offsprings. Middle age
has been one of the great taboo topics. The widespread fears
about old age have been widely recognized long before old age
is imminent, however, middle age activates our deepest
anxieties about decline and dying.
The most distressing fear in early adulthood is that there is
no life after youth. Young adults often feel that to pass 30
is to be "over the hill". The middle years, they imagine,
will bring triviality and meaningless comfort at best,
stagnation amd hopelesness at worst.
Middle age is usually regarded as a vague interim period,
defined mostly in negative periods. You are no longer young
and yet not quite old- but what are you in a more positive
sense? Mention youth and the words which come to mind are
vitality, growth, mastery, the heroic; whereas old age brings
to mind vulnerability, withering, ending, the brink of
nothingness and, worse still! Our overly negative imagery of
old age adds greatly to the burden of middle age.
It is terrifying to go through middle age in the shadow of
death, as though you were already very old; and it is a
self-defeating illusion to live it in the shadow of youth, as
though you were still simply young. The trick is to admit
that each phase in our life cycle has its own virtues and
limitations. To realize its potential value, we must then
know and accept its terms and create our lives accordingly.
STAGES THROUGH LIFE CYCLES.
--------------------------
If a man starts a family in his 20's, his offsprings are at
or near adolescence as he passes 40. His relationships with
them are changing sharply. The nest is emptying and the
nuclear family is dividing into separate households. The
husband and wife together experience strong emotional losses
and stresses. But hold on. All is not bad news because, at
the same time, the financial, social and emotional burdens of
raising a family are greatly decreased.
Although a man's bodily and mental powers are somewhat
diminished after 40, they are ordinarily still ample for a
very active and full life for many years to come. Although
man is by no means lacking in the youthful drives, that is
to say, in lustfull passions, in the capacity for anger and
for moral indignation, in self-assertiveness and ambition.
The big difference is that he now suffers much less from the
tyranny of these drives.
In addition, the modest decline in the basic drives may, at
that stage in his life, enable hin to enrich his life. He can
be more free from the petty vanities, the animosities, envies
and moralisms of early adulthood. His normal sexual capacity
in middle age is more than enough for a gratifying sex life.
The quality of his love relationships may well improve as he
develops a greater capacity for intimacy.
The professional athlete who gives up playing ball at 30 has
another ten years of full adulthood in which to establish
himself in a new occupation or elsewhere in his sport. But
the one who lingers on until, say, his late thirties, must go
through a difficult occupational change even as he is
entering the stressful period of the Mid-Life Transition.
Those who, for a variety of internal and external reasons,
cannot alter their mode of work burn out or live a highly
marginal existence.
HOW OLD IS OLD?
--------------
How old is old? It is relative. When asked "How was your
childhood" by a psychologist, a 95 year old man replied "So
far, so good!" Now, that's the spirit..
Most men undergo a mid-life change in style of work and
living. Early adulthood produces qualities of strength,
quickness, endurance and output. Middle adulthood is a season
when other qualities can ripen: wisdom, judiciousness,
magnanimity, breath of perspective.
At their best, the new roles have great personal and social
value; at their worst, they are a means of saving face and
keeping busy, but contribute little to self or society and
are a tragic waste of human life.
A man at mid-life is suffering some loss of his youthful
vitality and, often, some insult to his youthful pride.
Although he is not literally close to death or undergoing
severe bodily decline, he typically experiences these changes
as a fundamental threat. It is as though he were on the
treshold of senility and even death.
There is nothing wrong with going through these crises.
Playing ostrich with his head in the sand will not make the
problem disappear.
Having a crisis at this time is not in itself pathological.
Indeed, the person who goes through this period with minimal
discomfort may be denying that his life must change, for
better or worse. He is thus losing an opportunity for
personal development. To experience the dangers and the
possibilities of this period is not, however, a sinecure .
Middle adulthood can be an era of personal fulfillment and
social contribution.
CHANGE AT 40
By 40, a man has had a chance to build a life and to realize
the fruits of his youthful labors. As he enters the 45 to 65
period, he is likely to review his progress and ask: "What
have I done? Where am I now? Of what value is my life to
society, to other persons, and especially to myself?" He must
deal with the disparity between what he is and what he has
dreamed of becoming.
Often, a man who has accomplished his goals comes to feel
trapped: his success is meaningless and he is now caught
within a stultifying {find a synonim for stultifying}
situation. Many men find their life relatively satisfactory
in some respects and disappointing or destructive in others.
Whatever his life condition, every man in his early forties
needs to sort things out, come to terms with the limitations
and consider the next steps in the journey. A man at around
40 has the experience of arriving at a culmination, a turning
point.
The one that operates as the culminating event has a special
meaning: in his mind, it symbolizes the outcome of his
youthful strivings; it represents the highest affirmation he
will receive in this phase of his life, and he uses it to
estimate his chances for realizing his aims in the future.
A man at around 40 is not simply reacting to an external
situation. He is reappraising his life. He makes an effort to
reconsider the direction he has taken, the fate of his
youthful dreams, the possibility for a better (or worse) life
in the future. He generates new levels of awareness, meaning
and understanding.
LATE ADULTHOOD
--------------
In the early sixties, middle adulthood normally comes to an
end and late adulthood begins. The character of living is
altered in fundamental ways as a result of numerous
biological and social changes. This era needs to be
recognized as a distinctive and fulfilling season in life.
It lasts, we believe, from about 60 to 85.
At around 60, there is again the reality and the experience
of bodily decline. A man does not suddenly become "old" at 50
or 60 or 80. In the fifties and sixties, however, many mental
and physical changes intensify his experiences of his own
aging and mortality.
They remind him that he is moving from "middle age" to a
later generation for which our culture has only the
terrifying term "old age". No one of these changes happens to
all men. Yet every man is likely to experience several and
to be greatly affected by them.
There is an increasing frequency of death and serious illness
among his loved ones, friends and colleagues. Even if he is
in good health and physically active, he has many reminders
of his decreasing vigor and capacity. If nothing else, there
are more frequent aches and pains. But he is also likely to
have at least one major illness or impairment - be it heart
disease, cancer, defective vision or hearing, depression or
other emotional distress.
He will receive medical warnings that he must follow certain
precautions or run the risk of more serious, possibly
crippling or fatal illness. The internal messages from his
own body, too, tell him to make accommodations or major
changes in his mode of living.
Of course, men at around 60 differ widely. Some face a late
adulthood of serious illness or impairment, while others lead
active, energetic lives. However, at that stage, every man
must deal with the deline or loss of some of his middle adult
powers.
GOLDEN AGE
----------
In addition, there is a culturally defined change of
generation in the sixties. If the term "middle-aged" is vague
and frightening, what about our terminology for the
subsequent years? The commonly used words such as "elderly",
"golden age" and "senior citizen" acquire negative
connotations reflecting our personal and cultural anxiety
about aging.
To a person in the twenties, it appears that passing 30 is
getting "over the hill". In the thirties, turning 40 is a
powerful threat. At every point in life, the passing of the
next age threshold is anticipated as a total loss of youth,
of vitality and of life itself.
Once again the ending of an era brings the culmination of the
strivings that were important within it. In late adulthood a
man can no longer occupy the center stage of his world. He is
called upon, and increasingly calls upon himself, to reduce
the heavy responsibilities of middle adulthood and to live in
a changed relationship with society and himself.
Moving out of center stage can be traumatic indeed. A man
receives less recognition and has less authority and power.
His generation is no longer the dominant one.
In his work life, too, there will be serious difficulties if
a man holds a position of formal authority beyond age 65 or
70. If he does so, he is "out of phase" with his own
generation and he is in conflict with the generation in
middle adulthood who needs to assume greater
responsibilities.
Some men can retire with dignity and security as early as 50,
others as late as 70. Within this range, the age at which a
man retires from formal employment, and especially from a
position of direct authority over others, should reflect his
own needs, capabilities and life circumstances.
After "retirement" in this specific sense, he can engage in
valued work, but it now stems more from his own creative
energies than from external pressure and financial need.
Having paid his dues to society, he has earned the right to
be and do what is most important to himself. He is beyond
the distinction between work and play.
Financial and social security are the external conditions for
this freedom of choice. True freedom is not in doing what
you want to do but rather, in wanting to do what you are
doing. Think about that one for a moment!
A primary developmental task of late adulthood is to find a
new balance of involvement with society and with the self. A
man in this era is experiencing more fully the process of
dying and he should have the possibility of choosing more
freely his mode of living. He becomes less interested in
obtaining the rewards offered by society, and more interested
in utilizing his own inner resources.
Everyone at times has a sense of utter despair. This always
has some basis in actuality as well as in irrational
self-accusation. He feels that his life has been of no value
to himself or others, that its good qualities are far
outweighed by the recurrent destructiveness, stupidity and
betrayal of the values he holds most dear. Worst of all, as
he sees it, the damage is done: there is no further
opportunity to right the balance.
Whatever our values, we cannot live up to them fully. In the
end, we must effect a reconciliation with the sources of the
flaws and corruptions in our lives. The sources are multiple:
they are in ourselves, in our enemies and loved ones, in the
imperfect world where each of us tries to build a life of
integrity.
Making peace with all the enemies in self and world is an
important part of this task. To make peace in this inner
sense does not keep a man from fighting for his convictions;
but it does enable him to fight with less rancor, with fewer
illusions and with broader perspective.
What does development mean at the very end of the life cycle?
It means that a man is coming to terms with the process of
dying and preparing for his own death. At the end of all
previous eras, part of the developmental work was to start a
new era, to create a new basis for living.
A man in his eighties knows that his death is imminent. It
may come in a few months, or in twenty years. But he lives in
its shadow, and at its call. To be able to involve himself in
living he must make his peace with dying.
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