I have found a cure for hiccups! Well, at least for forty-something fathers like me. All I have to do is to think that my wife is pregnant once again and my hiccups miraculously disappear. No kidding, it really works! A rarely used medical word for hiccups is “singultus,” from the Latin, “singult,” which means “the act of catching one’s breath while sobbing.” Ironically, that is exactly how the thought of being a father again makes me feel and it is enough to scare my hiccups away. For although I love children, I just don’t think my back is strong enough to raise a baby a third time. More than the white hairs that have started to appear in various parts of my anatomy, this is how I know that I really am getting older. Indeed, I likely now have fewer years ahead of me than behind me. And experts say that it is this seemingly depressing realization that causes another kind of hiccup or aberration among some people around my age — the so-called mid-life crisis.
According to MedicineNet.com, midlife crisis is “a period of personal emotional turmoil and coping challenges that some people encounter when they reach middle age, accompanied by a desire for change in their lives, brought on by fears and anxieties about growing older.” In popular culture, it is stereotypically the time, approximately between the ages of 40 and 50, when some men (and women) do crazy stuff like sneak off and have an affair, or quit their job to become a monk, or buy a brand-new red sports car and reenact their high school years. According to Cornell University sociologist Elaine Wethington, it’s some kind of a panic attack that you feel “when you’ve reached this age in life and realize that maybe you haven’t accomplished all that you wanted, and time is running out.” I guess it’s something like hearing the “last two-minutes” warning in a basketball game. If you are behind in points (or at least think you are) and allow yourself to buckle under the pressure, you can literally self-destruct.
Of course, not everyone really goes through an actual crisis. There are some studies that say only a minority of adults actually do so. In fact, there is an increasing number of psychologists who doubt whether midlife crises even actually exist, asserting that it’s just a myth and that problems encountered during this period can be attributed to other factors. Others also say that it’s all just a convenient excuse of modern man for bad behavior (the term mid-life crisis wasn’t really coined till the mid-1960s). Nevertheless, I do think that all of us go through some sort of transition or adjustment period during this time. But rather than this being a bad thing, I actually welcome it.
So what if our testosterone levels drop off? Isn’t it about time we men use more of our bigger heads anyway? Our marital relations might have taken a dip as our children’s lives take center stage, but experts say that as the children start to become more self-reliant, “marital happiness picks up and can even exceed the honeymoon stage in old age.” Instead of whining over life’s supposed lack of “excitement,” we also ought to value the stability that mid-life brings. It is generally the period when we have more resources and more control over our lives than we did when we were younger. And even if finances might still be a concern, at least we’re no longer clueless rookies and already possess some level of expertise in whatever we do. Most importantly perhaps, mid-life provides us with several decades of life experiences with which to more maturely re-assess our lives — where we are, where we’ve been, and where we want to go. Sometimes, the recklessness of youth causes us to either squander or take for granted many of life’s gifts. Mid-life, on the other hand, makes us appreciate these gifts more, and in so doing, help us live fuller lives.
There is a proverb that goes “Midlife is the old age of youth and the youth of old age.” With the proper frame of mind and attitude, I think that mid-life can be a time of deep personal growth and satisfaction. I believe that it is precisely the time to re-double our efforts in becoming better parents, spouses, friends, politicians, policemen, businessmen, and in every other role that we play in life. It is the time to do so not because we fear that time is running out, but because now is the time that we know better. Yes, the game may indeed be winding down, but we have the ball in our hands. The question is, what are we gonna do with it? And so I say this to thinning hairlines, white hair, aching backs, and creaking bones: Bring it on!
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