Does my struggle at work mean I'm having a midlife crisis?

I couldn’t take my hands off my steering wheel. It was like they had melted onto the wheel. I couldn’t get out of the car and I couldn’t move. I sat in my office parking lot. I couldn’t go in. What was wrong with me? I just could not do another day of endless meetings that went nowhere, writing memos that just sat in stacks, and get angry with how we had no real leadership. I just sat there. Finally, after what seemed like hours I drove home and called in sick. I knew I was in trouble.

That day didn’t just happen out of the blue. It took years to get to that point. This wasn’t just a job that wasn’t a good fit; this was my career in an organization I had been in for 15 years at that point!
I needed help.

That was twenty years ago. My life looked to the world as having all the trappings of success: rising in a solid career, a great salary, a killer benefit package, a family, a great house in the suburbs. And it had no meaning for me anymore. After all that hard work to get where I got, I should have felt like king of the hill. I made it. But I felt empty and confused about it.

More than that, I was angry. Angry in a job I was so proud to have gotten. Angry at the stupid decisions being made at the top and the endless changes new leaders were making as they rushed to make their mark as “best in show”.

That was how my midlife crisis (mlc) was showing up at work. I had been ignoring the signs of coming trouble – the growing seeds of cynicism and resignation. These are the keystones of how the midlife crisis often shows up in the workplace.

I knew I as in trouble at that point and I got help. It was working with my suffering at work that eventually took me on a long journey looking at my life and what I needed to do to get through a MLC.

I am not saying that all cynics are in a midlife crisis. But I do see a connection between MLC and cynicism. You didn’t start cynical.

In the early days it was work that gave you great pride and there was a fire burning in your heart to contribute to the mission. Then, over time, that fire got extinguished. You started leaving the best parts of you at home while you go to work and moved through your day like a zombie.

Or you pushed all that down and feigned cheerfulness and put on a good show at being the great dry wit at lunch break to an adoring audience who loved your riffs on the latest crazy thing the boss did. Meanwhile inside your stomach is full of acid and your heart is heavy.

I also learned from my own experience and working with others in navigating their MLC, that the steps needed to heal that cynicism are similar to what is needed to work with the MLC.

So don’t think what is happening at work and your bigger questions with what to do with this next part of your life are separate issues.

I will be exploring how to work with cynicism and resignation more at my website, www.thedisquiet.com. I will be exploring ways to work with cynicism – like how to fan that almost dead ember of commitment and engagement back to life. And if it’s been killed off completely, how there's still hope. There are ways to create a new spark that can light up your life. And that is what working through a MLC is all about.

You can read the more about this in a recent article,
Cynicism and Resignation.