What You Want vs. What You Need

Recently, from a business, personal, and spiritual perspective, I've been doing a lot of meditating on [apparent] failure. Right now, I can't think of a more apropos topic for people facing and experiencing the midlife transition. For one thing, your successes don't precipitate a midlife crisis. In fact, an uninterrupted string of successes can actually insulate you from undergoing the midlife transition, leaving you for longer than expected — and longer than necessary — state of im-maturity. When you're 'blessed' with success, you may be getting what you want, but to your own detriment: not getting what you really need.

I ardently agree with Friedrich Nietzsche that "What does not kill me, makes me stronger." The contrary, may very well also be true: What pampers me, makes me weaker. Getting your own way may, for a time, seem like a triumph; but, is it really? Does it actually move you forward, or does it, more often than not, lead you further into imminent trouble? Do negative consequences hold you back in fact, or are they, rather, 'medicinal blessings'?

Simply taking a look around you gives you your answer. The excesses of the housing market and the greed of the financial markets gave people, for a time, what they thought they most wanted. The long-term results turn out to be something that people the world over now have to live with. I'm astounded at our self indulgence! We all know that fossil fuels are non-renewable (they will run out) and they are soiling — and threatening — our planet home. When fuel prices skyrocketed last year, 'fuel economy' was the big buzz-word and 'gas-guzzlers' were mothballed or given away. Yet, as soon as the price went down, and people could, once again, get what they wanted when they wanted it (without too much trouble), the urgency immediately drained out of the system. We're almost back to where we were in the 1970's when this first happened.

Real failure leads directly to transition. Real failure at midlife leads to transformation. When you finally reach that moment of desperation when all your best thoughts and efforts lead you to the brink of catastrophe (and perhaps over), you may then be ready to let go of what you want in favor of what you need. This is the transforming moment of powerlessness and surrender that forms the line of demarcation between 'happiness' and 'joy'. Joy is the experience that comes upon you when you give up trying to be happy. If 'happiness' is a warm puppy (or a dry martini), then 'joy' is accepting life on life's terms and embracing the sense of peace and serenity that comes with knowing the flow of your life intimately and running with it. A successful midlife transition feels like an alignment rather than a struggle. I keep returning to the wisdom of the Greek philosopher, Epictetus, who, as a slave, said to his Roman master, "Master, from this moment on, I am no longer your slave, I choose to serve you freely." His emancipation came at that moment, rather than years later, when his master gave him his formal manumission from slavery.

In fact, the midlife transition is also a sort of manumission when you think about it. When, for whatever reason, your wants move beyond your power, you are set free of them. They no longer control you. If you pick up a stone because it's beautiful and unusual (and owning it promises to bring you happiness), once you bring it home, you then have the obligation to care for it. This want (like every want in your life), once satisfied, becomes a need, and every need demands resources from you to maintain it. I remember that once, as a very young man, I climbed Mount Washington in New Hampshire with a group of my friends. At the top, I picked up a rock to commemorate the moment, and brought it back home with me. Most likely, I still have it, tucked away among the 'treasures' in the storage bin that we're paying hundreds of dollars a month to rent.

Once you have separated out the concept of 'destiny' from the will-robbing Calvinistic theory of 'predestination', you may discover a kernel of truth that can set you free from the bondage of your wants. How much of your personal resources have you spent (and will you spend) to get what you want? Some men and women struggle their whole lifetime right up to the end to create some imaginary dream of happiness out of nothing, never achieving the joy surrendering to life on life's terms. Nobody is immune to that temptation. My mind ranges from examples like Howard Hughes to Saint Thomas Aquinas who, at the end of his life, asked his students to burn all his writings because, in his words, "they are all just so much straw." There's nothing quite as effective as a crisis to highlight your true needs; there's nothing quite as effective as failure to kick you back on track toward your destiny (if you're at all open to seeing it, that is).

The trick is . . . and the only thing that stands between your midlife transition and a midlife crisis may be your ability to see failure, not as a tragedy or punishment, but as an opportunity and invitation. That may not be what you want; but it is certainly what you need.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC Copyright © 2009 H. Les Brown