Midlife Crisis
Center of Life
The movie Pegasus describes a story in which an ex-drag race champion reclaimed his throne.
The main character Teng lost his driving license after getting caught in an illegal race. He lost all his wealth, fame and career. 5 years later, he got his license back and defeated the new drag race superstar.
Lots of people complained that the story was unreasonable that an old man can beat the super-star, who has so much more resources - the best car, the best assistant, the best supplies, the best training track and equipment…
But the superstar’s career strategy is to prepare for all tracks, all the championships. While Teng’s focus is only ONE track. In 5 years, Teng went through countless race simulations in his mind during his 5-year ban.
Secondly, Teng was talented enough to mitigate his car’s speed deficit.
Lastly, Teng was insane enough not to slow down during a sharp turn in the end, despite he would fly off the cliff after reaching the finishing point.
Today’s topic is not about dreams and passion, but about mid life crisis.
Most men are stuck in their 40s. If they can’t provide as much value as their salary, they are likely to be replaced by the cheaper younger generation. This situation is worse in bad economic times.
Although most of them may be able to get by financially with a small business, most of them are unhappy because of the income decline.
Not only 40yr men would have such a crisis. Everyone does.
Take women for example, lots of women’s center of life was around her children: Taking care of child’s food, homework, tutoring classes.
But when the child left home for college or graduated living on his/her own, she suddenly loses Her center of life. Many of them will feel down.
Generally speaking, mid life crisis is a sense of loss, unable to find the purpose of existence.
Losing the Center of Life
I experienced a mid-life crisis as well. 5 years ago I quitted my management position for daytrading.
But daytrading doesn’t bring any fulfillment in life.
Just like when you bench a race horse who is used to flowers and praises, ask him to bet on other horses, ask him to watch other horses run the show… It can’t help feeling down.
That is why I started my blog. Maybe I will write novels or plays in the future.
You will feel very exhausted when life is too busy; you will feel very hollow when you have too much free time.
Not every mid-age person can fly like Teng in the movie.
That is why I did everything many years ahead. On one hand I worried that I would have no results, on the other hand I just kept going.
When I started working, I saw so many jaded engineers were stuck. That was why I started learning investing, so I got something to do when I was in their position. When I was in management, I saw many managers had similar concerns as well.
The Chinese Track
As a normal individual, it is very difficult to have a smooth life. So you have to be prepared for things when they come to you.
On the other side, this kind of life can be very exhausting both mentally and physically. By human nature, it is very difficult to go 100% on things that don’t have any short-term return, especially when you are busy with something else.
Most Chinese are busy their entire life.
When you go to school, you have to prepare for your exams; but you should also develop your extracurriculars, such as reading broadly. This depends less on how smart you are but how persistent you are when you see no returns.
Working over time, fighting for the promotion, industry shift, economy ups and downs, family stuff, children’s stuff… Everything is so demanding. Under such circumstances, it is extremely difficult to consistently work on multiple things that may not return anything 10, 20 years in the line.
But based on my limited knowledge, that is the only way to mitigate midlife crisis, or retirement crisis.
If you can put your eggs into multiple basket; if you can do multiple things in parallel; maybe you have a higher chance of keeping your lights on all the time.
I think, if people can think through things, then live through their lives smoothly and clearly, that is already a great life.