Live to Impress Your 80-Year-Old Self, Not Your 18-Year-Old Self
A writer argues that both midlife restlessness and contentment start with the same fear about time, and differ only in which self you try to please.
Curiosity Chronicle · I Think I'm Having a Reverse Midlife CrisisSahil Bloom was at dinner recently when his friend Joe said he thought he was having a midlife crisis. Joe is in his early 40s, works in finance, and lives in the suburbs outside New York with his wife and two kids, ages 7 and 4. Time with younger colleagues had left him jealous of their freedom, and scrolling on Instagram had left him staring at images of lives he was not living, questioning his choices to date.
Bloom traces that restlessness to fear. A midlife crisis, in his view, "isn't driven by ego, vanity, or lust so much as fear," including what he calls "fear of a door permanently closed." A reverse midlife crisis, as he defines it, is when you answer the same fear by building for your future self.
The difference is which self you try to impress: "If a midlife crisis is about impressing the person you used to be, a reverse midlife crisis is about sparking pride in the person you will become." One is "action that chases feelings from the past," an attempt at "reliving those things that your 18-year-old self would find very impressive," with fast cars, fancy stuff, status symbols, and limited responsibilities. The other is presence that builds meaning over time, an attempt at "building those things that your 80-year-old self will find impressive," with deep relationships, a healthy and fit body, and a grounded and peaceful mind.
Bloom counts himself in the second camp, saying he began noticing the signs about a year ago. Among the changes, he says, "I stopped spending to impress an audience that was never watching," finding that saving and investing brought real freedom.
The pull of youth does not disappear. The younger self, in his telling, "will always sing its version of the siren song," "Begging you to run back." His answer is to stay in the season you are in: "Make your older self proud instead."
Questions people ask
What is Janet's Law, which Bloom uses to explain the fear behind a midlife crisis?
It is the feeling that time speeds up as you get older, because each year becomes a smaller share of the life you have lived. Bloom cites a version holding that about half of perceived life is over by age 20, so a 5-year-old's summer can feel as long as a decade in middle age.
What else does Bloom do differently in his own reverse midlife crisis?
Bloom describes choosing peace over drama, keeping an early morning reading and writing ritual, treating health as a long term investment, and no longer avoiding hard conversations. He admits his 18-year-old self would have found all of it boring.
How common is a midlife crisis?
It is common enough that psychologists debate the label, but surveys often find 10 to 20 percent of middle aged adults report a crisis tied to aging, regret, or unmet goals. Much more common are quieter periods of reflection about time, purpose, and mortality in the 40s and early 50s.