Rising pressure then a board meeting at which the board started pointing fingers and I came away and sent a very inflammatory, hot-headed email to the GC that really was the biggest fooking missile ever sent and to all intents and purposes was a whistleblow. i went from hero to zero in the course of a few hasty emails, then we all agreed it was basically a resignation with a menacing claim which i agreed to compromise and took six months off, nearly got divorced, lost my mojo, drove cars and motorbikes too fast, developed a very intense relationship with alcohol and a poor one with the truth, became defensive and fully shell shocked and not as funny as I used to be.
I was actually wondering if I was in the middle of one the other day:
- not sure whether I want to keep doing what I'm doing (inhouse TMT) but equally not sure what I'd want to do instead. Don't hate it but don't think I've learnt that much the last two years (and what I have learnt hasn't interested me much)
- continually worried about what the future holds: at best (on current trajectory) this could be a safe and worry-free passage into late middle age and retirement (but where's the excitement/adventure in that?); the worst case scenario is that I make a wrong move in a bid to shake up my career or worse still the clusterfeck of crises (global warming, political extremism) I fear is looming finally materialises
- at mid-forties, I have everything I ever realistically wanted: a good marriage, kids, financial stability plus memories of younger wilder days to look back. But I still feel listless and also losing confidence.
However, I think Covid (100% wfh, restrictions on seeing family and friends etc) is probably amplifying this massively
@Muttley - sorry to hear that. How long ago was it? I know I'm straying into Psychologies magazine territory by asking this, but do you think it ultimately made you stronger?
Crowley - either would have been better than I was getting at the time.
I confess that I have considered on occasions what sex with G Paltrow would be like. First I should like to say that the name Gwynneth is deeply unsexy. It is like being called Heifer, Gibbet, Udders or Clump. Just ugly words. But i cant deny she has a pretty face. That said, she has a fannoir that smells like a candle or soap or the other way round and she has been Cold Played.
For me it is the last point that absolutely nails it. Hannah over Udders, and that’s my final answer.
@Muttley - sorry to hear that. How long ago was it? I know I'm straying into Psychologies magazine territory by asking this, but do you think it ultimately made you stronger?
well now ... careful what you ask...
’It’, being events described above, made me a melted Snickers in the glove pocket of the slightly shitey rental car (Toyota Corolla or similar*) that was my life at the time.
But ‘it’ being life ahead... well i guess it made me more self aware, resilient and circumspect, a heck of a lot less cocksure and more inclined to support people on the journey who needed support, and totally less of a competitively anxious bastard than i was for the decade or two before.
I grew up. I learned a lot. I developed confidence in the value of softer measures of the quality of people’s input. I grew to be embarrassed at the extent to which i had drunk and force-fed the Cool Aid. But them’s the prevailing rules, and we learn. If we dont learn we are dead or walking dead.
i had an executive coach as part of the long goodbye. She worked like a physio on the painful muscle. Her jabs hurt and helped.
Btw - do not be sorry. There is more joy in Heaven at one sinner that repenteth etc
And when? 2014-15. Three to five years to feel even keel about things after all that.
I often wonder how people manage without this shift. how do you move from adult to experienced adult? I spent so long with the nagging subconscious thought ‘there must be more to life than others’ imposed goals smashed over their heads’ then one day boom, it turned out there was. Now I feel in good company with mature adults.
you know the term ‘high functioning alcoholic’ - something used by people who want to distinguish their alcoholism from the mere boozehound to show they still have high performance skilz? In truth they are just alcoholics.
well in was a high performing w**ker
Bit of a random thought, but I used to agonise about life decisions made in the past, particularly things like decisions not to break up with my girlfriend (now wife) when I met women who I got on with better or fancied more and who I was pretty sure were interested in me.
But after having kids I pretty much stopped having those thoughts, because my kids literally wouldn't exist if I had made any of those decisions differently.
I packed it all in (lucrative role), moved overseas and just took some time out, just chilling out and doing random stuff.
I had been overworked (relentless clients, little or no internal support, except for increased billing and client targets) and was seriously knackered and burnt out after 5 years of really serious pressure. Best thing I did or they may well have carried me out in a box.
What's interesting is that people can reach their MLCs from different directions.
People who know me might say otherwise, but I feel like I've lived my life so far in a mild-mannered and unobtrusive way but I don't see a sports car or affair on the horizon. The change in myself that I am seeing is that I'm getting angrier with the world and I can veer way too easily into a rant about corruption, greed, short term-thinking climate vandalism and all that boring stuff. I don't think there's any danger of me becoming Michael Douglas in Falling Down; more a mundane transition into a even more boring and bitter version of, I dunno, Ken Barlow.
As a point of contrast, my dad had the classic MLC (left my mum for his sec) and left a bit of carnage in his wake and I was always determined not to do that. However I now realise it doesn't define him: he's still the interesting, funny and kind bloke that he always was and that people want to spend time with.
So, as Muttley aludes to (I think!), perhaps an eventful MLC that re-calibrates your life isn't the bad thing it's made out to be (and it might actually be a better than a safe-but-slow slide into greyness)...
Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts. This is so relevant to what I've mulling over these last few days
So, as Muttley aludes to (I think!), perhaps an eventful MLC that re-calibrates your life isn't the bad thing it's made out to be (and it might actually be a better than a safe-but-slow slide into greyness)...
yup, can be a positive but still very painful
the issue is really about whether you let it get out of whack so much that a rupturing shift change is necessary to correct the imbalance. If you are unnaturally well adjusted through all stages of life then no mid life crisis is required.
I suppose I had the classic mid 40's is this it period. Then you just make peace with what you'll never do or achieve or be and start to appreciate what you have.
all washed up's bit about making peace seems pretty sage.
I also still feel that Covid might be amplifying this for some people (including me). Working from the spare room (day in, day out) through the cold winter months isn't really fertile ground for positive thinking.
@plasticfantastic - I basically had that exact conversation (your first post) with a friend on Saturday.
Everything I would have wanted 10 years I now have and I had heaps of fun in my twenties and early thirties getting here, but I have been feeling completely directionless and a bit "is this just a cruise to being old now?" and disillusioned with things (Covid, Brexit etc etc)
Am hoping to take a few months off next year to take a long haul trip with the LO, get some Mojo back, but not sure that will happen with COVID.
This thread has been very cathartic. Took a bit of post-delete-post behaviour to get it down. I am glad I did so.
I have not spoken honestly and openly about all this to many people. Previously the fear of perceived vulnerability and admitted fallibility would have driven the denial instinct. But the facts would remain on my mind, heavier because unshared. The memory would rattle around like a stone in the shoe.
But now i feel if the experience has any value then it is in the sharing. Experience clutched close in fear of revelation and never shared has no purpose other than to torment a tired mind, and no wider value to others.
Covid weird live at work, retirement living but with high pressure jobs and no social interaction aside from partner / people uve grown has been hard on the soul
I hoped that going off and doing something I’d always dreamed of doing would cure the restlessness but in fact it just made it worse by making most of life feel so mundane.
I left London when I was 40. I was bored. And frustrated with the general negativity: ‘It won’t work’, ‘We’ve tried that before’, ‘No, I can’t change anything’. Couldn’t see anything that I wanted to do.
Started afresh in Hong Kong. It was high risk. I had visited twice. Delfette once, and that was after we had committed to move. We had one friend there.
We landed at Kai Tak with four children, no school places, and a hotel booking for a month. It was madness, but it turned out ok. I guess we always had some sort of option to go back to the U.K.
Jorrock’s post was notable for not expressing any regret, and am curious as to whether he does regret it now (you are separated from said wife, no?)
mutters sounds like an incredibly intense time, well done for coming through it and mellowing with age, even at the cost of your prior comic heights.
I have a cod theory that men are more prone to MLCs and/or these bouts of feeling they should be having More Impact as women are socialised to have lower expectations of their life - if they’re hanging onto a job (let alone an actual career) and a reasonably well functioning marriage they seem to be reasonably happy. The crisis equivalent seems to come a bit later, post menopause and post empty nest. Gross generalisation Ofc.
As will not surprise the regulars, I've been having a MLC since the day I accepted a training contract.
In the round, I've actually played it quite well from an objective perspective, having paid off the mortgage, met my wife and had a family etc, and am now quite well placed to do something else altogether.
It will probably be something quite midlifecrisisey however, like joining (or starting) a tech startup and coding all night for de facto minimum wage.
As for more conventional mid life crisis stuff like learning guitar at 45 or buying a motorbike, TBH, this stuff is good and healthy and to be encouraged. Stay young and stay fun.
(The thing men need to understand about our sex is this - the stuff we think is cool as boys, we always think is cool. For ever. I don't know if women "mature" in terms of their interests, but men don't. When I was a 14yo boy, the things I thought were coolest were indie music, computers and gadgets, and football. Those are still the things I think are coolest, and always will be. The good thing about reaching mid life is you stop worrying so much and admit, to yourself and others, that your main ambition in life is to build a really massive model railway in the loft.)
I'm into my 7th year of my MLC. I just realised that I didn't want to devote any more energy to a legal 'career'. My boss had nominated me for a senior role, and in the first round of interviews while they were going through the various and real disaster scenarios for our industry, I just thought, meh you can't pay me enough to deal with the sleepless nights and anxiety this will bring, and pulled out of the running. Boss was deeply unimpressed.
I'd also spent the previous couple of years trying out new hobbies and wanted more time to do them, and also to have a stint overseas. So for the next several months I put in place life adminny type stuff to let me be funemployed bum for a while and not have to go back to traditional lawyering, then quit.
Glad I did it because life is SHORT, and now that I'm in my 40s, there's way less Future ahead to do all the stuff I want to do. Have been pretty lucky with it and also not to have a husband/ kids so have avoided the angst that others have.
“ I just realised that I didn't want to devote any more energy to a legal 'career'”
God yes, this. I am utterly done with it.
I absolutely have full energy for something else tho. I’d like to get into hard tech. Not frothy consumer internet / app guff, writing front end code a toddler could do. I mean hard engineering, building routines that solve NP-hard optimisation problems of meaning in the real world.
I echo the sentiments on this board (although I'm 37, I bought a motorbike a long time ago!)
Covid has taken away the pleasures of life - no holidays, no social interaction so more and more thoughts are along the lines of "there must be something better than this". To be honest once holidays are a thing again I'm hoping the feelings will fade but I have been seriously considering and starting to plan taking a year sabbatical (or quitting if they won't let me) in 3/4 years and travelling for a year. A gap yah in your early 40's is acceptable right?
continuing the mlc theme, I packed in law for good @ 45, learned some new things and for the last 8 years have worked somewhere between 2 and 11 months a year on seabird or shorebird conservation projects. as sizz says, this is a lot easier without kids, and with a wife who is committed to her work and doesn’t mind me being away for a few months at a time
I relate to many stories on this thread - weird it seems to be such a male phenomenon. My theory is because women tend to get more of more of a sense of life’s worth from their children. Men do too of course but perhaps for the average man, not to the same extent.
It's like what 'ronters said above: it seems more men want, or feel the pressure to, leave behind a legacy beyond the genetic e.g child having and rearing (even though doing that properly is a massive task) and as they start feeling their age, or seeing the young guns come up from behind, there's MLC anxiety. Also agree with what TC said about women have 2/3 life crises after the kids are grown, though from what I've seen those seem to be directed at nebulous emotional fulfilment rather than legacy-driven.
Funny but I've never even felt the need to leave a genetic legacy. Would be nice to leave something to my godson and little cousins but really not bothered by the fact that very few people will be aware I even existed once I'm gone.
Early 30s I had to buy a new car and was about to make a sensible choice when a friend (who later would have his own spectacular MLC) persuaded me to get a sporty hot-hatch instead.
Didn't take much persuasion and still have the car (although slightly falling apart now) but very nearly bought a bright red one with cream leather interior and red monograms on the upholstery.
Torontochick’s cod theory is interesting. I see elements of it.
I don't think my sense of obligation to achieve pr leave a mark comes from my gender as such (though the indirect effects of societal norms are no doubt in play). It is not because I am male that i feel i have to have ‘More Impact’.
It is because I have long had a real issue with the shortness of a life and thus its purpose. As a younger man that drove me to prove, reprove and overproove, as if to demonstrate to anyone passing by and idly enquiring* as to how I was doing that i was absolutely not wasting my talents and demonstrating achievement. i basically pleased people and overdelivered against challenge. The challenge was work, self belief (are you good enough), pressure from earlier life, those around me who I admired and achieved much.
Eventually this all ends up in a heap of overstretch in areas and neglect in others. When balance is lost and successes mean nothing because there is failure elsewhere, then the question asks itself: ‘what then is success?’. You become aware that a redefinition is required. Balance and purpose themselves have greater value. Perhaps even not leading, not pushing, stepping back and enabling others.
I think this is called ‘growing up’. Some never do, some are blessed with balance from the start. The rest of us have to learn to get this right and keep figuring out how not to let it get out of balance again.
*passers by are really our conscience, our peers and parents, our elders, authority and, for some, gods and religious leaders.
I don't think I had a midlife crisis. More of a breakdown, felt I was going insane, drinking too much etc etc. I had to take time out and looking back now it's really interesting to see who supported me and who failed to. Mutters - sounds like you went through a very hard time but came out shining through the other side. Do you still drink?
Thankfully I avoided the Muttley issue but have seen a number of friends endure careers that they detest to make some point. I nearly went down that path but realised I would be similarly miserable and I've done enough over the years to know that I could really succeed at a couple of things if I wanted to and the knowledge alone is enough to feel successful. I've found a balance that means I'm happy and feel sufficiently fulfilled.
It feels like the potential of my life has now converted to actual and it turns out I'm not the person I thought I would be, not even a shadow of him. I also feel like I'm no good at my job which makes the whole thing much worse. And I have literally no idea what I should be doing - MLC wise or job wise to change things. I've recently started thinking I should quit but I don't know who would hire me . I'm not convinced my current employer would hire me back and I don't know if I think that because I have good grounds or because my view of my self is just that low. (I think the truth is a bit of both.)
I think one point that really helps in all this is to try and wean oneself off the notion of "working towards".
I have spent most of my career "working towards" and it is going to be over within a decade. I will have been working towards it ending. How absurd. That just increases the sense of "there had better be a result here" and you measure contentment by achievement and this creates the issues addressed above.
Everyone spouts on about living for now, being in the moment, mindfulness (gah I hate that nonword) and we all know this. But I will conceded that the most inwardly content I have been and the most enjoyable to live with or work with has been when I have dropped the anxiety of where the road is going and recognised that just being on the road is the thing. The least enjoyable state has been when I craved recognition (by others and within myself) by chalking up achievements.
If you manage to feed the kids and are interested by what you do then you are winning at life. Goals are important at times but they must not define us. Otherwise it all passes in a blur of effort based on an aspiration which inevitably makes the present sub-optimal as the goal is a perceived improvement.
In my experience the worst day of all is when the goal is achieved. Odd comment, maybe. But hear me out. You drop off a cliff of adrenalin and hard labour, you high-five yourself for a nanosecond and block out the nagging "was that worth it?" conscience, then the voice says "ok so if you won't play my game I will play yours: so what is the next challenge then?" and you realise you are, through achievement, discontented and uncertain until you define a new goal and battle at achieving that. This is an addiction to a process that inevitably denies the value of the present and guarantees a melancholic view of life.
Mistee yes I do and I probably haven't quite sorted that bit of my recreational self out. It is all a WIP not a "fix". But at least I am not doing adrenalin sports (stupid bike racing, skydiving, bobsled, formula Ford racing etc) quite so much and so loudly or getting stopped by the Police as much or putting people in danger by being an arse.
I think I'm also tremendously saddened by the start that I had in life. It took my until my thirties to even wake up to the fact that I had a difficult start. I'd imagined it was normal - and the bits that were obviously 'not normal' (a decade of child abuse) I assumed had no impact on me at all.
I lacked really basic social and thinking skills that lots of people just take for granted and I managed to drift through life, struggling a lot but not really know why things were so difficult. Now I have a bunch of those skills after grafted for about a decade and I see how bl**dy unfair things were for me and I'm filled with regret and anger at all those lost years.
I think this will be very common in lawyers. After all, we are a body of people who had, from an early stage in life, pressure (from parents and / or from ourselves) to do well academically and then reach for goals, achieve them and reach for another. GCSEs, As, University, Bar qualification, pupillage, tenancy, and then every day is an exam before the Judge, and then there is your performance and development in the eyes of senior members of chambers, then the Silk question and so on. The Dementors. Real mental liberty comes from the ability to detach from that line of thought. This is why the delusionally self-regarding arrogant bastards find it all so easy to get on and the ones who really care and one would regard as human find it all so difficult.
I don't know how many of the above posters are lawyers, a fair few I'd guess but do you think this is more common in our profession than others? I certainly think law never ends up the career you were quite thinking but perhaps that is just me. I certainly know a few lawyers who have either had MLC's or breakdowns.
Definitely Mutts last paragraph. I always knew that racing a boat round the world was something I could do but I spent years dreaming about winning that race and when I did that there was a weekend of euphoria followed by standing in a marina car park saying goodbye to my crew for the last time and being hit by the realisation that it was back to normal life having achieved my wildest dreams before I was 30. However, it also made me realise that I could do anything I put my mind to and no longer needed the badge of being a City law firm partner or similar to show what I could do.
Maybe it's a bit callous to say so, but I feel I've been quite lucky to have lost my parents when I was young, as I have absolutely no parental pressure/expectation to deal with. I also have no desire whatsoever to leave any legacy (genetic or otherwise--I think I would genuinely despise anyone who inherits my genes). The sad thing is that despite all the absence of obligations and objective constraints, which should enable me to feel free to pursue whatever I want, I just end up stuck in a paper-pushing job pursuing a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. I tell myself that any day now, I'll just quit and do X, Y and Z, and when the money runs out, hey there's always Dignitas. I guess in a way I am hoping that MLC would kick in so I finally get off my butt and do the things I should be free to pursue.
Mutters - you can't fix everything eh! :) Curious though as to how you went from being an alcoholic, high functioning or otherwise to someone who just drinks. Do you have to withhold yourself at times to avoid falling into that path again? Funny, I've never met any of you but I'm sure we all come across IRL as being so together and having it all etc, you never know what's going on in someone's life do you.
Definitely yes, although it was more the slow, air going out of a tyre, burnout, stress and depression rather than the floridly colourful nuking of one’s personal life.
But am a happier and better person now. And with the right help, a realignment of life and personal values with professional and family roles can be very timely and healthy.
I have not spoken honestly and openly about all this to many people. Previously the fear of perceived vulnerability and admitted fallibility would have driven the denial instinct. But the facts would remain on my mind, heavier because unshared. The memory would rattle around like a stone in the shoe.
The perceived vulnerability is an interesting point because I actually perceive you as stronger for having been through this and emerged the other side and being able to talk about it.
@ mistee - one of the tricks is to stop judging oneself so harshly
@muttley - I went to a sperm donor clinic and the nurse asked me if I wanted to masturbate in the cup. I said I was really very good, but not sure I’m ready for professional competition yet.
Kudos to the Mutt Dog for putting this all out there. I think we sometimes create little myths of ourselves for public consumption without stopping to think, as we build those myths, what damage that can cause.
I think it was around the same time as Mutts' dive into difficulty that i was suffering from really awful anxiety disorder. Panic attacks, feelings of imminent doom, unable to think about leaving the house some days, knowing that the next time i was on my feet in Court there would be the prospect of it all coming tumbling down and in a very public forum. It was a critical mass point. I remember thinking that i was going to have to get a fvcking grip or all the things i wanted in life would be so much harder to have; good relationship, happiness, career progression to silk etc.
I have recognised that i am the queen of pushing it though. I think there is much back there in the past that has caused this in me. Fat kid at school so not good enough, missed out on a particular grade in one A level so not good enough, didn't get the degree i wanted so not good enough, didn't get tenancy in chambers so not good enough, diagnosed with MS so somehow that also made me feel i was not good enough.
All it served to do was drive and drive and drive me on. Sometimes that has made me very happy and has brought with it achievements i am super proud of. I drove myself on until i got silk and had that euphoria when it happened for a few months until i started thinking "but what if i am not good enough" "what happens if NOW is when i am found out" and "but what now?"
I have done quite a bit of thinking on this recently having gone through several months of one of my first trials in silk. I AM good enough. I am fine. And i have enough perspective on it all to know that i think i am good now, I'm done. I have been asked "but why not apply to sit" "become a judge" and the old me would have said yes drive on. But i think i have reached that stage Mutters spoke about up there ^^^ where you finally think "you know what, i am adult enough as i am" and am enjoying what i have achieved. I guess i could say i have peaked and think of that as a negative thing but it feels like it is all good right now and i need some space to breathe and just do me for a bit.
Good insights on here. This is the nice part of RoF i remember.
No, I didn't say I was an alcoholic. I said I had a patch where I drank a lot as part of a very strained period. I think this bit was the confusion:
"you know the term ‘high functioning alcoholic’ - something used by people who want to distinguish their alcoholism from the mere boozehound to show they still have high performance skilz? In truth they are just alcoholics. well in was a high performing w**ker"
Not sure that is very tortuous. I was just saying I was a w**ker.
There is definitely a point in their 30's and 40's where most people seem to finally come to terms with life and realise there's more to it than trying to do "what's expected of you". I slowly realised that what I though were my parents' expectations of what I'd do in life were in fact assumptions I'd made and not really what my parents thought at all and the reality is they're happy if I'm happy with where I am and what I'm doing.
I have one friend who lives abroad who I don't see very often and for a while on the rare occasions I saw him he'd go on about how amazing his business is and how much he was earning until I pointed out that I knew him as a penniless student and like him for being him and I'm happy that he's doing well but all that stuff makes no difference to how I see him and why he's my friend. He then calmed down and went back to by and large being his old self although we may still call jokingly him Vice President of the Galaxy if he slips into telling us how important he is.
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Giving up work and racing boats round the world for a year in my late 20's. It was more of an early life crisis.
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Yeh, early-mid 30s. Moved to London, bought an impractical car, dumped my fiancee, had a lot of random sex, got drunk most nights.
Never been happier tbh.
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same as sails, but at 31, this also involved leaving my then wife and then girlfriend
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Were these two different individuals?
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Yes. I was a mess in my late 20s tbf tbf.
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wow lots of people having mid life crises in their early 30s
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I'm in at least the 20th year of mine. It has coincided with working as a lawyer.
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Any regrets?
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I had one put upon me in the form of a bad bad breakup and associated fallout mess
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yup.
Rising pressure then a board meeting at which the board started pointing fingers and I came away and sent a very inflammatory, hot-headed email to the GC that really was the biggest fooking missile ever sent and to all intents and purposes was a whistleblow. i went from hero to zero in the course of a few hasty emails, then we all agreed it was basically a resignation with a menacing claim which i agreed to compromise and took six months off, nearly got divorced, lost my mojo, drove cars and motorbikes too fast, developed a very intense relationship with alcohol and a poor one with the truth, became defensive and fully shell shocked and not as funny as I used to be.
More of a breakdown really
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Definitely one of those sliding doors moments, mutters, only with less opportunity to have sex with gwyneth Paltrow and/or John Hannah
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A bit on the nose for ROF but I have been starting to think that I need a Porsche.
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I was actually wondering if I was in the middle of one the other day:
- not sure whether I want to keep doing what I'm doing (inhouse TMT) but equally not sure what I'd want to do instead. Don't hate it but don't think I've learnt that much the last two years (and what I have learnt hasn't interested me much)
- continually worried about what the future holds: at best (on current trajectory) this could be a safe and worry-free passage into late middle age and retirement (but where's the excitement/adventure in that?); the worst case scenario is that I make a wrong move in a bid to shake up my career or worse still the clusterfeck of crises (global warming, political extremism) I fear is looming finally materialises
- at mid-forties, I have everything I ever realistically wanted: a good marriage, kids, financial stability plus memories of younger wilder days to look back. But I still feel listless and also losing confidence.
However, I think Covid (100% wfh, restrictions on seeing family and friends etc) is probably amplifying this massively
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@Muttley - sorry to hear that. How long ago was it? I know I'm straying into Psychologies magazine territory by asking this, but do you think it ultimately made you stronger?
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Crowley - either would have been better than I was getting at the time.
I confess that I have considered on occasions what sex with G Paltrow would be like. First I should like to say that the name Gwynneth is deeply unsexy. It is like being called Heifer, Gibbet, Udders or Clump. Just ugly words. But i cant deny she has a pretty face. That said, she has a fannoir that smells like a candle or soap or the other way round and she has been Cold Played.
For me it is the last point that absolutely nails it. Hannah over Udders, and that’s my final answer.
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PlasticFantastic04 May 21 20:15
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@Muttley - sorry to hear that. How long ago was it? I know I'm straying into Psychologies magazine territory by asking this, but do you think it ultimately made you stronger?
well now ... careful what you ask...
’It’, being events described above, made me a melted Snickers in the glove pocket of the slightly shitey rental car (Toyota Corolla or similar*) that was my life at the time.
But ‘it’ being life ahead... well i guess it made me more self aware, resilient and circumspect, a heck of a lot less cocksure and more inclined to support people on the journey who needed support, and totally less of a competitively anxious bastard than i was for the decade or two before.
I grew up. I learned a lot. I developed confidence in the value of softer measures of the quality of people’s input. I grew to be embarrassed at the extent to which i had drunk and force-fed the Cool Aid. But them’s the prevailing rules, and we learn. If we dont learn we are dead or walking dead.
i had an executive coach as part of the long goodbye. She worked like a physio on the painful muscle. Her jabs hurt and helped.
Well you did ask.
*that was a cracking RoF handle of years passim
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Btw - do not be sorry. There is more joy in Heaven at one sinner that repenteth etc
And when? 2014-15. Three to five years to feel even keel about things after all that.
I often wonder how people manage without this shift. how do you move from adult to experienced adult? I spent so long with the nagging subconscious thought ‘there must be more to life than others’ imposed goals smashed over their heads’ then one day boom, it turned out there was. Now I feel in good company with mature adults.
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Final post on this.
you know the term ‘high functioning alcoholic’ - something used by people who want to distinguish their alcoholism from the mere boozehound to show they still have high performance skilz? In truth they are just alcoholics.
well in was a high performing w**ker
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I not in
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Bon effort, friend
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preferred you when you were funny....
more seriously I admire your manner and ways, you are a good man I think
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Interesting thread, this.
Bit of a random thought, but I used to agonise about life decisions made in the past, particularly things like decisions not to break up with my girlfriend (now wife) when I met women who I got on with better or fancied more and who I was pretty sure were interested in me.
But after having kids I pretty much stopped having those thoughts, because my kids literally wouldn't exist if I had made any of those decisions differently.
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Merkz reminds me of a few of my competitors in that race and at least one of my shipmates.
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Mutters, once we can, we really should meet for lunch and/or dinner once more?
To my shame, in my mid-40s I had a pretty full-on affair.
Very foolish and really far too close to home. Had it gone wrong, it would have been a spectacular explosion.
I didn’t think that through at all at the time. Not the cleverest thing I have ever done..
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Rog
would prefer that on the old grave stone than ‘hilarious khunt i cannot trust’. I courted the latter unwittingly.
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Indeed Jorrocks
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Absolutely SS. It’s comforting and humbling to read in equal measures sometimes.
thamks for sharing mutts.
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I had mine much later around 37/38. It was, to put a spin on it, a mistake.
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I packed it all in (lucrative role), moved overseas and just took some time out, just chilling out and doing random stuff.
I had been overworked (relentless clients, little or no internal support, except for increased billing and client targets) and was seriously knackered and burnt out after 5 years of really serious pressure. Best thing I did or they may well have carried me out in a box.
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mine is splurging 400 on new cricket gear - recentl got back into it after a long hiatus
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Good on you JP1997
I am thinking of spending on a new bat. To do so will be a bit mad. But joyful.
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What's interesting is that people can reach their MLCs from different directions.
People who know me might say otherwise, but I feel like I've lived my life so far in a mild-mannered and unobtrusive way but I don't see a sports car or affair on the horizon. The change in myself that I am seeing is that I'm getting angrier with the world and I can veer way too easily into a rant about corruption, greed, short term-thinking climate vandalism and all that boring stuff. I don't think there's any danger of me becoming Michael Douglas in Falling Down; more a mundane transition into a even more boring and bitter version of, I dunno, Ken Barlow.
As a point of contrast, my dad had the classic MLC (left my mum for his sec) and left a bit of carnage in his wake and I was always determined not to do that. However I now realise it doesn't define him: he's still the interesting, funny and kind bloke that he always was and that people want to spend time with.
So, as Muttley aludes to (I think!), perhaps an eventful MLC that re-calibrates your life isn't the bad thing it's made out to be (and it might actually be a better than a safe-but-slow slide into greyness)...
Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts. This is so relevant to what I've mulling over these last few days
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Did anyone stuff a few toblerones in and drive to Dundee without shoes?
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God love AP...
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So, as Muttley aludes to (I think!), perhaps an eventful MLC that re-calibrates your life isn't the bad thing it's made out to be (and it might actually be a better than a safe-but-slow slide into greyness)...
yup, can be a positive but still very painful
the issue is really about whether you let it get out of whack so much that a rupturing shift change is necessary to correct the imbalance. If you are unnaturally well adjusted through all stages of life then no mid life crisis is required.
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I suppose I had the classic mid 40's is this it period. Then you just make peace with what you'll never do or achieve or be and start to appreciate what you have.
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46-7 for me
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There's a question here isn't there.
If you don't have the classic sports car buying and running off with the secretary mlc, is that better or worse?
Downside, you end up in a rented studio and your kids hate you. Alternative downside, you go to your grave still sad about what might have been.
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Best to try and learn by observation not error - almost the impossible challenge for most
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My plan is to consider this something that happens to people much older than me until I am way past midlife and have thus dodged the bullet.
Not sure it is working. Recurring thoughts about suspiciously ambitious career changes lately.
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all washed up's bit about making peace seems pretty sage.
I also still feel that Covid might be amplifying this for some people (including me). Working from the spare room (day in, day out) through the cold winter months isn't really fertile ground for positive thinking.
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@plasticfantastic - I basically had that exact conversation (your first post) with a friend on Saturday.
Everything I would have wanted 10 years I now have and I had heaps of fun in my twenties and early thirties getting here, but I have been feeling completely directionless and a bit "is this just a cruise to being old now?" and disillusioned with things (Covid, Brexit etc etc)
Am hoping to take a few months off next year to take a long haul trip with the LO, get some Mojo back, but not sure that will happen with COVID.
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This thread has been very cathartic. Took a bit of post-delete-post behaviour to get it down. I am glad I did so.
I have not spoken honestly and openly about all this to many people. Previously the fear of perceived vulnerability and admitted fallibility would have driven the denial instinct. But the facts would remain on my mind, heavier because unshared. The memory would rattle around like a stone in the shoe.
But now i feel if the experience has any value then it is in the sharing. Experience clutched close in fear of revelation and never shared has no purpose other than to torment a tired mind, and no wider value to others.
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I have been feeling completely directionless and a bit "is this just a cruise to being old now?" and disillusioned with things
imagine not feeling that ... terrifying
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Covid weird live at work, retirement living but with high pressure jobs and no social interaction aside from partner / people uve grown has been hard on the soul
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Definitely amplified the little and large issues in life
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So did muttley have an affair or what?
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I hoped that going off and doing something I’d always dreamed of doing would cure the restlessness but in fact it just made it worse by making most of life feel so mundane.
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No. Never been unfaithful to anyone. Life rule from the off.
i think it is Jorrocks who made reference to that issue
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I left London when I was 40. I was bored. And frustrated with the general negativity: ‘It won’t work’, ‘We’ve tried that before’, ‘No, I can’t change anything’. Couldn’t see anything that I wanted to do.
Started afresh in Hong Kong. It was high risk. I had visited twice. Delfette once, and that was after we had committed to move. We had one friend there.
We landed at Kai Tak with four children, no school places, and a hotel booking for a month. It was madness, but it turned out ok. I guess we always had some sort of option to go back to the U.K.
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Jorrock’s post was notable for not expressing any regret, and am curious as to whether he does regret it now (you are separated from said wife, no?)
mutters sounds like an incredibly intense time, well done for coming through it and mellowing with age, even at the cost of your prior comic heights.
I have a cod theory that men are more prone to MLCs and/or these bouts of feeling they should be having More Impact as women are socialised to have lower expectations of their life - if they’re hanging onto a job (let alone an actual career) and a reasonably well functioning marriage they seem to be reasonably happy. The crisis equivalent seems to come a bit later, post menopause and post empty nest. Gross generalisation Ofc.
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What justsometwot said.
As will not surprise the regulars, I've been having a MLC since the day I accepted a training contract.
In the round, I've actually played it quite well from an objective perspective, having paid off the mortgage, met my wife and had a family etc, and am now quite well placed to do something else altogether.
It will probably be something quite midlifecrisisey however, like joining (or starting) a tech startup and coding all night for de facto minimum wage.
As for more conventional mid life crisis stuff like learning guitar at 45 or buying a motorbike, TBH, this stuff is good and healthy and to be encouraged. Stay young and stay fun.
(The thing men need to understand about our sex is this - the stuff we think is cool as boys, we always think is cool. For ever. I don't know if women "mature" in terms of their interests, but men don't. When I was a 14yo boy, the things I thought were coolest were indie music, computers and gadgets, and football. Those are still the things I think are coolest, and always will be. The good thing about reaching mid life is you stop worrying so much and admit, to yourself and others, that your main ambition in life is to build a really massive model railway in the loft.)
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MUTTLEY re your 19:22
Any hot throwaway sex with unsuitable trashy women half your age? I hope so m88, I really hope so.
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o i c you answered my Q further down
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I'm into my 7th year of my MLC. I just realised that I didn't want to devote any more energy to a legal 'career'. My boss had nominated me for a senior role, and in the first round of interviews while they were going through the various and real disaster scenarios for our industry, I just thought, meh you can't pay me enough to deal with the sleepless nights and anxiety this will bring, and pulled out of the running. Boss was deeply unimpressed.
I'd also spent the previous couple of years trying out new hobbies and wanted more time to do them, and also to have a stint overseas. So for the next several months I put in place life adminny type stuff to let me be funemployed bum for a while and not have to go back to traditional lawyering, then quit.
Glad I did it because life is SHORT, and now that I'm in my 40s, there's way less Future ahead to do all the stuff I want to do. Have been pretty lucky with it and also not to have a husband/ kids so have avoided the angst that others have.
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“ I just realised that I didn't want to devote any more energy to a legal 'career'”
God yes, this. I am utterly done with it.
I absolutely have full energy for something else tho. I’d like to get into hard tech. Not frothy consumer internet / app guff, writing front end code a toddler could do. I mean hard engineering, building routines that solve NP-hard optimisation problems of meaning in the real world.
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Do it Laz. Or at least, have a crack. It's later than we think.
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I echo the sentiments on this board (although I'm 37, I bought a motorbike a long time ago!)
Covid has taken away the pleasures of life - no holidays, no social interaction so more and more thoughts are along the lines of "there must be something better than this". To be honest once holidays are a thing again I'm hoping the feelings will fade but I have been seriously considering and starting to plan taking a year sabbatical (or quitting if they won't let me) in 3/4 years and travelling for a year. A gap yah in your early 40's is acceptable right?
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Merkz reminds me of a few of my competitors in that race and at least one of my shipmates.
————-
our boat had 3 divorces and the two couples who met onboard are still together
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continuing the mlc theme, I packed in law for good @ 45, learned some new things and for the last 8 years have worked somewhere between 2 and 11 months a year on seabird or shorebird conservation projects. as sizz says, this is a lot easier without kids, and with a wife who is committed to her work and doesn’t mind me being away for a few months at a time
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I relate to many stories on this thread - weird it seems to be such a male phenomenon. My theory is because women tend to get more of more of a sense of life’s worth from their children. Men do too of course but perhaps for the average man, not to the same extent.
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Female friendships are quite different too, not just thinking buddies.
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Heh, chinning buddies I meant.
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Lechuck I’ve had a number of gap years and recommend once at least once a decade.
Weirdly COVID has led me to a life I rather enjoy and I like the changes it has forced on others that work to my benefit.
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Gross generalisation following:
It's like what 'ronters said above: it seems more men want, or feel the pressure to, leave behind a legacy beyond the genetic e.g child having and rearing (even though doing that properly is a massive task) and as they start feeling their age, or seeing the young guns come up from behind, there's MLC anxiety. Also agree with what TC said about women have 2/3 life crises after the kids are grown, though from what I've seen those seem to be directed at nebulous emotional fulfilment rather than legacy-driven.
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Really interesting thread. Thanks for sharing gang
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Mutters there is a fabulous cricket shop in leather head. Worth a drive one Saturday. Got my bat there.
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Not really. It helped having very low expectations and no plan.
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Funny but I've never even felt the need to leave a genetic legacy. Would be nice to leave something to my godson and little cousins but really not bothered by the fact that very few people will be aware I even existed once I'm gone.
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Early 30s I had to buy a new car and was about to make a sensible choice when a friend (who later would have his own spectacular MLC) persuaded me to get a sporty hot-hatch instead.
Didn't take much persuasion and still have the car (although slightly falling apart now) but very nearly bought a bright red one with cream leather interior and red monograms on the upholstery.
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Torontochick’s cod theory is interesting. I see elements of it.
I don't think my sense of obligation to achieve pr leave a mark comes from my gender as such (though the indirect effects of societal norms are no doubt in play). It is not because I am male that i feel i have to have ‘More Impact’.
It is because I have long had a real issue with the shortness of a life and thus its purpose. As a younger man that drove me to prove, reprove and overproove, as if to demonstrate to anyone passing by and idly enquiring* as to how I was doing that i was absolutely not wasting my talents and demonstrating achievement. i basically pleased people and overdelivered against challenge. The challenge was work, self belief (are you good enough), pressure from earlier life, those around me who I admired and achieved much.
Eventually this all ends up in a heap of overstretch in areas and neglect in others. When balance is lost and successes mean nothing because there is failure elsewhere, then the question asks itself: ‘what then is success?’. You become aware that a redefinition is required. Balance and purpose themselves have greater value. Perhaps even not leading, not pushing, stepping back and enabling others.
I think this is called ‘growing up’. Some never do, some are blessed with balance from the start. The rest of us have to learn to get this right and keep figuring out how not to let it get out of balance again.
*passers by are really our conscience, our peers and parents, our elders, authority and, for some, gods and religious leaders.
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I don't think I had a midlife crisis. More of a breakdown, felt I was going insane, drinking too much etc etc. I had to take time out and looking back now it's really interesting to see who supported me and who failed to. Mutters - sounds like you went through a very hard time but came out shining through the other side. Do you still drink?
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Thankfully I avoided the Muttley issue but have seen a number of friends endure careers that they detest to make some point. I nearly went down that path but realised I would be similarly miserable and I've done enough over the years to know that I could really succeed at a couple of things if I wanted to and the knowledge alone is enough to feel successful. I've found a balance that means I'm happy and feel sufficiently fulfilled.
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maybe in 5 years time it will be normal for companies to have menopause policies and the male equivalent
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I think I'm in the middle of one.
It feels like the potential of my life has now converted to actual and it turns out I'm not the person I thought I would be, not even a shadow of him. I also feel like I'm no good at my job which makes the whole thing much worse. And I have literally no idea what I should be doing - MLC wise or job wise to change things. I've recently started thinking I should quit but I don't know who would hire me . I'm not convinced my current employer would hire me back and I don't know if I think that because I have good grounds or because my view of my self is just that low. (I think the truth is a bit of both.)
:¬(
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Tangent
I think one point that really helps in all this is to try and wean oneself off the notion of "working towards".
I have spent most of my career "working towards" and it is going to be over within a decade. I will have been working towards it ending. How absurd. That just increases the sense of "there had better be a result here" and you measure contentment by achievement and this creates the issues addressed above.
Everyone spouts on about living for now, being in the moment, mindfulness (gah I hate that nonword) and we all know this. But I will conceded that the most inwardly content I have been and the most enjoyable to live with or work with has been when I have dropped the anxiety of where the road is going and recognised that just being on the road is the thing. The least enjoyable state has been when I craved recognition (by others and within myself) by chalking up achievements.
If you manage to feed the kids and are interested by what you do then you are winning at life. Goals are important at times but they must not define us. Otherwise it all passes in a blur of effort based on an aspiration which inevitably makes the present sub-optimal as the goal is a perceived improvement.
In my experience the worst day of all is when the goal is achieved. Odd comment, maybe. But hear me out. You drop off a cliff of adrenalin and hard labour, you high-five yourself for a nanosecond and block out the nagging "was that worth it?" conscience, then the voice says "ok so if you won't play my game I will play yours: so what is the next challenge then?" and you realise you are, through achievement, discontented and uncertain until you define a new goal and battle at achieving that. This is an addiction to a process that inevitably denies the value of the present and guarantees a melancholic view of life.
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Mistee yes I do and I probably haven't quite sorted that bit of my recreational self out. It is all a WIP not a "fix". But at least I am not doing adrenalin sports (stupid bike racing, skydiving, bobsled, formula Ford racing etc) quite so much and so loudly or getting stopped by the Police as much or putting people in danger by being an arse.
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Sounds like we need a Group Hug, mπs.
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I think I'm also tremendously saddened by the start that I had in life. It took my until my thirties to even wake up to the fact that I had a difficult start. I'd imagined it was normal - and the bits that were obviously 'not normal' (a decade of child abuse) I assumed had no impact on me at all.
I lacked really basic social and thinking skills that lots of people just take for granted and I managed to drift through life, struggling a lot but not really know why things were so difficult. Now I have a bunch of those skills after grafted for about a decade and I see how bl**dy unfair things were for me and I'm filled with regret and anger at all those lost years.
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"I have spent most of my career "working towards" and it is going to be over within a decade. I will have been working towards it ending. How absurd."
This sums up life. This is all of life.
You strive to find happiness and contentment. And the striving, ironically, is why these things will never be.
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I think this will be very common in lawyers. After all, we are a body of people who had, from an early stage in life, pressure (from parents and / or from ourselves) to do well academically and then reach for goals, achieve them and reach for another. GCSEs, As, University, Bar qualification, pupillage, tenancy, and then every day is an exam before the Judge, and then there is your performance and development in the eyes of senior members of chambers, then the Silk question and so on. The Dementors. Real mental liberty comes from the ability to detach from that line of thought. This is why the delusionally self-regarding arrogant bastards find it all so easy to get on and the ones who really care and one would regard as human find it all so difficult.
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Rhamnousia05 May 21 10:55
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"I have spent most of my career "working towards" and it is going to be over within a decade. I will have been working towards it ending. How absurd."
This sums up life. This is all of life.
You strive to find happiness and contentment. And the striving, ironically, is why these things will never be.
But Clergs, if you stay well and address this issue then the rest of life can be so much better.
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I don't know how many of the above posters are lawyers, a fair few I'd guess but do you think this is more common in our profession than others? I certainly think law never ends up the career you were quite thinking but perhaps that is just me. I certainly know a few lawyers who have either had MLC's or breakdowns.
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Definitely Mutts last paragraph. I always knew that racing a boat round the world was something I could do but I spent years dreaming about winning that race and when I did that there was a weekend of euphoria followed by standing in a marina car park saying goodbye to my crew for the last time and being hit by the realisation that it was back to normal life having achieved my wildest dreams before I was 30. However, it also made me realise that I could do anything I put my mind to and no longer needed the badge of being a City law firm partner or similar to show what I could do.
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Maybe it's a bit callous to say so, but I feel I've been quite lucky to have lost my parents when I was young, as I have absolutely no parental pressure/expectation to deal with. I also have no desire whatsoever to leave any legacy (genetic or otherwise--I think I would genuinely despise anyone who inherits my genes). The sad thing is that despite all the absence of obligations and objective constraints, which should enable me to feel free to pursue whatever I want, I just end up stuck in a paper-pushing job pursuing a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. I tell myself that any day now, I'll just quit and do X, Y and Z, and when the money runs out, hey there's always Dignitas. I guess in a way I am hoping that MLC would kick in so I finally get off my butt and do the things I should be free to pursue.
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Mutters - you can't fix everything eh! :) Curious though as to how you went from being an alcoholic, high functioning or otherwise to someone who just drinks. Do you have to withhold yourself at times to avoid falling into that path again? Funny, I've never met any of you but I'm sure we all come across IRL as being so together and having it all etc, you never know what's going on in someone's life do you.
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Can it, muttley? It just seems an exercise in marking time.
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I think a lot of you just take "the law" and your "status" much too seriously
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I don't think muttley meant he was an alcoholic. Not clear, some of the analogies he uses are torturous.
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Definitely yes, although it was more the slow, air going out of a tyre, burnout, stress and depression rather than the floridly colourful nuking of one’s personal life.
But am a happier and better person now. And with the right help, a realignment of life and personal values with professional and family roles can be very timely and healthy.
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The perceived vulnerability is an interesting point because I actually perceive you as stronger for having been through this and emerged the other side and being able to talk about it.
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@ mistee - one of the tricks is to stop judging oneself so harshly
@muttley - I went to a sperm donor clinic and the nurse asked me if I wanted to masturbate in the cup. I said I was really very good, but not sure I’m ready for professional competition yet.
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I guess you only have a mid life crisis if you feel you haven't had enough fun in your 20s and 30s? Not the case for me so in no danger of having one.
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LA I had PLENTY of fun in my 20's and 30's. Maybe a MLC is different but I had a breakdown at 40.
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Mutters is absolutely smashing this thread. I feel like I'm in the presence of some super wise, Yoda/Gandalf/Mr Miyagi figure when he posts
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Kudos to the Mutt Dog for putting this all out there. I think we sometimes create little myths of ourselves for public consumption without stopping to think, as we build those myths, what damage that can cause.
I think it was around the same time as Mutts' dive into difficulty that i was suffering from really awful anxiety disorder. Panic attacks, feelings of imminent doom, unable to think about leaving the house some days, knowing that the next time i was on my feet in Court there would be the prospect of it all coming tumbling down and in a very public forum. It was a critical mass point. I remember thinking that i was going to have to get a fvcking grip or all the things i wanted in life would be so much harder to have; good relationship, happiness, career progression to silk etc.
I have recognised that i am the queen of pushing it though. I think there is much back there in the past that has caused this in me. Fat kid at school so not good enough, missed out on a particular grade in one A level so not good enough, didn't get the degree i wanted so not good enough, didn't get tenancy in chambers so not good enough, diagnosed with MS so somehow that also made me feel i was not good enough.
All it served to do was drive and drive and drive me on. Sometimes that has made me very happy and has brought with it achievements i am super proud of. I drove myself on until i got silk and had that euphoria when it happened for a few months until i started thinking "but what if i am not good enough" "what happens if NOW is when i am found out" and "but what now?"
I have done quite a bit of thinking on this recently having gone through several months of one of my first trials in silk. I AM good enough. I am fine. And i have enough perspective on it all to know that i think i am good now, I'm done. I have been asked "but why not apply to sit" "become a judge" and the old me would have said yes drive on. But i think i have reached that stage Mutters spoke about up there ^^^ where you finally think "you know what, i am adult enough as i am" and am enjoying what i have achieved. I guess i could say i have peaked and think of that as a negative thing but it feels like it is all good right now and i need some space to breathe and just do me for a bit.
Good insights on here. This is the nice part of RoF i remember.
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Following on from DAve_Clifton's post i think we should henceforth refer to the Mutt Dog as Gand-oda-yagi. For he is wise!
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Mistee - Linda
No, I didn't say I was an alcoholic. I said I had a patch where I drank a lot as part of a very strained period. I think this bit was the confusion:
"you know the term ‘high functioning alcoholic’ - something used by people who want to distinguish their alcoholism from the mere boozehound to show they still have high performance skilz? In truth they are just alcoholics. well in was a high performing w**ker"
Not sure that is very tortuous. I was just saying I was a w**ker.
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And you said it beautifully might i add.
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There is definitely a point in their 30's and 40's where most people seem to finally come to terms with life and realise there's more to it than trying to do "what's expected of you". I slowly realised that what I though were my parents' expectations of what I'd do in life were in fact assumptions I'd made and not really what my parents thought at all and the reality is they're happy if I'm happy with where I am and what I'm doing.
I have one friend who lives abroad who I don't see very often and for a while on the rare occasions I saw him he'd go on about how amazing his business is and how much he was earning until I pointed out that I knew him as a penniless student and like him for being him and I'm happy that he's doing well but all that stuff makes no difference to how I see him and why he's my friend. He then calmed down and went back to by and large being his old self although we may still call jokingly him Vice President of the Galaxy if he slips into telling us how important he is.
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