U-Curve, Roller Coaster, Adventure

  Optimistic words in the Harvard Business Review about the midlife crisis phenomenon (or mid-career crisis) from Hannes Schwandt, a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University’s Center for Health and Wellbeing.

While a mid-career crisis can be a painful time in life, it can also be an opportunity to reflect and to reevaluate personal strengths and weaknesses. Whether you choose to wait out the discontent, or make a drastic change in the hopes of a brighter tomorrow, rest assured that this too shall pass. Take heart if you find yourself in the depths of this U-shaped curve, because things can only look up from here. (Why So Many of Us Experience a Midlife Crisis – HBR)

Sound familiar? Here’s to the midlife roller coaster, an opportunity to scream with glee and crap your pants (ie. reflect); an opportunity for bellybutton-gazing and self love/flagelation (ie. reevaluation of personal strengths and weaknesses); and hopefully an opportunity to rebalance what you’re good at with what you’re passionate and/or curious about. You can call it a U-curve; I call it an adventure!