Anxiety, Wisdom, and Midlife

Published by Laurie on Tagged Midlife, Anxiety

If you are looking for an anxiety free life, stop now. There is no such thing. Let me repeat…there is no such thing. Escaping anxiety is completely impossible. Unless you have no frontal lobe, there is no escape.

No, I am not an expert on life, but I am quite the expert on anxiety as I’m sure most of us are. And during this period known as midlife, it seems to be at its highest levels. Anxiety in midlife comes from the wisdom we have acquired. I know wisdom is supposed to be a good thing, but in this case I’m pretty sure it’s the cause of our anxiety.

Did you ever find yourself wondering How did my life end up like this? How did I get to this place? Well, wisdom is knowing exactly how we ended up here. It’s the realization of all of our past decisions, the legacy of our mistakes we made along the way before we had all this wisdom. I know that is a real stressor for me. Knowing exactly how I got here. Wishing I could undo some of my stupid mistakes in the past yet knowing that wishing won’t change things. Knowing that the only person that can change my life is me. Changing is hard. It’s always been hard, yet now at this point in our lives, seems even harder.

We can’t escape the feeling that we should be somewhat established by now. And I’m sure that some of us are. But many of us aren’t. Depending on our histories, our personalities, and what got us to where we are today, some of us are left with a sense of falling short.

We have many more things to worry about than ever before. Midlife is unique in that not only do we have to deal with our mistakes of our past, we need to worry about our impending retirement. Our life in the workforce, our ability to continue to make money is looming on the horizon. Will we be able to survive comfortably when we retire? Will we struggle with regret over our past?

We realize we have a limited amount of time to fix our mistakes, to undo or change the direction of our lives. No longer do we have that sense of having a whole life ahead of us to experiment with. We’ve already made decisions that affect our ability to take real risks. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we can’t, but for most of us, there are already responsibilities in place. Our decisions no longer affect just ourselves, but our children, our parents, our spouses. We now take into consideration how our decisions will not only affect ourselves, but how they can affect others in our lives. Our realm of possibilities seem to diminish over time as we draw more people into our lives. We always have the choice to do what we want, but with our newly acquired wisdom, we can differentiate between responsibility and irresponsibility. That wisdom is both a blessing and a burden.

These things never entered my mind in my 20’s and 30’s. Yet they are constantly on my mind now. There is a kind of resentment in the back of my mind. I think that I have earned the right to be at peace. Or at least have earned the right to have life settle down a bit. But it keeps on coming. The financial worries, the social concerns, the responsibilities just keep mounting.

So instead of wishing things were different, I have decided to do something about it. I’m trying to make changes in my life. The way I think, the way I spend money, the way I deal with anxiety. All the while trying to balance it out with my responsibilities as a primary wage earner, a parent, a daughter, and a wife.

This site is basically just a blog. I decided to use that format because I’ve developed something like adult ADD in my midlife. I can’t seem to find the time or ability to focus on a particular aspect of life for any given amount of time. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of order. A blog allows me to write entries in the same non-sensical way life comes at us. No order, just take it as it comes. I hope this site will provide useful information and provide readers with some level of comfort, knowing that we are all struggling with many of the same issues, and although we are looked to for guidance by many of the people in our lives, we too still look for guidance, understanding and purpose for ourselves.

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