Anytime is a good time for a midlife crisis

A midlife crisis isn’t necessarily bad.
After all, for every successful forty-year old male who buys a brand-new sports car to ease the effects of middle-age, one car company remains in business, employing thousands who, in turn, provide their families with basic necessities such as food, clothing, and Apple iPhones.
Thanks to moneyed male executives stricken with midlife crises, many people are able to use, own, and show off their iPhones to their poor, socially-inferior, iPhone-deprived friends. As a result, iPhone people lead infinitely happier, more productive lives, especially compared to those stuck with their low-end, monochrome, single-band Nokias which can’t get a decent signal inside a bus during a rainy night.
Moreover, unlike teenage angst — which is usually shallow, immature, and downright tedious, just like teenagers — the eventual occurrence of a midlife crisis reflects a significant yet subtle shift in the way people view their achievements, however few and irrelevant.
Take that bronze medal for spelling that you got during the third grade.
By no means is it a cosmic indication that you were destined to become a hotshot editor-in-chief of a national newspaper.
However, the medal — and the small, temporary glory you and your parents got from it — neither cramped your style as a clerk.
After toiling behind a desk for two decades, you begin to realize that the world — including the company which pays your salary — needs paper pushers just like yourself.
Casting off all ambition to become rich and famous by refusing to marry your boss’s fat and ugly daughter, the forty-something clerk with a midlife crisis discovers a newfound drive to continue working, assiduously keeping track of invoices, vouchers, and memos before the stupid janitor throws them all away.
Having acquired a certain level of maturity about their professional and personal capabilities, individuals on the brink of a midlife crisis are generally able to take stock of their dreary, empty, and pathetic existence.
In so doing, a midlife crisis enables everyone to look back at their lofty goals when they were younger and remind themselves their dreams are still within reach only if they win the lotto.
Indeed, there’s nothing like a midlife crisis to encourage sufferers from turning into replicas of their parents, also known as moody old farts given to sulking whenever their children fail to drop by during the weekend.
Which is why anytime is a good time for a midlife crisis, especially for people who have yet to have them. So the question now is: why wait for middle age?
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From the Fine Print Dept. This piece was posted in a separate blog in November 2007. Picture courtesy of cartuningpoint.com.