Midlife crisis is often a topic of discussion. People used to put a lot of difficulties are pushed to the "midlife crisis" head. Dante in the poem "Divine Comedy" at the beginning, "travel to the middle of life, I found myself entering a dark forest, because the right path already badly understood", it is also considered to be the best description of the mid-life crisis. Dante began writing "The Divine Comedy", and indeed life line to the middle of that year, he was 35 years old.
However, the history of the theory of "midlife crisis" is not long.
In 1965, Canadian psychologist Elliot Jaques (Elliot Jaques) in the "International Journal of Psychoanalysis" published an article. In the article, including research by Mozart, Raphael, and Dante artists such as Gauguin, Jax made thereafter widely circulated theory "midlife crisis."
Jax wrote:. "In the process of personal development, there are some key stages that can sense the turning point and rapid transition of one of the most unknown and most critical stage occurs in about 35 years after I call it 'midlife crisis'. "
Writer Daniel Pink in his book, "The time management," said, in fact, the concept of a midlife crisis does not hold water, because whether it is or in real life, psychologists have found no support in the laboratory evidence of this theory.
However, the researchers actually found a middle-aged model, that is U-shaped curve.
2010, including Nobel laureate Angus Deaton (Angus Deaton) scholars did a study, "American age distribution of happiness", presenting the findings of a U-shaped: their twenties and thirties the degree of human happiness is relatively high, about 40-50 years old happiness begins to lower, after more than 55 years old, well-being increased again.
U-shaped curve of happiness show, middle-aged people will experience a mild downturn, but not a crisis of surging.
Economists David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald has studied for more than 500,000 Americans and Europeans, also found happiness in the middle stage of life of all people down there are exhibit a similar U-shaped curve.
Moreover, U-shaped curve of happiness also is not unique to humans. 2012, five scientists studied more than 500 gorillas on the one across the three countries, those gorillas ranging from infancy to adult age. It was found that gorillas mood changes with age, also showing a U-shaped curve situation. In other words, the gorilla to the middle-aged, well-being will be reduced.
This phenomenon can be called a mid-term slump, is in the middle stage of life, people are very easy to feel tired and confused. University of Houston professor Bulin Brown definition of "middle-aged" is: This is the "world Grab your shoulder and tell you, 'I can not help you, you're on your own' period." Or use the words of Dante, "the right way obscure and difficult to understand."
Is there any way to overcome this interim low tide it?
Daniel Pink tried to give five methods in the book.
The first method he called Buffett law, which is the highest priority target.
It is said that once Buffett to chat with his private pilot. The pilot apparently it in a kind of low tide, he was very depressed, I thought I could not do all the things they want.
Buffett gave him a prescription, it involves three steps. First, write down your future life in the most important 25 goals. Secondly, out of the list, and then circle the five most important, this is your best five priority issues. So, this is equivalent to a list into two lists. One is your five highest goal. The other is the rest of the 20 goals. Finally, proceed immediately to plan how to implement the five highest goal. As for the other 20 goals, before you implement the five highest goal, to look not to look at them. Only achieve five goals, it will take up much of your time.
Second, seek mid-career guidance. Most people think that, at the beginning of entering the job market, you need to seek advice and receive guidance. But when they think they have successfully started his career after, it will ignore it. In fact, if you want to better respond to slump mid-career, it would have throughout his career, have taken the initiative to seek guidance. Those who are more experienced, middle-aged can help you better cope with low tide. At the beginning we just need the guidance of someone else, in fact, the entire stage is required.
The third method is to do a thought experiment, imagine some of the good things in life he never had happened. Everyone in life has a lot of good things, such as marriage, children, promotion, met a good friend and so on. These things written down, then, to remind ourselves that, although they may very occasionally, the original may not happen, but they all really happened. This thought experiment allows you to realize that your life is much more exciting than you think.
Fourth, write a letter to his self-pity. Find yourself disappointed or regret the things, then, to write their own message, write down their feelings. Moreover, an unconditional love from your friend's point of view to write this letter. In addition to understanding and sympathy outside, again accompanied by some proposals for action, that is, what changes you can make in life, and how to improve the future.
The fifth method is to wait. Sometimes the best course of action is to do nothing. Because sometimes you like a trough of cold, even though very hard to accept, but it will pass eventually. And, as a cold cure people remember how uncomfortable at all during their own may not be the same as a cold, you will completely forget about the pain of low tide.