
“I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health!”
— Voltaire
Even though the term “midlife crises” is nowhere found in the bible, nevertheless, it had existed in both sexes — even in biblical times! In my earlier book Destroying the Power of DELAY: Possessing Your Canaan, I had deliberately limited myself to addressing the midlife crisis in males only for reasons solely pertinent to the issues being discussed therein! But here, I shall avail you the instrumentality of familiarity of what transpires between both sexes when they encounter this likely turbulence in life’s flightpath!
July 3, 2013, Radhika Sanghani, a reporter for The Telegraph, a British newspaper wrote on the signs of midlife crisis. She titled her article: ‘Top 40 Signs of A Midlife Crisis Revealed.’ Here’s how she had lined up her findings. Read or pore through her list. Then, decide whether to have a laugh or become serious, just for once! According to Radhika, you are meant to be exhibiting midlife crisis signs if you could identify with just one of these at forty:
1. “Desiring a simpler life.
2. Still going to music festivals like Glastonbury.
3. Start looking up old boyfriends or girlfriends on Facebook.
4. Realize you will never be able to pay off your mortgage.
5. Joining Twitter so your bosses think you 'get' digital.
6. Excessively reminisce about your childhood.
7. Take no pleasure in your friends' successes.
8. Splashing out on an expensive bicycle.
9. Sudden desire to play an instrument.
10. Fret over thinning hair.
11. Take up a new hobby.
12. Want to make the world a better place.
13. Longingly look at old pictures of yourself.
14. Dread calls at unexpected times from your parents (fearing the worst).
15. Go to reunion tours of your favorite bands from the 70's and 80's.
16. Switch from Radio 2 to Indie stations like 6 Music.
17. Revisit holiday destinations you went to as a child.
18. Cannot envisage a time when you will be able to afford to retire.
19. Read obituaries in the newspapers with far greater interest — and always check how people die.
20. Obsessively compare your appearance with others the same age.
21. Start dyeing your hair when it goes grey.
22. Stop telling people your age.
23. Dream about being able to quit work but know that you'll just never be able to afford to.
24. Start taking vitamin pills.
25. Worry about being worse off in your retirement than your parents.
26. Want to change your friends but don't meet anyone new that you like.
27. Think about quitting your job and buying a Bed & Breakfast or a pub.
28. Flirt embarrassingly with people 20 years your junior.
29. Look up your medical symptoms on the internet.
30. Start thinking about going to church but never act on it.
31. Always note when politicians or business leaders are younger than you.
32. Contemplate having a hair transplant or plastic surgery.
33. Take out a direct debit for a charity.
34. Can't sleep because of work worries.
35. Hangovers get worse and last more than a day on occasions.
36. Constantly compare your career success with your friends.
37. Worry about a younger person taking your job.
38. Take up triathlons or another extreme sport.
39. Find that you are very easily distracted.
40. Realize that the only time you read books is when you are on holiday.”
More seriously, not everyone will experience a midlife crisis in their mid-years. It will collide with some fairly early in life as it had young David had.
David, was a product of an illicit affair between his parents. He was of mixed paternal Jewish seed of Jesse, and an un-named Moabite lady. He was the youngest of an unruly family of six older half-brothers who had outcast him from the family home. Because of God’s unfavorable pronouncement on the country of Moab — alongside five other wicked tribes for their parts in punishing Israel on exodus, en-route the desert to Canaan — no Israelite may have any marital or sexual relations with any of those nations! Product(s) of such relationships were disregarded, dis-inherited, and discounted. In other words, the society at large deemed such women and their offspring as legal misfits, miscreants, or mismatches. David had fallen short under that categorization. His family had coldly, brutally rejected him. The reality of such emotional anguish sparked by a cold rejection had triggered off the young man’s advent with crises as early as before he had reached age twelve!
An early sufferer like David apart, some conversely, incredibly enough may never experience the midlife crises. Yet, for the majority, midlife crises will reveal their narrow, oblong face somewhere around their midlife years. In other words, you may discover life slowing down somewhat when you’re forty or mid-forty-ish. If that is your experience at this season of your life, you would be happy to know that you are not alone! Millions are wearing your exact shoe-size!
Abridged for this blog from Dr. Sammy Joseph's book: 'You are Not a MISMATCH'. You may order this book at this link: https://www.harvestways.org/product-page/not-a-mismatch OR anywhere books are sold across the world!
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