IT IS TOUGH, BUT IT IS GREAT, LIFE DOES NOT END AT 40
Last week we saw the dilemma that Paritosh was facing. He has to develop an understanding of the human life cycle and his position in it. Although the mental change is slow and imperceptible, without a sense of disruption, it does have a very powerful intrapsychic influence.
There are many conditions that need to be accepted and integrated in order to achieve fulfillment:
- Money and possessions have limited intrinsic value. They are a means to an end, tools for enriching life and improving your condition. Ownership of tangible objects is temporary—sooner or later, they will be given away, lost, or left behind. The basic issue involving money should be to earn enough to:
- Cover your daily expenses
- Provide your children with the opportunity to pursue higher education
- Care for your aging parents
- Enjoy life in the present while providing for a secure old age
- Your body has to be cared for through exercise, proper diet, and prompt treatment in sickness. Thoughts and feelings about your aging body will become a dominant influence on your mental life. Your efforts should be to remain trim and fit—not to develop a sense of identity as in youth, but so you can enjoy all the pleasures of this phase only if your body supports you. It is a painful process to constantly monitor the physical changes in your body. This often leads to a conflict between the wish to deny the effects of aging and the need to accept the loss of a youthful body.
- Human relationships exist in a framework of interdependence. A proper balance has to be achieved between:
- Remaining alone with oneself and being content with it
- Requiring the sustaining presence of others You must strike a balance between your personal needs and those of others, punctuated by caring, mutuality, and letting go of control and dominance.
- Significant relationships will shift in nature and realign. Intimacy, love, and commitment are related to the mastery of the relationships most immediate to your personal experience. The focus is on maintaining intimacy despite physical, psychological, and environmental pressures, such as:
- Real and imaginary concerns about diminished sexual capacity
- Emotional withdrawal due to preoccupation with developmental tasks
- Pressures related to work, providing for dependent children, and caring for elderly parents You may need to accept the normative changes in your partner’s body and appearance while continuing to find them sexually stimulating. Healthy relationships will deepen in significance, while immature ones will break apart. The task for you, Paritosh, is to sort out, categorize, and set priorities among relationships—balancing emotional needs with realistic demands and responsibilities. True maturity comes when you redefine what you are in a relationship, mourn lost relationships, and focus on current and future ones.
Work and Purpose
Work occupies a central position in adult life. Once considered drudgery in youth, it now has extraordinary value. Beyond earning a living, work provides:
- Purpose and direction
- A meaningful way to manage time
- An environment to form sustaining relationships
You must facilitate the development of younger colleagues while fully realizing that they will sooner or later replace you and assume control of power. Instead of resisting this, you should sublimate the wish to hold down younger colleagues into guiding them with generativity.
However, work-life balance is crucial:
- If work becomes the primary source of gratification, engaging relationships may suffer.
- The best approach is to plateau movement in the workplace and embrace the transition.
As time passes, you may feel that cherished ambitions will never be realized and that younger individuals will surpass you. It might feel like your “place in the sun” is about to be over. The biggest challenge is the true acceptance of time limitations and personal mortality.
The youthful belief in immortality—driven by physical growth and an endless future—gives way to the awareness of aging, maturation of children, and the passing of parents and friends.
Embracing This Phase of Life
Despite these realities, this phase of life offers immense richness. It is a time when:
- Physical health and vigor,
- Workplace prestige and power,
- Accumulated wealth and possessions, and
- Relationships spanning three generations
…come together to provide an opportunity for a life overflowing with fulfillment.
A mature life is one where love, work, and play are successfully balanced—bringing true fulfillment. Unfortunately, these joys do not last forever. Old age lies ahead.
Although we hope for many years of mental competence and independence, physical and mental decline, increased dependence, and eventually death must be anticipated.
We often try to eliminate death from life, but true acceptance of life’s impermanence allows us to meet the end with satisfaction and peace—following a life well-lived and well-loved.
