Middle Adulthood, Death and Dying

Women are impressive creatures, and it makes me even prouder to be one when I read about our positive response to middle-adulthood. As mentioned in a presentation on Tuesday, we often believe growing older will be a drag, so it is, physically and emotionally. This logic applies to many areas of life, from young to old age, if we believe something will happen, we are more likely to fulfill that prophesy.

My peers often worry about the future and what it will be like to no longer be 20. They foresee a weakening mind and body and a loss of interest in the world as we will start to lose interest in it as well. I don't think it needs to be this way. In the TIMES article, "Midlife Crisis? Bring It On!", it says that women passed their forties are more inspired and seem to fall in love with a life of possibilities all over again, realizing that life still holds wonderful treasures. They believe they will stay healthier longer than men do and are more proactive by joining gyms at twice the rate. In middle-age, when kids move out of the house, women are often presented with the opportunity to re-discover themselves and re-familiarize themselves with old goals and with new ones to pursue. This article shared a lot of stories of women successfully overcoming the stereotypical mid-life crisis, coming out confident and soaring. These are the things we young people need to hear.

With both mid-life and old-age, there is such a hazy, misunderstood apprehension for all who have not reached it yet. But if I honestly ask myself what is so daunting about middle-age, I am stumped. Is it that we will be tied down? Is it that we will have experienced about half of our life? That we will probably have kids? Will it be that we won't be able to abuse our bodies the way we do now? It seems that most of these things have two sides of them and can be seen as either negative or just some of the many adventures of life!

I wouldn't say I am now looking forward to my forties, but I'm definitely not dreading them!

As I mentioned previously, I believe the same mentality can go for old age and death and dying. Most of us are afraid that when we are old we will be suffering. With this fear in mind, it is understandable that many of us distance and estrange ourselves from this population, giving the impression that if we avoid it it will be less of a reality for everyone. In the process of distancing ourselves, we diminish the importance of including elders in our social groups, dismissing their input. This harms the younger generation because we miss the opportunity to learn from people who have lengthy life experience and it hurts them because they devalue themselves as well.

How much energy are we socially spending on being fearful of those more experiences than us and what are the consequences of separating ourselves by cohort or generation? Would there be caos if we all spoke to each other as equals, expecting to learn from each other?