Just happened to talk to someone about mid-life crisis. From childhood, we are conditioned to think and behave in a certain way, to have a specific world view, to cultivate a specific class of aspirations. And we study our way out of school & college under the influence of that conditioning. And we continue down that trajectory after we get independent.
However, there is always a voice within ourselves that keeps disagreeing with all this conditioning. A voice that demands something else. A voice that wants to follow a different trajectory. The trajectory itself is not known but there is a general feeling that it’s different from the current trajectory.
And then the voice gets louder and louder. It starts questioning you: ok, I did the college; ok, I did well in the job; ok, I got married and have kids; is that what it was all about? No comes the answer. Feeble initially and strong later on.
And while this voice is gaining ground and is being swept under the carpet at the same time because you don’t know how to address it, you see death. Not your death but the death of people who you’ve known closely. And you see eventuality of your own death. And at that point of time, you realize that it has to be now otherwise it’s never.
But old habits die hard…