I hate the term “midlife crisis” because I feel like it’s real definition is when someone loses their identity. In other words, the midlife crisis is when someone figures out that their lifestyle is ineffective.

I believe that the “midlife crisis” is a good thing when it hits early. It means that you’ve discovered your blueprint to life needs some tuning.

This crisis is actually much more common right after some sort of educational program. Teenagers with no experience making money, cooking, doing laundry, managing money, or starting a family are suddenly thrown into a world that requires all that right after high school. Just recently, making money wasn’t that big of a responsibility, but now it’s the main responsibility. It’s a sharp change in direction in the lives of these kids. The shift from getting good grades to making money and packing on that responsibility heavily. School doesn’t prepare anyone for the real world.

School is Part of the Crisis

Most children don’t know what to do when they leave school, so they just go back to it. They go to college. After going to college, they graduate with thousands of dollars in debt and now another crisis. The next step is to just go with the flow and get a job to pay off those loans and maybe buy more liabilities (house, car, etc).

This story doesn’t end so spectacular, but it’s a common pattern and the reason why so many people end up in a ton of trouble. The sad truth is that critical problem solving isn’t taught in school. Specific problem solving is. Like solving some chemistry formula or imaginary numbers. Unfortunately, problem solving in itself, is a general skill and that isn’t taught in school.

Without proper problem solving skills, children grow up resenting critical thinking and reflecting because they really don’t know how. Critical thinking is reduced to short-sighted assumptions and word of mouth information passing.

The Bottom Line

The answer is to put our ego, values and emotions aside. It’s time to reflect on our lives and what’s effective and not effective. The problem is, where does one start? Without effective problem solving, all of that good stuff isn’t really possible. There’s a formula to solve problems. It’s actually the scientific method. People rarely apply the scientific method to lifestyle design. The scientific method isn’t just for amoeba’s and lab rats, it’s the most effective say to solving a problem.

The scientific method may sound really drawn out and mechanical, but over time, when it becomes habitual, it’ll feel intuitive and very satisfying.  Learning proper problem solving is actually one of the most satisfying things in the world. There will no longer be a midlife crisis.

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