my twenties , young and full of answers , I wondered why people left their families or their careers or made rash decisions in this particular season . I thought something must be wrong with them . The truth is that I just hadn ’ t faced what they ’ d faced . I hadn ’ t been married for any length of time . I had never raised kids . I had never faced complacency or boredom in my job . I had never faced the death of a loved one . I had never faced feeling unknown to myself .
But then life moved forward . I found myself in the middle of life , married for nearly two decades , raising two teenagers . I also found myself ready to pivot in my work and discovered that much of what I had always believed had changed and evolved . Here in my own midlife , I ’ d be lying if I said I didn ’ t get why people have midlife crises .
Not feeling like ourselves most certainly contributes to our unhappiness at this stage of life . And if we ’ re scared to show up as the current version of ourselves — this seemingly unremarkable , unsparkly person we ’ ve become — we may pull back . We close off , we shut down , and ultimately , we get bored with our lives .
Of course , we don ’ t necessarily feel our boredom . If someone walked up to us today
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