Being stuck is not a problem. It is a symptom. And working on symptoms rarely solves the problem. It may effectively mask it, for now, but the root cause remains. So, what is the root cause?

There’s a quote attributed to Jim Rohn that’s been bouncing around in my head lately:

“If you don’t design your life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”

It’s funny, or maybe it’s tragic, how easy it is to drift into living a life someone else imagined for us. It could be a parent, a spouse, a boss, a buddy, anyone. It doesn’t happen all at once. No one hands you a fully written script on your 18th birthday and says, “Here, follow this word-for-word.” It happens gradually.

I am the luckiest man in the world to have been married for more than 48 years to my wonderful wife, Moni. She has, however, the unfortunate habit of using profanity. When something doesn’t go the way she wants it to, she uses a filthy, very foul, dirty word. That word? “Should”.

Henry Ford is reported to have once said, .“Thinking is the hardest work we do, which is probably why so few engage in it” Lately, I am discovering firsthand that he is right. I had previously accepted the idea because it sounded good, and if we look around, we see all sorts of people following the crowd, accepting the status quo without giving any real consideration to other ways of thinking. (Not that either you or I would ever be guilty of that). It's just much easier to follow the crowd. It also does not require any critical thinking (or even much uncritical thinking!)

To, again, quote Ben Franklin, “Many people die at twenty-five and aren’t buried until they are seventy-five.”

I’ve used this quote in the last two newsletters. Let's try it a third time. Let me start this way.

YAWN!

I mean, do you really understand it? Most people look at work as a way to earn money so they can put a roof over their heads and food on their table. While that isn’t wrong, it is an understanding at the most simplistic level. (Just because you can add, subtract, multiply, and divide does not make you a mathematician.)

Wisdom is timeless. Regardless of when it was originally authored, it continues to speak to us even with time. Mark Twain is reported to have once said, “There are two important days in your life: the day you were born and the day you find out why.”

Two or three years ago (I wasn’t keeping track), my impending mortality came into my awareness.   We all know our bodies are going to die at some point, but most of us (including me) spend most of our lives acting as if we are going to live forever.  

For most of my adult life, I have worked in the construction industry. Perhaps like all industries involving blue-collar workers, there is an emphasis on productivity. The entire Industrial Revolution, which began in the 1800s, was about creating machines to enable people to be more productive.   This was, undeniably, a good thing. 

I subscribe to a marketing newsletter from a guy named Jason Stapleton. His daily emails are ultimately designed to get me to purchase his services, which I may do someday. But, daily, his emails intend to provide value. His email started today with this: “What would you say is the greatest sin someone could commit against themselves? Suicide, maybe? Intentionally destroying your body with a bad diet or other vices? Both would be high on my list, but not #1.

The late great scientist Richard Feynman authored a number of notable quotes in his life.  The one we are going to focus on here today is this:  “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”

All of us are living with illusions about ourselves, our relationships, everything, all the time. An important step in our growth as a human being is to acknowledge it, accept them and then start to live and act with that understanding. 

What is a midlife crisis, and how do you know if you have some of the symptoms or a full-blown affliction? Oh, and what do you do about it?

Let's be clear: I cannot hope to fully address this topic, especially the solution, in this short article. What I hope to bring to it, instead, is a perspective or way of looking at it that is different from what I have seen before. With that said…

At a recent peer group meeting, I did a presentation on the value of the members working to develop their right brain functions. They already have strong, effective left-brain functioning, but most lacked appropriate right-brain balance. This is true of most in our society today.

We all face them at all stages in our life and, what I am discovering with my peer group members is that many of these otherwise hugely successful business people are doing a lousy job of handling them.