Words to Ponder Over: Brené Brown

 I came across this article from Brené Brown, written in 2018:  "The Midlife Unraveling". 

"As it turns out, I was right about one thing—to call what happens at midlife “a crisis” is bullshit. A crisis is an intense, short-lived, acute, easily identifiable, and defining event that can be controlled and managed.

Midlife is not a crisis. Midlife is an unraveling.

By definition, you can’t control or manage an unraveling. You can’t cure the midlife unraveling with control any more than the acquisitions, accomplishments, and alpha-parenting of our thirties cured our deep longing for permission to slow down and be imperfect....

 If you look at each midlife “event” as a random, stand-alone struggle, you might be lured into believing you’re only up against a small constellation of “crises.” The truth is that the midlife unraveling is a series of painful nudges strung together by low-grade anxiety and depression, quiet desperation, and an insidious loss of control. By low-grade, quiet, and insidious, I mean it’s enough to make you crazy, but seldom enough for people on the outside to validate the struggle or offer you help and respite. It’s the dangerous kind of suffering—the kind that allows you to pretend that everything is OK."

Brown's words remind me of another essay I read some time ago -- I can't remember where or what exactly -- but the gist of the essay was that we spend the first half of our life acquiring assets, and we spend the second half losing them.  All the more reason for us to show kindness and compassion to one another, especially as we get older.