Last week I received a press release about an event at Grand Central Station in New York City.
The event was titled “Death to Midlife.”
The idea was to stage a ceremony, complete with a coffin, and symbolically bury midlife forever.
Look, I like the CEO of Hone very much. Great guy. In full transparency, I’ve used their services, have done some work with them in the past, and guested on their podcast. I’m rooting for their success.
I just think they got this one wrong, and my hope is that this does not obscure the good work they are doing for men, for men’s health, and for men in midlife.
Because men, particularly our readers (and yes, I’m talking to you guys right here), we don’t want to kill midlife. We want to maximize it.
It’s when we finally get to apply everything we’ve learned and continue to learn. We have more time. We have more money. We know ourselves better.
Particularly from 50 to 70. These should be the best years of a man’s life.
Yes, there are stereotypes.
Middle-aged men go out and buy sports cars. Kudos to you. Love it.
Middle-aged men sometimes go out and date younger women. Noted. Single, ok. Married, not ok.
Middle-aged men may also be the most happily married they’ve ever been. They can be the most career satisfied they’ve ever been. They can be in the very best shape of their lives.
They can be great fathers, colleagues, adventurers, athletes and simply great guys to be around, look up to and aspire to be like.
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You’re seeing more famous high performing middle-aged men on the covers of magazines and being featured in articles than ever before.
And even if you’re not famous, but just a halfway decent-looking middle aged guy with more than a few bucks in his pocket who’s kept himself in good shape, the last thing on earth you want to do is kill midlife.
It’s where you’re finally thriving.
It’s where you’re finally reaping the benefits of all those years of hard work. All of the hustle and grind. All of the decades of following someone else’s path but your own.
And now it’s you.
Just you.
Secure. In control. Coming into your own.
Midlife is your rite of passage.
Now, I understand the tongue-in-cheek aspect of what this event was really getting at. And by the way, I love Whitney Cummings (I binge watch classic roasts constantly).
The subtext is that we should be burying the stereotypes of midlife. We should be focused on optimizing. We should be getting younger in our biological age versus our real age. We should be taking testosterone, peptides, and GLPs and fighting to kill off aging with all our mites.
All that stuff.
But here’s the thing.
We need to stop seeing midlife as something to fear and start seeing it as something aspirational. We need to stop seeing midlife as something we want to kill and start living it for exactly what it is: The best phase of our lives.
Yes, we can optimize. But without losing perspective on what’s actually optimal.
Yes, we can acknowledge that we’re getting older. But we can be pro-aging instead of being anti-aging.
People asking you about midlife is not offensive. People telling you it needs to be killed off is.
If anything, that’s the biggest stereotype of all. That midlife is somehow bad and needs to be killed. It’s an ass-backwards way of looking at midlife and everything that we stand for here.
Because as a publication that is by midlife men, for midlife men, we’re not going to sit idly and let someone try to kill off what is the very best time of our lives and tell us that it’s anything less than that.
At Midlife Male, we’re all about putting the “life” back in midlife.
In Health,
Greg Scheinman
Founder, Midlife Male
Husband. Father. Entrepreneur. Coach.
