If I were to have a midlife crisis, I wouldn't notice.

In the "Collected Works" of Carl Jung, he says:

"Among my patients in the second half of life -- that is to say, over thirty-five -- there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a spiritual outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his spiritual outlook."

Reaching from his experience as a therapist, Jung concluded that those who have entered midlife have long cultivated their social facade and are thus ready to shed it and move on to more probing questions of identity.

Steven Cope, in his book "Yoga and the Quest for True Self" refers to Jungs characterization of a midlife crisis by saying that, "hithero repressed and hidden aspects of self may seem to overwhelm the conscious self, initating a difficult period of disorganization of the personality."

Hmmm. Sounds farmilar.

I guess my midlife crisis started after graduating high school. So what next? I can hardly believe that my middle years have only to offer more of the same. It seems entirely redundant. So I can only conclude that, if Jung is correct, that I will either have a much more profound breakdown than most, or I will skip it entirely because I have already gotten it out of the way.

It is possible that the way that psychological symptoms manifest themselves in people is different due to a differing social climate. There is what some now refer to as a "quarter life crisis" which I experienced, but not before my "transitioning to college and out of my teenage years" life crisis. But let us not forget the "high school life crisis" the "Junor high school life crisis" or the "Help. I'm stuck in elementary school life crisis". (Yeah, so I've always been a little bit of the restless & angsty type. The establishment likes to call it ADHD, but I'm more apt to think I'm allergic to boring)

Maybe our society is just broken when it comes to some of the more fundamental needs of humans. By which I mean, our priorities are out of balance and thus, people are continually surprised when meeting our goals fail to bring a sense of spiritual and psychological saiety.

Which brings me to my new theory, that everyone's problem is that we are simply stuck in our left brains and that we'd all be a lot better off if we learned to meditate or, in Jill Bolte Taylor's case, have a stroke (she's from Terre Haute, Indiana by the way).