Middle-Aged

At forty-seven, separated with three kids, the eldest soon to start university, and with a large mortgage and a high pressure job, he felt overwhelmed.

It wasn’t enough the he could suffer mild bouts of depression – a long standing condition that had at one time become serious enough to take him out of action for six months – he was also struggling beyond hope to understand himself.

Indeed, so chronic had his suffering become, so stuck in a rut, the man felt unable to move. Instead, motionless, as if frozen in ice, with more than half-an-eye fixed firmly on the past, and while life whirred by at ever increasing speeds, he did nothing.

And the desperation gave way to panic, and the sense of hopelessness become more acute, border on manic.

Was there an answer to this man’s suffering? Was is possible for him to figure things out? What did he need to do to solve life’s puzzle? Was this beyond him, and did he need to seek help?

All these questions and more flashed through the man’s frazzled mind, repeatedly, often at night, always without answers.

It has always felt easier for the man to ignore his problem. In fact, he’d become rather accomplished at ignoring things. He’d formed a container in his mind, a sheep pen of sorts but for problems not sheep, into which he could shepherd all of his more challenging problems – round them up, gradually, assiduously, cajoling them inside the pen. Once they were inside, he would close the gate to the pen and hurriedly move along, firmly fixing his gaze on simpler, less stressful matters.

And at forty-seven years old, this pen of his was overflowing, and that was becoming a problem.

Now the pen was really rather full of problems. And this also was a problem, paradoxically.

Now, of course, the man couldn’t put the overcrowded pen inside itself, that would be ridiculous, right? So the result was some old problems, ones stored away years previously, were escaping out of the pen.

So it was this troubled him. Old problems not previously dealt with, escaping from his pen, angry at being locked away and ignored for years, coming to bite him.

And no matter how hard he tried, the man couldn’t put them back into the pen, not all of them anyway. Temporarily he might get one back in, quickly opening the gate, ramming the problem back inside, slamming the gate closed again and moving on to his next problem. But the truth is he’d exceeded the capacity of the pen years ago, and now more and more of the problems spilled out, it was out of control.

And so the man required a new approach. It became clear to this middle-aged man that he’d have to tackle these problems once and for all. Solve them. Make them go away.

And while he’d lost years to his procrastinations, years during which he’d been living ignorant of his problems, years in which he could have been living a much fuller life, years he would never get back, he is luckier than most. He is lucky because he has something few people ever get: awareness.

He’s conscious of the situation. And this consciousness provides him with a unique opportunity: the opportunity to change.

Many men never become self-aware. Drifting hopelessly, forlornly, through life, they arrive at their graves in a daze, surprised to be there so soon, and, worse of all, filled with regrets. But not this man.

No, things don’t have to be that way for him. For in his knowing, he has the chance to do something, something to fix it, to make things better – much, much better.

The question for the man, the question for us all really, is what to do about it. How does a man empty his pen?

Well, it’s just a matter of hunting down each problem and finding that problem’s question and answer. They are out there – a problem, a question and an answer. The man knows this in his heart. He’s always known it. His job now is to reset his outlook on things, and to go searching.

And then everything, surely, will be better – probably. Of course, there isn’t a guarantee of this, he knows this, too.

So if he does nothing else today, a middle-aged man must start to deal with his problems, to search for the question that is the problem, and then to work out its answer, an answer.

First one problem and then, gradually, the others. He must start now and not relent until he’s found them all, until his pen is empty.

This is a man’s task. He owes it to himself and to those he love’s to do it, to start and to finish this his greatest of tasks.