Category: News

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When I was 40 or so, I suggested to Jackie that it might be time for my midlife crisis, and she said, “Too late! You had your midlife crisis several years ago and married me.” So, for some time now, I’ve figured that was it.

However, my current plan is to live to eleventy-one, like Bilbo. This morning I was thinking, “Hey! Maybe that means my midlife crisis comes much later! But simple arithmetic suggests that my midlife crisis should have been when I was 55 or 56. So I went back through my photo library to see what I was doing in the second half of December 2014.

Mostly it wasn’t anything of particular interest, but I did rather like this photo:

Me taking a photo inside a mirrored box, showing me from multiple angles

Doesn’t that perfectly capture a midlife crisis?

Having had my midlife crisis back then would be for the best, I guess. If I want to have a midlife crisis now, I’m going to have to plan to live to 132 or something, which doesn’t seem so likely.

(Aside: I have tags for “energy crisis” and “mortgage crisis,” but none for “midlife crisis,” even just “crisis.”)

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I’m watching a video on how chronic stress reduces your adaptation to things like exercise. It’s down on passive coping strategies, such as “seeking out alcohol, watching TV, procrastinating, talking to friends, [and] moaning about the problem.” Instead the video recommends “active coping strategies, such as “actually deal[ing] with the problem,” and recommends such things as “if you have a problem with somebody, talk to them.”

And I’m like, “Okay, that’s a big nope.”

I mean, it’s not wrong… “This is what the stress energizes you to do. So you want to take advantage of that fight-or-flight mode? Seek out what the root cause of your problem is, what it is that is giving you stress, and then tackle the problem head on.”

Except I do not want to take advantage of that fight-or-flight mode, except that I do want to flee if at all possible.

And those passive coping strategies? I’m all-in. I mean, moaning about the problem is like 90% of my whole personality.

Ashley, on the other hand, is totally down with both fight and flight responses: