Shifting The Focus - From Your Packaging To Your Essence

Transitioning Smoothly Into Middle Age
The phrase "midlife crisis" carries the baggage of negative connotation.



The "midlife" alludes to being poignantly poised at some center point of life. You look back to see the bubbliness of childhood, the frothiness of love and the heat of sex, the effervescence of marriage and or divorce and or children and or remarriage, the trepidation of moving through swing doors hopping from one job to another, the excitement of climbing up or down the career ladder, the thrill of having paid off the mortgage on the house or going deeper in debt... the works.



And then you look ahead to see a vast terrain of the unknown.



The "crisis" alludes to a realization that things are not the same anymore. Something is changing. The mental gears are shifting to a different level of rhythm. The body's hormones have begun secreting different juices, or stopping to secret them altogether. The stamina and the gung-ho spirit now appear to wear down, and the hither to fore wild cry has a tired edge to it. The tendency to "take it easy". What's the hurry? We'll do it tomorrow. Care for a fag?



It is when the realization hits you that your outlook towards the world is a changing, that a shift begins to happen: from "your packaging to your essence", as author Maggie Crane puts it so beautifully. Whether you were a macho hunk or a doll in your first half of life, you may have spent it focusing on the outward packaging. But then midlife is the time when you begin focusing on your essence, no not the smells, but your core being.



Try as much to escape, but reality catches up sooner or later. It is not the "looking" attractive that matters anymore, it is the "feeling" attractive that makes all the difference. Think Viagra - or its feminine version which is said to be on the way - will help? Don't delude yourself, folks; while the drug does things to your nerves and blood vessels temporarily, it doesn't help overcome the feeling of emptiness, and it gives you all those side-effects besides. Read up your PubMed!



The moment we decide that we are good and attractive the way we physically are, the moment we feel good and attractive to ourselves, is the moment we become good and attractive to the whole wide world. The next time we see ourselves in the mirror, instead of self-pitying the change in the hair color or the wrinkle or the crow's feet or the two curvy brackets enclosing the mouth, if we accept ourselves gracefully the way we have become, and begin to feel good about ourselves the way we are... is the time when true beauty emerges.



It is not the packaging... as Maggie says ... it is the essence that counts.

[For another thought-provoking article on the subject of inner beauty, click on "Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall".]