Fr. Pavel Gumerov is known as an author of books such as, “The Small Church,” “He and She,” “The Sacrament of Communion” and “The Three Whales of Family Happiness” (awarded by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church as the best book for young people 2012). He is the author of a number of articles. Fr. Pavel regularly organizes seminars and meetings on family and moral and theological topics.
—Crisis is a very fashionable word nowadays, and now a new economic crisis has struck and some global crises are taking place in the world. And there are periods of crisis in a person’s life. What is this?
—Let’s leave the global crises alone and focus on the personal crises of each person. What are personal crises? They are certain transitions, moments that give pause. Something happens in our lives, and we have to stop and think: What have we done before, what have we come to and how we can move on And during these periods, we are given a kind of test before God, life, of ourselves. It is a test of strength, of our will to move on, of our determination. After all, a crisis is always a kind of change—a change after which it is difficult to continue living the way we lived before.
During these periods, we are given a kind of test before God, life and ourselves
—I would like to talk about “mid-life crisis.” What can we call it? For example, with the adolescent crisis, everything is more or less self-explanatory. Everything is raging inside, teenagers are growing up, they have a hormonal surge, they assert themselves, tormenting both themselves and adults. But why does the period thirty-five to forty-five years bother people? What is the reason for this concern? What happens to people during this period?
—Yes, we understand intellectually that everything in our lives seems to be normal and familiar. But it is precisely this familiarity and stability that begins to weigh us down. What usually happens to a person before middle age? Rapid building, personal development, learning everything that will be useful later in life. A lot of bright, very interesting events. He studies, acquires a profession, succeeds in it, falls in love, marries, gives birth and raises children, builds and equips his personal home. He is surrounded by friends and buddies, he enjoys life because he is young, strong and healthy. He just doesn’t have time to be discouraged and reflect. And, of course, youth is a time that is always perceived not very objectively. It is idealized, even if there were some severe trials during this period. Take war, for example. I have been invited over by my friends who served in Afghanistan many times. These soldiers, who served together, did not discuss the horrors and hardships of the war, but how they joked with each other, humorous events and pranks; they sing songs and tell army stories. Why? They were young and healthy then; they had a purpose in life, and friends nearby.
So, when a person reaches middle age, he already understands that there is, as Ecclesiastes says: A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together (Eccles. 3, 5). The time of youth and active construction has passed, it is necessary to sum up certain results: What you have done, with what baggage you came to the edge of middle age.
—A person seems to have everything by the age of thirty-five to forty-five—a family, a profession, and so on—seemingly enough to live for oneself and be happy. Why do depressive and sad thoughts appear?
—It reminds me of another passage from the same wise book: Vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? (Eccles. 1, 2). Dante’s lines also come to mind: “Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark...” The fact is that a person in this crisis feels that all the best things that happened in his life are already in the past. The most common opinion is that nothing interesting will happen anymore, all the good things remained in his youth. It reminds me of a painting by the artist V. Maximov called, “Everything is in the past,” which depicts an elderly lady sitting at her once luxurious house, looking at it sadly and remembering that once everything was wonderful, she was young and happy, and now it’s all gone. Many people in middle age have similar thoughts.
Everyone is susceptible to the midlife crisis: both successful people who have achieved great results and have made a good career, and those people who feel that they have achieved nothing
Some start a total reassessment of values: it begins to seem to them that almost everything they used to strive for is vanity. “I got the wrong education, the wrong way,” they say to themselves, or “I started a family (or “raised my children”) incorrectly,” or [married the wrong woman], or“I aspired to the wrong goals, and now it’s too late.” Moreover, everyone is susceptible to the midlife crisis—both successful people who have achieved great results and have made a good career, and those people who feel that they have achieved nothing. It’s just that the former think that they’ve been striving for the wrong thing all their lives, they had to choose the right goal (for example, not to continue their father’s business, but to become a brilliant artist or musician), while the latter begin to consider themselves complete losers; losers who have achieved nothing in life and lived it in vain.
Of course, all these thoughts are from the evil one, who wants to lower us into the abyss of sadness and despondency, to bind our will. Such a pessimistic view is very one-sided and biased. Why does a person sometimes evaluate his current life so one-sidedly? He is indeed crossing a certain vital equator. He feels not that his “whole life is ahead, hope and wait,” but that already half of it has passed, that in the near future he will meet old age. And then eternity. However, there is no reason to be discouraged. The period of maturity and middle age is beautiful in its own way, and contains many opportunities for a happy, full life; we will talk about this later. Rather, all these dark thoughts and fears are just in our heads. Therefore, the most important thing we should do in middle age is to find ourselves, our spiritual and personal growth. By the way, the realization that we have already entered the second part of life and are approaching eternity can serve as a powerful incentive for us to prepare for this eternal life.
—Are all people susceptible to the problems of middle-aged crisis? Or does it hang over some more strongly, while it does not touch others at all? What does it depend on?
—I think almost everyone, to one degree or another, experiences some kind of reflection and anxiety at this age. And that’s okay. It’s typical for young people to live without thinking about anything. And from the height of our years, it sometimes seems that we lived “excruciatingly painfully and aimlessly for years,” and this is normal. But we need to understand that a crisis is not the end of life or the collapse of everything we have been striving for before. This is a rethinking and reflection before the next stage of life.
We need to understand that a crisis is not the end of life or the collapse of everything we have been striving for before
—You mentioned the advantages and opportunities of middle age. Can we talk about this in more detail? What can we do against despondency and pessimism?
—One has more advantages and opportunities in middle age than in any other period of life. But, as it is quite rightly noted in the film, “Beware of the Car,”[1] “Man, like no other living being, likes to create additional difficulties for himself.” Sometimes we don’t appreciate what we have. And this proves once again that our midlife crisis is a personal one, it is not in external circumstances, the pros or cons of our lives—but in ourselves.
—What positive aspects do we see in the period of maturity?
—First of all, strangely enough, this is freedom. After all, a person under the age of twenty, with a ponytail, is completely unfree. He listens to his parents, does only what they say, he spends most of his time studying, and is not particularly happy about it. He keeps showing promise and getting ready for something. But this is study and preparation, and not real deeds. He’s working for the future. Until a young man gets a profession and gets back on his feet, he is almost completely dependent on his parents. The Apostle Paul also speaks about this:
Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father (Gal. 4, 1–2)
After graduating from a specialized educational institution, we begin to live an independent life, but we also prepare, master the profession, achieve success in it, create a family, build relationships with the parents of our spouse, purchase housing, raise children, and so on. For most people, all this happens before middle age, which means that in the mature period of our lives we gain independence, stability (including financial stability), professionalism, and self-confidence. We have a lot of life experience, wisdom, prudence; we have learned a lot in family life, we have the ability to understand people. The friends we have are not just friends, but loyal, time-tested comrades. Most of us have children who are already growing up, preparing to enter adulthood.
Yes, we don’t have as much strength and energy as we did when we were young, and we don’t have “our whole life ahead of us,” but we do have experience and skills, and we don’t just save them up, we apply and use them. We’ve already been through some things, and we know (unlike young people) how to do things quickly, efficiently, and without mistakes. And we also have a lot of personal time, which in our youth is spent on studying, building, or taking care of small children. This time can be spent with great benefit. You see, there are some advantages!
There is also a beautiful French proverb: “If youth only knew, if age only could.” This is precisely about middle age. We have experience, and we can still do things while we still have the strength.
To be continued…