Midlife Sadness: An “Elder Millennial” Approaches 40

I recently turned forty years old, and looking back, the last few years have been defined by a painful realization:

I greatly underestimated the sacrifice and maintenance required to sustain the life that I ambitiously built in my 20’s and early 30’s.

In my twenties, the grand vision for life included a big family and a career full of impact and changing the world. But once that idealistic vision turned into actual lived experiences — the demands of trying to be a good husband, raising four kids, making enough money to pay the bills, keeping up with appointments, activities, meals, dirty dishes, home repairs, two dogs, one cat and endless laundry — the avalanche of responsibilities was all too much.

The natural energy and ego that drove me in early adulthood had faded fast and now the day-to-day grind of life felt impossible to manage. Money was always tight and I looked with envy at friends who had way more financial margin and free time. I was stressed, frustrated and regretful over career decisions I made in my younger days.

Among the various emotions, there was one underlying feeling that persisted the most. I came to describe it as “midlife sadness.”

This sadness was strange because I hadn’t experienced a major setback or crisis. My marriage wasn’t failing, my kids were healthy, and there was no death, diagnosis or big secret revealed in the family.

People go through challenges like these all the time, and I can only imagine the grit needed to persevere through them. But for me, there was no obvious or easily explainable root cause for this baseline sadness.

AWARENESS

The feelings of melancholy surfaced when I was around 32, and at this time I started to naturally gravitate towards music with sad lyrics and movies with sad plot lines. I couldn’t get enough, and if there were scenes of people crying…even better.

Consuming this sad art was strangely validating and comforting. It’s like my subconscious was seeking it out before I even consciously realized how prevalent these feelings were in my own heart.

In 2017, I was mindlessly scrolling my phone and stumbled upon an , the lead singer of the band Coldplay. I loved Coldplay, but I wasn’t prepared for how quickly this interview would pull me in.

The conversation was centered around Coldplay’s “Ghost Stories” album, and if you’ve listened to it, you know there’s a sadness that runs through most of the tracks. Martin wrote the lyrics in the aftermath of his divorce with actress and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow.

Throughout the interview, Martin was brave and vulnerable to share his sadness with how things had turned out, admitting his own shortcomings that contributed to the end of the marriage.

Observing his vulnerability was so personally cathartic that over the next few years, I would randomly go back and watch that same hour-long interview, each time feeling oddly encouraged and connected.

I slowly started to share my sadness with those who I loved and trusted the most. My wife and a few close friends became safe havens to express these emotions, and they often resonated with similar experiences of their own.

This validation felt good. Typically personal growth starts with some kind of new awareness. But there came a moment when it was time for my initial awareness of sadness to move into a journey of acceptance — an acceptance of everything my life had become up to this point — the good, the bad and the disappointing.

ACCEPTANCE

My sadness was accompanied by a lot of other unpleasant things — anger, jealousy and regret just to name a few. Whether it was random outbursts at the kids or blaming my wife for stupid little things, these emotions would spew out in various forms, and no one, including me, felt any better afterward.

Through a lot of reflection and conversation, I came to see that many of these emotions stemmed from an underlying belief that I was the victim of my own life.

Evidence of this victim mentality could be found in the questions that often swirled around in my head:

Why didn’t my parents steer me on a better path in college, so I could have majored in something more practical and with more earning potential? (*Reality check: I would not have listened even if they tried.)

Why did my faith tradition seem to make such big, audacious promises, creating unrealistic expectations that I was going to change the world everywhere I went?

Why didn’t anyone teach me about the importance of saving money and how expensive raising kids would be?

Why did I have a personality type that was always dreaming big and idealizing about the future while neglecting the present realities right in front of me?

Whether it was my Spanish major in college that I chose because it would be “easy,” or the choice to spend the first decade of my career in Christian ministry, the “present day me” felt like he was a victim of the “naive young me” that had made all those big decisions years before.

To move forward and keep growing, I clearly had to let go of these negative thoughts. I needed to accept responsibility for all the decisions in the past that led me to this point. I needed to let go of all the blaming of others. Most importantly, I needed to accept myself and my path.

Of all the books and quotes I’ve stumbled into through my midlife sadness, the words of the famous “Serenity Prayer” by Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr have been the most meaningful:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

What resonated the most in this simple prayer was the distinction between the things in life I could change and the things I couldn’t. I couldn’t control anything in the past. It was done and there was no going back.

Though I don’t claim to understand the mind of an addict, my negativity about the past felt like a true addiction. I couldn’t help that these regretful thoughts kept popping up and leading to unhealthy cycles of shame, blame and discouragement.

So I began to embrace that this “addictive thinking” was out of my control. As these negativities would rise up, I’d acknowledge that I couldn’t control them, meet them with some compassion, and let them go. Psychologist Gay Hendricks reminds us that “the act of accepting and loving your negative thoughts, just as they are, dissolves and disappears them.”

The more I was able to practice acceptance of my past, the more I was able to be grateful for the winding road that brought me here. Slowly, bits of gratitude, hope and optimism grew.

AGENCY

The older we get, the more tempting it is to stay stuck in our existing ways of relating to ourselves and the world. We get comfortable with the stories we tell ourselves — about ourselves — even if they aren’t serving us well anymore.

As my friend and podcast co-host Drew McClure says, “I’m oddly protective of the life I say I want to change.” Despite this aversion, an essential purpose for our lives is to keep growing, changing, evolving and healing.

The Serenity prayer wisely reminds that for any positive change to happen, courage will be required. “God, grant me…the courage to change the things I can.”

For me, moving from acceptance to agency has looked like taking more ownership of my personal blind spots and weaknesses, my mistakes, and most importantly, my commitment to growth. Author Dan Sullivan describes this progression, stating that a lot of us feel like we have to be confident and capable before we can do anything great in life — but it actually all starts with commitment and courage.

Maybe it’s a job search, a desire to improve a relationship, or a financial journey to get out of debt. Whatever the circumstance or goal might be, we begin by committing to growth and showing up vulnerably and courageously. We might not have any real competence or confidence yet, but that’s okay. Over time, with each day of showing up, the efforts will begin to pay off in one way or another.

VULNERABLE RELATIONSHIPS

As I reflect back on this midlife sadness season, it has been anything but an individual journey. My wife has been with me through it all and has reflected these themes back to me through her own unique perspective and experiences.

I also can’t understate the importance of a few close, vulnerable male friendships. During the Covid 19 pandemic, two lifelong friends, Matt Reynolds, Drew McClure and I started a Sunday night zoom call to share our struggles with anxiety, career decisions and parenting issues.

These zoom calls turned into sharing daily video messages through the Marco Polo app on our phones. After a while we decided to turn on the microphone and share these vulnerable conversations through our podcast

Surprisingly, the attracted the most listens by far. Clearly many people resonated with this experience, and if you have too, definitely check out the podcast. Starting in the first episode, we embrace vulnerability and dive into a variety of midlife issues with honesty, humor and insights we’ve learned along the way.

MY NEXT 40 YEARS

Now I’ve crested the hill of turning 40, and in reflection, life is harder than I thought it would be…and that’s okay.

Back in my twenties, I thought money and finances would magically take care of themselves. In reality, I’m still trying to budget and track the onslaught of expenses that raising four kids brings.

I thought my job would always be a source of passion, love and excitement. Now, I view it first and foremost as something that can provide opportunities for my family to thrive.

Early on, I thought parenting would be like…hmm…I’m not actually sure what I thought parenting would be like.

But one thing is certain, I had no idea just how much of my personal life I was giving away when saying yes to four kids. That death of the life and freedom once known can be very painful.

However, in saying yes to kids, I received a love and purpose that grounds me and motivates me to play this game of life with more perseverance than I ever knew I had.

There’s plenty that could be critiqued about my reflection, and many details were not included because they are more personal and private. I acknowledge that my journey has been more manageable and less desperate than what many others have endured. I have a strong support system, among many other (white male) privileges.

But in sharing some of my story, I hope that it’s the simple, hard, universal truths that stick out the most. We can all start by being honest with ourselves and acknowledging our true feelings — even difficult ones like sadness or disappointment. And we can find someone, even just one person, to start sharing those honest feelings with.

Everyday, we can practice letting go and accepting the uncontrollable things in life. In this practice of acceptance, we can tap into the same spiritual well of unconditional love and courage that humans have been tapping into for thousands of years.

There’s no perfect formula, but remember these 3 A’s as a guiding path — Awareness, Acceptance, Agency.

For the next forty years, my hope is that life will include more of the serenity that comes from accepting the things I cannot change, taking courage to change the things I can, and gaining deeper wisdom along the way.

Whether you are an “elder millennial” like me or in a completely different stage of life, my hope for you is the same. Let’s keep playing this game because together we can grow and heal and more deeply enjoy this one precious life we’ve been given.

p.s. — Matt, Drew and I created a free Youtube video playlist called that elaborates on all these themes in a much deeper way. It was created specifically for men that want to keep growing but feel stuck, stagnant or overwhelmed. Would love for you to check it out.