Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

work of Harvard economist and philosopher Amartya Sen in the 1980s, which led to the adoption of the Human Development Index by the UN Development Program. Sen urged the measurement not of commodities but of capabilities, the achievement of human potential. The Human Development Index is a crude attempt to do this, combining GDP with life expectanc

“That which is hateful unto you, do not do unto your neighbor.

Think of the days on which you have nothing to look forward to but sleep: a respite from childcare, putting out fires at work, fighting to keep your relationships alive. Don’t get me wrong, these things all matter. Their value may be final; but it is essentially ameliorative. Caught on the treadmill of what has to be done, day by day, you may not h

“What can I know?”, “What should I do?”, and “What may I hope?”34 Here the universality of the questions comes out, paradoxically, in their first-person character, as questions for anyone.

Call it the first rule for preventing a midlife crisis: you have to care about something other than yourself.

“The self may not be something, but neither is it nothing. It is simply ungraspable, unfindable.”28

Philosophers agreed that contemplation of the good life should make our own lives better.

How self-indulgent is the midlife crisis, a hardship it is a luxury to live through?

“It is convention alone which persuades me that I am simply this body bounded by a skin in space, and by birth and death in time.”