Recently we have been hearing of the “mid-life crisis.” Actually, this is but one of many “crises,” or critical stages of development, in life, as Erik Erikson taught us thirty years ago. (Erikson delineated eight crises; perhaps there are more.) What makes crises of these transition periods in the life cycle—that is, problematic and painful—is tha

Our abilities narrow, our worlds narrow, our lives narrow, until we are a person whose life is not full of infinite potential but, instead, is teeming with memories of things done and left undone. At forty, I am slowly coming to terms with the elementary notion that being in this world means giving up on other worlds.