02/04/2025
Tuesday morning musings. Hope you enjoy x
Carl Jung: Life Really does Begin at 40
By Thomas Oppong
Midlife is hard. But our early 40s to early 60s is not a crisis. People talk about midlife like it’s a sudden breakdown. A crisis. I think of it more like a realignment or reorientation. I am aligning with my values, core self and true north: quality time to reassess my life. I won’t call it a crisis. Because if you do it right, you will experience so much more on the “midlife” path. Something meaningful happens if you can bend midlife in your favour.
I like what psychologist and psychotherapist Carl Jung said: “Life really does begin at 40. Up until then you are just doing research.” He thought the first 40 years (the first half of life) were “preparation” period for our self-becoming. We gather data, learn about the world, and figure out who we are. But the real work — living life on our own terms— begins later.
In our youth, we absorb everything: ideas, values, beliefs. We try to make sense of life. But we don’t yet have full control over our own story. We try on different roles, exploring who we might be. It’s experimental.
We learn from failure, mistakes, and challenges. Jung calls it the “first half of life,” a process of establishing identity. Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson describes this as…
It involves big questions like “Who am I?” and “Where do I belong?” We search for stability, build careers, relationships, families. But this is not yet the whole picture. We don’t fully know what drives us, what our purpose is. We’re still laying a foundation for the “self.”
By the time we reach 40, a major shift begins.
The priorities change. This phase is what Jung calls “individuation.” Individuation means we become whole. We integrate all parts of ourselves — our hopes, dreams, fears, and wounds. It’s like combining every lesson we’ve learned so far and using it to guide our own path. We gain wisdom and clarity. We no longer seek just to fit in.
We want to fulfil our evolving selves. “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed,” Jung wrote. Studies in developmental psychology show that people over 40 experience a new depth of self-awareness. Neuroscientists find that the brain’s emotional centres become more balanced over time. We stop reacting to life.
We start acting from a place of choice.
It’s as if the mind gains a kind of freedom that wasn’t there before. In youth, we rely on the outer world for direction. We care what others think. At 40, we begin looking inward. We ask, “What do I truly want?” We become less influenced by external expectations. Life begins because we finally start living on our own terms.
Jung saw this as essential for true happiness. He believed we must confront our shadows — our hidden fears, insecurities, and suppressed desires. Only by acknowledging them do we become whole. Some might call this a “midlife crisis, “ but Jung called it a “midlife awakening.”
He saw it as a turning point.
At this stage, life shifts from doing to being. It’s no longer about proving ourselves but being ourselves. We start focusing on things that have meaning and fulfill us, rather than things that impress others. The power of this realization can’t be overstated. Until now, we accumulate knowledge, skills, and experiences.
But after 40, we use them to live authentic lives. At this stage life becomes more than just a career change or new hobby. It’s an internal transformation. We start making choices based on who we are — not who we were told to be.
Life feels more real, more our own.
Internal shifts also bring a kind of peace. Researchers find that people over 40 often report higher life satisfaction. They feel more connected, less driven by ambition and competition, and accept themselves more fully. The acceptance becomes a new freedom. By now, we know what matters to us and let go of the rest.
The “noise” of youth becomes irrelevant.
We start listening to our inner voice. Jung believed that facing midlife consciously is essential. If we avoid it, we risk becoming rigid, bitter, or resentful. Life stays shallow. But if we take on the new beginning, we grow in ways youth can never fulfill.
After 40, we start building.
We stop just “researching” life and start designing it. Every experience up until now becomes a tool. Mistakes become lessons. Failures become wisdom. Life begins at 40 because it’s the point where I can finally see the whole picture. I no longer feel like I’m just following someone else’s path.
Brené Brown, a “researcher and storyteller who’s spent two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy”, says what happens at midlife is not a crisis.
“People may call what happens at midlife ‘a crisis,’ but it’s not. It’s an unraveling — a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re ‘supposed’ to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are,” she writes in the The Gifts of Imperfection. Midlife is not a time for despair; it’s a moment of truth — your truth. Brown calls it an “unraveling, “ a time to break open.
An unraveling reveals what I thought I was “supposed” to be.
It makes me question every role, every choice, and every label I have taken on. At this point, I feel a pull — an undeniable urge — to live the life I actually want, not the life expected of me.
Philosopher Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, wrote that “the will to meaning” is the primary drive in human life. Unraveling isn’t about abandoning everything. It’s searching for a life that feels significant, even if it looks different from what I once imagined.
At midlife, we sense that these parts have been hidden for too long. Integrating who you think you should be and who you feel you should can feel be a challenge. But it’s a kind of calling from the universe to let go of the persona you have created for decades. The pressure I feel in midlife isn’t a “crisis” of losing my youth. My external self is not falling apart. I’m letting go of what’s no longer true for me.
I question things I once took for granted — success, family, career.
That process shouldn’t be a crisis.
Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson called it the stage of “generativity versus stagnation.” He said we feel a strong need for something meaningful at this stage. Midlife makes you face your own mortality. The sense of urgency pushes you to align with your true self: a clarifying process. Not a crisis. You realize you are here to live a specific life — your life, not someone else’s idea of a good life. You start to live by your own truths, not the expectations handed to you in your youth.
Existentialists like Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre believed the real freedom to live starts when you reject “bad faith” — living according to what others expect rather than what you actually believe. At midlife, you will feel the pressure to make that choice: to either conform or to live freely as yourself. The integration pushes you to confront fear. Fear of judgment, fear of failure, fear of rejection.
It’s uncomfortable.
It can even fell like loss. You may lose old friendships, let go of long-held ambitions, or step back from commitments that no longer serve you. But through the discomfort, you learn courage. Psychologist Abraham Maslow talked about the drive toward “self-actualization” — the desire to realize one’s full potential. At midlife, the drive intensifies. You turn inward to find what brings joy, meaning, and purpose.
Some call the midlife process a rebirth: a reset stage towards what matters to you. You stop trying to be everything to everyone.
You start focusing on what fulfils you. Jung believed that this period allows us to move from the “ego” to the “self.” You stop living for superficial goals and start connecting with meaning and purpose. Jung saw midlife as a step toward wholeness, a time to integrate all parts of yourself — the light and the dark, the successes and failures.
You are not abandoning responsibilities: but finding meaning in them. You choose what you keep and what you release. You begin to build a life based on intention rather than inertia. Every choice becomes a way to express who you are becoming.
An unraveling isn’t a breakdown, as Brown points out.
It’s a breakthrough. It’s a process of letting go of your old self, old stories, and old beliefs. You make space for a true identity that aligns with who you truly are. It’s a step up to a life that feels real. In a way, midlife is a gift. An opportunity to redefine success, love, and happiness.
I’m finding clarity, purpose, and depth.
I’m living not as an image but as a whole, integrated person. “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely,” Jung said. That’s why midlife can quickly derail into a crisis. But you know better. People may call it a crisis, but they are missing the point. Done right, midlife is a turning point for internal freedom.
You are not falling apart; you are letting yourself finally come together. It’s a process of returning to yourself, to the life you were meant to live.
