Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age

As we get older, classical music sneaks up on us. So, do naps, fine wine, and the appeal of organic vegetables and sunscreen. With age comes an appreciation for things we neglected when we were younger.

 

In my late thirties, I dreaded the idea of midlife. "American Beauty" was a horror movie. I didn't want to be Kevin Spacey when I grew up. It felt like such an emotionally-dehydrated life stage, and if you survived it, all you had to look forward to was disease, decrepitude, and death. 

 

And, then, I experienced it, and, yes, I had my U-curve of Happiness dip right around 47-49, but on the other side, I had my best decade ever, my fifties. 

 

Based upon all I've learned personally, as well as the thousands of life stories I've witnessed at MEA, the world's first midlife wisdom school, I wrote a book that came out in 2024, "Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age." I'm looking forward to leading a weekend retreat at 1440 on this topic so I wanted to outline these 12 reasons.

 

First of all, American society (and Hallmark Cards) reminds you all the time what gets worse with age. We have an anti-aging industrial complex making money on our fears. And, yet, Yale's Becca Levy's research shows that when we shift our mindset on aging in midlife from a negative to a positive, we gain 7.5 years of additional life which is more added longevity than if we stopped smoking or started exercising at 50. So, what gets better with age? ‍

THE PHYSICAL LIFE

‍One: "I Have More Life Left Than I Thought"
What percentage of your adult life is still ahead of you? Most of us vastly underestimate how much life we still have ahead of us due to our lack of "longevity literacy."

 

‍Two: "I'm Relieved My Body No Longer Defines Me"
Just as I got comfortable in my own skin, it started to sag. In midlife, we recognize that caring for our beauty or brawn should be less about short-term vanity and more about long-term maintenance.

THE EMOTIONAL LIFE

‍Three: "I'm Making Friends With My Emotions"
As we grow older, real beauty moves from the face to the heart. EQ (Emotional Intelligence) grows with age as we become less emotionally reactive. 

 

‍Four: "I Invest in My Social Wellness"
Illness starts with the letter I, while Wellness starts with the letters We. The most consistent variable with living a longer, healthier, happier life is how invested were we in our friendships in midlife and beyond. 

 

‍Five: "I Have No More ‘F****' Left to Give"
"Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner."  — Chinese Taoist philosopher Lao Tze, born 6th century BC. Knowing what you care about allows you to liberate from everything else. 

THE MENTAL LIFE

‍Six: "I'm Marveling at My Wisdom"
Knowledge is in your iPhone. Wisdom is in your gut. Our painful life lessons are the raw material for our future wisdom, but most of us haven't been taught how to cultivate this raw material. 

 

‍Seven: "I Understand How My Story Serves Me" 
No one knows your life story better than you. Understanding who you are and what you have to offer the world is the most valuable skill we develop in midlife and beyond. 

 

‍Eight: "I've Learned How to Edit My Life"
The trip only becomes a journey after you've lost your baggage. The first half of our life is about accumulating, while the second half is about editing. At MEA, we help people do a ritual called "The Great Midlife Edit."

THE VOCATIONAL LIFE

‍Nine: "I'm Joyously Stepping off the Treadmill"
Midlife is when we outgrow our pursuit of happiness and start our practice of joy. Liberating yourself from the "successism" defined by your parents or society allows you to have more agency. 

 

‍Ten: "I'm Starting to Experience Time Affluence"
I have time to become a beginner again. Curiosity and an openness to new experiences are correlated with the good life after age 50, but it helps to have space in your life.

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

‍Eleven: "I've Discovered My Soul"
Life is a horizontal journey, then a vertical one. Our primary operating system for the first half of our life is the ego and, then, with no warning, it becomes the soul as we get more curious about the meaning of life.

 

‍Twelve: "I Feel Like I'm Growing Whole"
"I'm here to be me, which is taking a great deal longer than I had hoped." — Anne Lamott. The older people we most admire are alchemists of their polarities - extrovert and introvert, masculine and feminine - and are present for everything that's inside of them.

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MEET CHIP CONLEY

Modern Elder Academy (MEA) founder and New York Times Bestselling Author

Chip Conley is on a midlife mission. After disrupting the hospitality industry twice, first as the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the second-largest operator of boutique hotels in the U.S., and then as Airbnb's Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy, leading a worldwide revolution in travel, Conley co-founded MEA (Modern Elder Academy) in January 2018 in Baja California, Mexico.

Inspired by his experience of intergenerational mentoring as a ‘modern elder' at Airbnb, where his guidance was instrumental to the company's extraordinary transformation from fast-growing start-up to the world's most valuable hospitality brand, MEA is the world's first ‘midlife wisdom school' and has a 2,600-acre regenerative horse ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico which opened in May 2024. Dedicated to reframing the concept of aging, MEA supports students to navigate midlife with a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. A New York Times bestselling author, Conley's 7th book "Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age" is about rebranding midlife to help people understand the upside of this often-misunderstood life stage and he was asked to give a 2023 TED talk on the "midlife chrysalis.

 

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DISCOVER THE JOY OF MIDLIFE

To learn more about Learning to Love Midlife and discover how life gets better with age, join me for a weekend retreat at 1440. Together, we'll explore the 12 reasons midlife is a time of growth, wisdom, and deeper joy. 

 

Learn More

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