Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 5,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trial
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Midlife summary
Kieran Setiya
A Philosophical Guide
Listen to the first key idea
Key idea 1 of 6
4.5 (223 ratings)
19 mins
6 key ideas
Audio & text
What is Midlife about?
Midlife (2017) is a philosophical guide to navigating the troubles that middle age can present. Drawing on thinkers from ancient Rome to nineteenth-century England, it offers gentle solace in the face of midlife’s woes.
About the Author
Kieran Setiya is a professor of philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Specializing in ethics, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology, he has also written extensively on public philosophy. He is the author of Knowing Right from Wrong, Practical Knowledge, and Reasons Without Rationalism.
Table of Contents
Key idea 1 of 6
The idea of middle age as a time of crisis is relatively new – but there are reasons to believe it’s accurate.
It was 1965, and Elliot Jaques, an influential social scientist and psychoanalyst, had noticed an interesting trend. While studying the lives of famous figures and talking with his patients, Jaques had found that middle age often proved to be a transformative period in their lives.
Take the great Italian poet Dante, for example. To use his own metaphor, Dante found himself “lost in a dark woods” at age 35 – right before he began writing the Divine Comedy. Michelangelo, to name another Italian genius, actually painted next to nothing between the ages of 40 and 55.
Struck by the importance of middle age for great artists and ordinary people alike, Jaques wrote a groundbreaking essay that coined an intriguing term. The essay’s title was “Death and the Mid-Life Crisis” – and with its publication, the term “midlife crisis” suddenly began to spread.
The key message here is: The idea of middle age as a time of crisis is relatively new – but there are reasons to believe it’s accurate.
By now, the characteristics of a midlife crisis are familiar to most of us. And although not everyone ends up buying a motorcycle, changing careers, or getting a divorce, many people are struck by a newfound sense of dissatisfaction around the age of 40.
Why? Well, when we reach middle age, we often have to acknowledge some hard truths. For the first time in our lives, we may have to admit that many of our childhood and adolescent dreams are never going to come true.
Instead, we have to make do with our lives as they actually are. And for many of us, this means learning that disappointment and boredom are often pretty hard to avoid.
But beyond these gentle letdowns looms something more serious – it’s at this age that many people first really grasp their own mortality. Even when we’re young, we know that death is inevitable, of course. But middle age, with its backaches, wrinkles, and health scares, can make our sense of mortality feel a lot more concrete and urgent.
And it’s not just a hunch that midlife can leave us feeling dissatisfied – a robust body of scholarly work actually bears out this observation. In 2008, two economists named David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald conducted a study of lifetime well-being; they found that our levels of happiness tend to form a U-shape over the course of our lives. That is, we start out fairly happy, grow somewhat dissatisfied in middle age, and then begin to cheer up again in our older years.
Luckily, this process isn’t inevitable – and there are a number of philosophical insights that can make midlife easier to bear.
Want to see all full key ideas from Midlife?
Key ideas in Midlife
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
Who should read Midlife
- Middle-aged people on the cusp of a midlife crisis
- Those with relatives or friends past their mid-thirties
- Anyone interested in applying philosophy to life
Categories with Midlife
Books like Midlife
What our members say
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
Start growing with Blinkist now
25 Million
Downloads on all platforms
4.7 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
91%
Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
*Based on survey data from Blinkist customers