Untimely. Unplanned. Whitney Houston’s death could be characterized by such descriptors. Of course, I could say the same about many people, including family members.   Not many of us have a ‘planned exit’ so I suppose it brings to the fore the broader question of what are we doing with the time we are given. The great wizard, Gandalf, said something very much like this in…

Midlife men, we probably can’t have it both ways. Let me explain.   I was watching an episode of NCIS this evening, one of my few weekly TV try-to-watch shows, ok, my only weekly try-to-watch show outside of the evening news. Anyhow, this particular show was a bit annoying in its format as it was moving Gibbs, the big cheese of an investigative unit, back and forth from the present to voices…

It appears that many midlife men live under a cloud of regret. I’ve never really framed my life decisions in terms of regret or its opposite, whatever that is.    Google indicates that the opposite includes such words as contentment, satisfaction, and applause. Regret is defined as a “feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over something”.   I’m not…

Midlife men, I’d mentioned awhile back that I had been reading a book on growing older.  It contains relatively short chapters on topics such as regret, fear, joy, relationships, and such, over 30 different topics.  A chapter on ‘meaning’ touched a nerve recently. It seemed particularly relevant to me and captures what I think is a key question to be answered by the Western…

As a midlife man, do you find that you overload yourself with activities?    Look, I find the single midlife lifestyle to be very rewarding in many respects. It can be at the very least a less complicated life, potentially, a life which is largely about, well, me.   I’m simply stating a fact.  Of course, I do have an employer that has expectations that I must attend to, and…

While I suppose major life transitions are difficult for all of us, for midlife males I think it is perhaps even more so.  I started reading a book on growing older and in the introduction the author attributes a statement to E.M. Forster, an English writer of the last century, a statement that caused me to ponder a bit:   “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so…

My fellow single midlife men, when you set out to marry a foreign woman you soon find out that your government wants to have a lot to say about whether you can do this or not.  Not only will they want to scrutinize the formidable documentation you are required to submit to get her a visa, they will ultimately make a determination as to each of your motives in this proposed relationship. …

I find that as a midlife man, I value autonomy more and more. I chose the word autonomy over a word that at first seems quite similar - independence.  I felt that in some sense there was a real difference between the two, one that I wanted to use.    As part of my pre-writing reading, I Google these two words to see if any meaningful differences had been discussed elsewhere and came…