When does mid-life start?

The following notes are from a CD I listened to a while ago on "Mid-life Issues". I'll try to dig up the author's name and post it here, but in the mean time I thought I'd share this with you.

• Mid-life starts when yo realize your time is limited and you stop thinking about how far from birth you are and start thinking about how far you are from death.
  
• Are you reaching your goals, and if not why? If you have, why aren't you enjoying it more? There is a growing need to find meaning in what you're doing.
  
• You've already proven you can make it. Now there's an awareness of legacy issues.
  
• These transitions are inevitable. Part of the normal development process
  
• An important realization is that you're never going to be famous. Sometimes this can cause people to loose their passion. Sometimes it can cause people to loose their stress over unrealistic expectations and envy, and thus to enjoy work more.
  
• You have to learn now to do things just for the sake of doing them, because they're fun or you find personal meaning in doing them.
  
• You need to let go of your younger juvenile goals. Meaning in jobs becomes more important that promotions. Much of the meaning comes from giving back to others, including mentorship.
  
• Transitions always mean a loss, a loss of "what was", which has to be given up in order to become "what will be".
  
• To examine mid-life transitions, look at three things:
  
  
  
  1. How you're doing now
     
  2. What you'd like to be
     
  3. what you need to do to get there.