I’ve experienced an existential Fomo (fear of missing out) over the past year. It’s not about a specific event. I’m not scrolling Instagram wondering why I haven’t been invited to some party or other (okay, I am also doing that). No, this Fomo is a free-floating unease that I am not spending enough time with friends.
This is partly because I have a bit more brain space, due to changes in the rhythm of family life, freed from anticipating naptime, juggling school pick-ups and buying kids’ birthday presents. For now, the days aren’t chopped into “time confetti”, the phrase Brigid Schulte coined in her book Overwhelmed to describe “one big chaotic burst of exploding slivers, bits and scraps”.
This desire for connection is perhaps a symptom of middle age. Jonathan Rauch, author of The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After Midlife, wrote in 2018 that “evidence has emerged from economics, psychology and neuroscience showing that humans tend to go through a kind of emotional reboot around midlife”. Rauch describes it as as a transition, and it’s marked by a greater need to connect.
This being the new year, I’ve contemplated a relationship resolution. Unlike brown-bread ones pledging to eat or spend less, this would not be punitive, but joyful. It’s easy to sneer about new year resolutions – Lord knows, I’ve done it. We’ve all seen gyms fill in January and empty soon after. Why not make changes instead on a random Wednesday in June?
But Prof Katherine Milkman, a behavioural economist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, finds the “fresh start effect” works – not just at the start of the year but at birthdays or at the start of term or the week, making people “particularly motivated to take actions towards their goals because they feel like they have a new beginning and a clean slate”. While she hasn’t observed such effects diminishing over the lifespan, she suggests to me that goals shift in tandem with changing ideas of happiness as we age.
Often change is triggered by an event. The death of a loved one can sometimes lead the bereaved to take a risk such as changing careers, aware of their own mortality and wanting to enjoy their remaining time on Earth
Middle-aged resolutions are complicated by another factor. Aren’t we also meant to reach a nirvana of self-acceptance? After all, so many people from their 40s onwards seem to experience do-not-give-a-shit syndrome, or “Dongass” as I think of it – a time of life when they no longer care what others think and accept themselves.
I’m yet to reach this moment of bliss, but have found that age sharpens your focus. Why take a job that is good for you long term but makes you miserable in the short term, if you are acutely aware of diminishing years?
This cognisance of time has led to some self-improvement for me. A couple of years ago, I saw a photo of myself that forced me to confront the extra pounds I was carrying. It was a watershed. Deciding either I had to embrace my appearance, feel confident or do something about it, I upped the exercise and dialled down the snacking.
Amanda Pelham Green, a coach, tells me that clients with life experience may have greater understanding of failure. That can be helpful for some, “knowing that something is going to be tough might see them through” their resolutions to change.
Often change is triggered by an event. The death of a loved one can sometimes lead the bereaved to take a risk such as changing careers, aware of their own mortality and wanting to enjoy their remaining time on Earth. Grief also gives you perspective. What is the loss of status in starting a new career, say, compared with the ultimate loss of status: death?
In his 2015 book Second Curve, the management writer Charles Handy, who died last month, described a 93-year-old man who spoke of regrets over not doing more with his life. “A moderately successful life followed by a long, slow decline into eventual oblivion. Nothing wrong with that, I mused, except for what might have been. Why was it such a familiar story? Why did it remind me irresistibly of so many people whom I knew, with long years spent compiling a CV that now seemed irrelevant.”
Handy thought triggers such as redundancy or retirement were often too late – he implored people to plan for a second act (or curve) while they were still enjoying the first.
The idea that midlife change is not only possible but desirable has been brought home by one of the best television series in recent years, Somebody Somewhere. It delicately depicts Sam, a prickly overweight woman with a brilliant voice who returns to Kansas. Unmoored by grief, she shuts down, but over time and persistent friendship-bombing she becomes close to a group of middle-aged misfits, particularly to Joel, a gay man with an infectious laugh. It speaks to the value of change and platonic love. As Sam sings to Joel in season two, “You brought me home ... I found [the song] now because of you.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
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