The midlife-crisis phenomenon has taken on almost mythic proportions in the American psyche over the past century. The term was first coined by the Canadian psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques, who noticed a pattern in the lives of “great men” in history: Many of them lost productivity—and even died—in their mid-to-late-30s, which was midlife in past

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When you care about something in this way, it is not just a means that you exploit for your own sake. Its flourishing makes you happy. And so the sources of happiness, though also of vulnerability, grow. That is Mill’s idea. I think it is a pretty good one. Call it the first rule for preventing a midlife crisis: you have to care about something

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