By Peter Metzner
At a lecture late in his life, Sigmund Freud was asked a simple question: What is needed for a successful life?
His answer was equally simple—and enduring: Lieben und Arbeiten.
To love and to work.
More than a century later, Freud’s words still ring true. And yet, for many people in midlife, love feels complicated and work feels hollow. Despite outward success, there is often an unspoken sense of restlessness—a feeling that something essential has gone missing.
When we are not living our values, expressing our passions, or aligning our work with what truly matters to us, we inevitably find ourselves living someone else’s life. Jungian analyst James Hollis frames the central question of midlife with piercing clarity: “Whose life am I living?”
The task of midlife, he suggests, is to discover who we really are—and to claim that life as our own.
This question can feel unsettling. Many of us have spent decades meeting expectations—those of parents, partners, organizations, or cultural definitions of success. Midlife often arrives as a reckoning: Am I living from my own inner authority, or am I still performing a role assigned long ago?
When our lives lack meaning and purpose, the soul makes itself known. Hollis offers a sobering warning: “If our work does not support our soul, then the soul will extract its butcher’s bill elsewhere.”
That bill may appear as low-grade depression, chronic exhaustion, workaholism, anxiety, or an obsessive pursuit of achievement or material security. We may turn to distractions—overworking, overconsuming, numbing behaviors, or digital escapes—for temporary relief. Yet the symptoms persist until something deeper is addressed.
Research continues to confirm what depth psychology has long known. Nortin Hadler, MD, formerly of UNC School of Medicine, identified two striking predictors of longevity and well-being:
- Do I like what I do?
- Do I have a satisfying social support network?
Meaningful work and nourishing relationships are not luxuries; they are foundational to health.
So how do we move toward lives that allow us to answer those questions with a genuine yes?
Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson described two central tasks of adulthood and midlife: intimacy and generativity.
Intimacy is more than romantic partnership. It is the capacity to be known—to share honestly, to give and receive feedback, and to remain emotionally present with ourselves and others. The quality of our relationships with colleagues, friends, and family mirrors the relationship we have with ourselves.
Generativity—the hallmark of midlife—is the impulse to give back, to contribute, to leave the world better than we found it. This may show up in quiet, everyday ways: mentoring a younger colleague, coaching a child’s team, planting a garden, or serving a community. Or it may take shape through leadership, creativity, or philanthropy. What matters is not scale, but sincerity.
Generativity requires self-awareness and self-acceptance. It asks us to know our strengths and limitations, to take responsibility for our choices, and to reconnect with what truly energizes us. Often, this reclamation of purpose is supported through coaching, therapy, reflective practices, journaling, or dream work—any process that helps us listen more deeply to the psyche’s signals.
Midlife is not a crisis to be avoided; it is a threshold. A crossing. A call to move from adaptation to authenticity—from proving to serving—from ambition alone to meaning infused with contribution.
This is the essence of health, fulfillment, and happiness in midlife: not merely to succeed, but to live in alignment with what we are here to give.
Peter Metzner is President of Dynamic Change, Inc., based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He specializes in leadership and life coaching, facilitation, and consulting—supporting individuals, leaders, and teams in cultivating clarity of purpose, authentic leadership, and meaningful contribution.
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