PEARLS OF WISDOM: “Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money” Part 1 of 3 from the Queen of Confidence

This is a series of posts for which I lacked a decent Google-searchable keyword title. Searching Google for ideas produced, “PEARLS of WISDOM”, which has such a rich flavor of hubris and chuzpah that I just HAD to use it. It makes me laugh at myself with delight and a bit of wry sarcasm. Enjoy!

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I’ve been corresponding with a middle aged male friend, and we got to talking about mid life crises, and how men in particular handle it. Since the majority of my private practice is comprised mainly of men from 30-50 years old, I’ve gained some insight from these smart, insightful, honest and candid men.

I had joked that most of what I see less introspective and self aware men doing when they reach that mid life stage can be easily summed up in this key phrase, “re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic“.

My friend replied, “I think the key phrase is ‘faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money” If you can afford these indulgences, I do not think you are attending a life purpose workshop.”

Here is my reply:

Au contraire, many’s the man who has come to me precisely -because- “faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money” turned out to be not as fulfilling a reality as they had hoped it would be.

“Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money” is what I call “re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”. This is a gender peculiar thing. A significant percentage of men, when they hit their mid life crisis, look around and say, “Crap, this isn’t what I want. I’m not happy.” So (here’s the cliche in action) some of them set about to changing things: they trade in the wife and kids for a trophy chick, get a sports car and hair plugs, and otherwise engage in ultimately futile behaviors that do not ultimately address their lack of fulfillment.

They vigorously pursue transient pleasures, trying to soothe their ever increasing sense of dissatisfaction. Those are the guys who fail to examine themselves first. Because of this critically missed first step, they lose the chance to do some significant introspection before they engage in major life upheaval. They mistakenly think that by concentrating on changing their circumstances they will achieve the sought for inner satisfaction that they are now all too aware of lacking.

They throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Come back for the next two parts of this series about men and their mid-life crises.

Molly Burke CPCC MSU
Queen of Confidence
www.lifepurposeworks.com
“I’ve bottled confidence and you can, too!”