Podcast Episode 119

with our guest Barbara Waxman

The Middlescence Manifesto: Rethinking Middle Age with Barbara Waxman

This week on The School for Good Living Podcast:

• The power of language and semantics
• Stanley Hall, the creation of adolescence, and how our ideas about the different stages of life evolved through time
• What ‘middlescence’ is and its similarities and differences with adolescence
• The identity shifts involved in both adolescence and middlescence
• David Brooks’ “Resume” and “Eulogy” virtues
• Writing a letter from your hundred-year-old self and why Barbara enjoys reading obituaries
• Barbara’s thoughts on the prevalence of mental health issues in the country
• Contemplating on joy and passion and the difference between the “big P” and “little p” purpose
• Preparing for the One Great Act and why people seem depleted when they’re looking for their life’s purpose
• Self-care as a revolutionary act and how it becomes even more important as we age
• Barbara’s “Five to Thrive” quiz and the five essential elements and practical tools in living and aging well
• The myth of the midlife crisis
• The U-curve of happiness and how happiness dips and comes back
• Why Barbara wrote the Middlescence Manifesto
• Why the world needs people in their middlescence now more than ever
• Barbara’s pre-COVID leadership work in India
• Why Barbara doesn’t consider herself as a writer
• My love-hate relationship with writing and how Barbara got the Middlescence Manifesto completed
• The writers’ challenge of cultivating a social media following
• The power of celebrating your life’s greatest failures