When you stand on a bridge and watch the water flow, you can create the impression for yourself that the water’s standing still and it’s you and the bridge that’s moving. Our view of time creates that impression for us: we think it’s us that’s moving, but it’s not. We’re on the bridge, in the moment, and stuff happens. That stuff is the water that flows past. It’s like junk falling into a plug hole, and we are that plug hole, seeing all this stuff falling in and thinking that we’re moving but we’re not. It’s just stuff happening that has us think that.

For years I struggled to find the thing that I should do that would make me happy, lead to success. I always looked for it ‘out there’ and ‘in the future’. I would observe what others were doing and think how I could do something similar and one day enjoy the same happiness and success. When I saw for myself that there’s only this moment, and when I heard Eckhart Tolle say that enjoyment is what you put into a situation or action, not what you get out of it, then for the first time I really got this: I got that there’s nothing else to do but enjoy what I do and the success will come. This is true gratitude, not as a concept, not convincing myself, but seeing it. 

If you’ve ever been one of those people who, in social situations just wants to run and hide, listen up: you’re not alone. Chances are half the people in the room feel the same way. It just happens to be the happy hunting ground for the gregarious, the ebullient, the always-delighted, and you are forced to play along.

How you deal with it is up to you, but promise yourself one thing: do not tell yourself you should be like them, or that your life would be easier or better if you were that way, or that there’s something wrong with you.

Making yourself wrong and beating yourself up internally is a childish thing to do. It’s a repeat of the familiar – what you get from your parents as children you take to be love. If your parents – with all the good intentions in the world – constantly compared you to others or to some standard, you’ll be living with this self-abasing internal voice.

The great thing in midlife is that the energy behind that voice starts to dissipate. The problem becomes, what do you replace it with? Can I trust myself when I say I’m OK? Can I just leave myself to be the way I am? It seems so wrong, so irresponsible, so unfounded! Listen kiddo, those old thought patterns are just habits, a painful memory that we replay like an old sad song just because it’s familiar. Becoming aware of them, then replacing them with something else – something you choose – is a process; it’s taken me years, and I can honestly say that a separation is possible between the automatic internal voices and a conscious awareness that can make choices about itself – who it chooses to be, and how. This doesn’t mean you can change your personality, but you can learn to love the one you have. Great rivers of peace, love, success, flow from this.

In case you were wondering – in case you’ve ever been as lost and confused as I have – there is an arrival point on the journey to find yourself. How do I know? Let’s say I performed my own prodigal son experiment – I went out into the world and became something I’m not and it took a long time to return to who I am.

You see, on the outward leg I made everything about myself wrong. When I was about five I heard my aunt comment to my mother that I still used my left hand; I thought I was doing something wrong and I changed to using my right hand. This became the pattern of my life. When I discovered I was an introvert, I tried to make myself into an extrovert, and so on.

The route for the return journey was indicated by the answers I found to the question, ‘What if there’s nothing wrong?’ If I recognised for example that my mind jumped from one project to the next, instead of trying to fix and change that through discipline and force, I took the view that nothing was wrong and asked instead, ‘How can I apply this to my best advantage?’

The fixing and changing approach is based on the assumption that there’s something wrong, something to be fixed and changed. What do you change it to? It has to be based on some external, which would inevitably be some other person, a colleague or peer – or God forbid, a sports star or celebrity! – who you compare yourself to. Which one to choose, there are so many! The alternative was like a bolt of lightning: change nothing, emphasise that which you are – all you have to do is overcome the shame, guilt, doubt, fear. Talk about crawling across cut glass!

The rewards are great: a sense of peace, power, presence. And who knows, maybe your father will throw a party!

The midlife phase gives us the chance to incorporate into our repertoire the talents and dreams we let slide post-childhood, and to finally express ourselves authentically. It might not take the form that you dreamed about in your youth – I’ll never be on the stage under lights, for example – but it will be deeply satisfying.

At first this seems scary – when you try on new ways of being, you don’t know what you will become. However, the great thing is that you don’t have to choose and create it all, it’s more about uncovering the raw material that’s already there – that the critical comments or teasing by some adult caused you to hide.

The search will have you scratching about in your early childhood talents and preferences. So you liked drawing, and you became a banker. It’s time to give up chasing after the dreams of others and go with what you’re good at: be honest with yourself and stop trying to force things. Delve into those things about yourself that you’ve always been ashamed about – choose what’s good and right for you, and not what looks good to others.

My life has revealed itself to be a balloon – or at least to have the qualities of a balloon: with the energy of youth I puffed myself up; it took just a few hefty puffs – those few early successes – and I was sure I filled up the whole universe; I couldn’t possibly learn anything new.

Of course, once you have anything, your instinct is to protect it. When your balloon is fully inflated, the tiniest pinprick can blow the whole thing to smithereens. Protecting my reputation – my inflated ego – from the slings and arrows of life became important for me; my own particular response was to hide my talents for fear of criticism (I wrote and wrote but didn’t publish a single thing for years).

Resistance is futile

Sooner or later life forces you to confront yourself, to own up to the likes and dislikes you’ve been denying, and the talents you’ve been hiding; the sooner you do this, the sooner you decrease the pressure and the less likely you are to blow.

As for me, I’m back, I’m writing, I’m having fun…