Dennis Prager argues that a midlife crisis is when men realize they haven't achieved their imagined goals. He says ambition is essential to masculinity, and that same ambition creates a permanent sense of incompleteness as men compare themselves to higher achievers. This restlessness, he suggests, is the price of being a man.
What is a midlife crisis for a man? Midlife crisis is, I'm all ready, and then you could fill it in. What have I achieved? You know, I expected to be, I aimed to be, I wanted to be, then you fill in the blank, and I didn't do it. For all intents and purposes, every man has this crisis sooner or later. Now, it is because it is part of male nature to conquer and succeed, but it is part of male nature, and it's a good thing, this ambition. A man without ambition is not masculine. One of the things that most attracts a young woman to a young man is ambition. I want to be as good as I can be at something. It doesn't matter what the something is, but I have ambition. So therefore, if you have ambition, clearly you will always fail. I am much more preoccupied with what I haven't done than what I have done. This is the way it is in life. Whatever level you're at, there's always somebody at a higher level. There's always somebody who did more. There's always anything like that. That doesn't mean you, you give up. You strive and strive and work hard. That's all good things. But you have to know that it's the nature of the human condition that you will never achieve what you set out to do, what you imagined you would at whatever age you started imagining your success. It's a price that men pay for being men, and it's a good price because it means that you wanted to be something. Your feeling is, is part of being male. So too is midlife crisis. For the full episode of The Dennis Prager Show, go to pragertopia.com, sign up, and become a full member.
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