Autumn is a season of maturity, of patience and integration. As I have said before, it reminds us to look at the seasons and growth in our own life, our path towards maturity and greater individualization. This is demanded of us at every stage in our life but comes to the fore more clearly in “mid-life”, when we are asked to let go of some of the typical first half of life thinking patterns and move into a second half thinking style. It is a challenge that everyone faces, although not everyone takes it up. If we do, as Levinson remarks here, we can let go of some of the pressured, achievement-focus drive which is characteristic of the first half of life (and of the modern age) and have the space to notice and enjoy the process of living itself.

Some reduction in illusions is now appropriate and beneficial……According to Jaques, the central issue at mid-life is coming to terms with one’s own mortality: a man must learn now, more deeply than was possible before, that his own death is inevitable and that he and others are capable of great destructiveness…..Bernice Neugarten identifies the basic mid-life change as a growing “interiority” : turning inward to the self, decreasing emphasis on assertiveness and mastery of the environment, enjoying the process of living more than the attainment of specific goals.

Levinson, The Seasons of a Man’s Life.