The Meaning of Midlife Crisis: Growing Older Means You Must Pause to Reflect on Danger, Change, and Withdrawal

All your deposits—the sum of all your assets translated into cash—reflects the present.

Your age reflects the future.

Small deposits mean the present is small; advanced age means the future is small.

Before middle age, you want to climb the mountain; after middle age, you want to descend. You should already know what you can and can't do, after decades of life.

Middle age means time and opportunity have already been given to you. An exam lasts two hours, and you've already spent an hour answering—it's like you're familiar with this test paper. Based on how you've answered in the first hour, you can roughly predict your performance in the second hour. If someone has saved a few hundred thousand before middle age, it's reasonable to predict that by retirement they'll likely save another few hundred thousand—or even less, not more.

If you estimate that your lifetime savings will only reach around one to two million dollars, and right now you need to marry, have children, support aging parents, and take care of yourself, conservatism becomes unavoidable. Strive to improve your skills, don't fall into middle-aged complacency too early, and try to extend your career as long as possible. On the other hand, if you're forced by marriage requirements to buy property that lacks scarcity, liquidity should be your primary concern—at minimum, it should generate stable rental income.

You simply don't have much money, and your track record shows slow growth. Combine these two factors, and you can't afford to live without careful financial planning. This is why, in middle age, you must think deeply: think about danger, think about change, think about stepping back.