Most of us move through midlife driven by forces we don’t fully understand. Sometimes we sense anxiety, restlessness, or a vague unease—but we don’t often stop to ask what’s underneath it.
The men I work with at this stage of life are often trying to gain clarity, and to live with more purpose. But clarity requires honesty, and honesty means facing some truths about being human that we’ve been conditioned to avoid.
Clarity requires honesty.
Existential philosophers and psychologists, including Erwin Yalom, have detangled these truths into four fundamental fears, what he calls the “givens” of existence. These aren’t just theories; they are quietly shaping our daily choices. Naming them can help us understand why we feel stuck, or why we chase comfort instead of confronting what matters.
1. Death: The Fear Beneath All Fears
We know we’ll die, but we rarely let ourselves feel it. Yet death awareness is always there, shaping our ambitions and anxieties. We build careers, buy things, chase status—often as a defense against this fear. Yalom reminds us: “Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.”
When we confront death honestly, life sharpens. We waste less time. We love more freely. We stop deferring the life we want to live.
2. Isolation: The Loneliness No One Admits
We crave connection, to cover the deeper truth that we are, ultimately, alone. No one can fully know our inner life. This reality is unsettling, so we distract ourselves with busyness or bend ourselves to fit in. But true connection comes not from avoiding aloneness but by admitting it, to ourselves and to others.
When we acknowledge our isolation, we stop masking it. Instead of erasing our aloneness, we share it. In that openness, connection grows and with it, a life of deeper meaning and true stability.
3. Meaninglessness: The Void We Rush to Fill
We search for meaning, but life doesn’t hand it to us. Some turn to rigid beliefs to avoid this uncertainty. Others numb themselves with work, entertainment, or success. But meaning isn’t something we find; it’s something we create.
When we commit to what we love and serve something beyond ourselves, this void fades, and purpose takes its place.
4. Freedom: The Burden of Choice
This is the most surprising fear. We like to believe we want freedom, but real freedom is heavy. It means our life is our own, for better or worse. Every choice we’ve made has shaped where we stand. That’s empowering—but also terrifying. It’s easier to blame others, or circumstances, for the ways our lives have let us down. Sartre put it bluntly: “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.”
The path to freedom is acceptance: This is my life. I shape it. When we own that truth, fear loosens its grip—and security emerges.
Why Does This Matter Now?
Midlife has a way of thinning the distractions. The noise that carried us through our younger years quiets, and we start hearing something underneath. For many men, it’s unsettling; there’s new anxiety, doubt, a sense that time is moving faster, and we’re not as certain about what it’s all adding up to.
These four fears: death, isolation, meaninglessness, and freedom have always been there, shaping our choices. But at this stage, they step forward:
- We lose a friend or a parent, and death becomes real.
- We achieve success but still feel alone.
- We realize no role or title will hand us meaning.
- And we see, maybe for the first time, how much of our life is made up of our own choices (and how little we’ve really owned that fact.)
It’s easy to recoil when we see these truths. But the men who lean in, who let these realities season them rather than break them, find something surprising. The fears don’t disappear, but their resistance eases. There’s more clarity, more honesty. And often, there’s a new kind of strength.
Not the strength we built in our twenties—the kind that powers through—but a quieter, deeper resilience. The kind that faces what is true and still chooses to move forward.
