Mid-life also confronts us with that final limit, death. Adolescents and young adults know the word for death, but they don't yet really believe in it. In the second half of life, mortality becomes a constant presence. As we anticipate death, it is hard to imagine that facing it might be a positive thing. But in fact death is life's ultimate teacher.
Life teaches knowledge and experience, but it is death that teaches wisdom.
At mid-life, facing the fact that death is real opens us to the full wonder and complexity of life in a way not before possible. If we can muster the courage, our times would seem to offer an opening just as profound. It is not a word we use easily or really trust. But it is this the future most requires of us. The new limits that confront us will be a primary arena for learning about and testing our much-needed new wisdom.