Stick ‘midlife’ into Google and it is always, I mean always, followed by ‘crisis’.

Really? Is everyone over 35 years old bleating and baaing their way after the crowd? So when people are fed up, stuck in a rut, unsure what to do next, saying: “I’m having a midlife crisis”, with an embarrassed titter should cover it? Let’s examine.

“I’m having a midlife crisis.” No, you’re not. You’ve just realised, like every other human being, that you’re probably over the halfway line and closer to death than you were five years ago.

The fact that you’ve reached 35 or 45 or 55 or 60 leads to a single factual conclusion. You’re not dead.

That is not a crisis. A crisis is being without a home. A worse crisis is having a home, but in an unsafe tower block. A genuine crisis is not being able to feed your children.

So we’re not doing ‘midlife crisis’ here. There are thousands of hand-wringing blogs on that subject who would be happy to have you wallow with them.

What we are looking at here is ‘middle life’. This is, by my reckoning, a long stretch of time and not just a matter of that ‘Life Begins at 40’ cheesy nonsense that went out of fashion around the same period as The Clangers and Blue Nun wine.

Wikipedia says ‘midlife’ is between 45 and 64, taking its cue from Merriam-Webster’s American dictionary definition of ‘middle age’.

I suggest it goes from your mid to late 30s, when job tedium is setting in and you may have young children, to your early 60s when relaxation seems a distant prospect, with adult children still at home and a slimline pension fund to eke out (if you’re not in the public sector).

Don’t look back – or down. Consider a different path if you wish, which may not be easy, but keep a lid on the histrionics: it happens to everyone who makes it this far.

Let’s be constructive.