> You hit a point in your life, reflect back on where you'd thought you'd be when you were in your early 20s, and think.. shit.. what I do all of this for?

Do people who say this have kids? I ask genuinely. Everything before my little dude was fake. Everything since him is real deal Holyfield. Probably knock off in the next 20 minutes and take him to Home Depot to look at some bullshit because we have a good time with that kind of thing.

Internal vs external.

The midlife crisis is probably better described as a change or unease in the self and not knowing why you get out of bed in the morning anymore and that entire adventure, whereas this anomie is the social environment you're moored to breaking down.

>Is that not the epitome of the classic mid life crisis?

Not anymore than WWII deaths are the epitome of "classic early life suicide".

If it was "the classic mid life crisis" the rates wouldn't be "highest ever" (as per the post).

>Is that not the epitome of the classic mid life crisis?

The classic epitome of the mid life crisis has always been something along the lines of, "I spent my whole life working and doing a job that I didn't like, sacrificing my youth and my precious time with my friends and family, and all I'm left with is money. My mortality is coming into view, my best years are behind me, and as I sit here in my big house with my fancy car, I realize I wasted all that time all chasing dollars."

That's a lot different than, "I spent my whole life working and doing a job that I didn't like, sacrificing my youth and my precious time with my friends and family, and I'm left with nothing at all. I have no prospect for retirement, will likely become homeless and destitute when I am unable to continue working and/or am laid off, and their is no future."

Also to work so hard, and even when you have good luck as well, to see the people around you adapting their expectations so fast that they're blasé about what feels like amazing luck and success to you, and to realize that you can never satisfy them, only inevitably let them down when you experience setbacks.

> Is that not the epitome of the classic mid life crisis?

I think there's a step change from say the silent gen/baby boomer generations where a midlife crisis was realizing you lived the classic "American Dream" but weren't going to be a rockstar or super wealthy, compared to now where a midlife crisis could easily be wondering if you will continue to have any economic value at all years before social security kicks in.

Admittedly this is America-centric, but that's my lived perspective, and also I recognize that things weren't always very stable even here, thus why I am comparing a couple of specific generations to the ones that followed.

There was, for a time when I was younger (as a Gen-Xer), just an assumed sense that each generation would have it better than the last. Naive, perhaps, but alas. And obviously far less people assume that anymore.