This is the age when your happiness will hit a low point (and what to do about it)
No one expects to wake up one day and realize that their life stopped feeling like their life.
You can have the job, the relationship, the routine, the version of life you thought you were building towards, and still wake up one day feeling like something underneath has fallen out. Not in a big, obvious way. More like a slow realization that what used to carry you no longer does.
There is actually research behind that feeling. Economists David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald analyzed data across dozens of countries and found that happiness tends to follow a U-shaped curve, with its lowest point hitting somewhere in midlife. For many people, this dip occurs in the early to mid-40s.
It doesn’t mean you’re doing life wrong. It means you’ve reached the part where the old promises stop.
When you’re younger, it’s easy to think that everything meaningful is still ahead. Get the job, find the person, build something stable, and then you will feel settled. Once you’ve done some of that, the future stops feeling like a clean slate and starts to look more like a long maintenance period. That change may hit harder than expected.
So what do you actually do when you’re there?
4 tips to get through your low point in your happiness
First, stop trying to power through it like it’s a productivity problem. A low point like this is usually not about the need for better habits or a tighter schedule. It’s more existential than that. Psychologist James Hollis calls this period “the middle passage,” a time when the beliefs that once gave structure to your life begin to lose their grip. The problem is that you don’t have a replacement yet. That gap can feel disconcerting, but that’s also the whole point.
Then take a hard look at the expectations you’ve been carrying. So much dissatisfaction at this stage comes from comparing your current life to the version you assumed you would have now. That gap between expectation and reality can be brutal, especially if you did most of what you were supposed to do. Money, status and milestones can only carry so much emotional weight before they stop doing the job.
Then let go of the idea that everything you do has to lead somewhere. Philosopher Kieran Setiya writes about hitting this wall in his mid-30s, despite having a successful career and a stable life. What helped was not another performance. It was heading towards activities that did not have an end goal. Walking without a destination, spending time with people without a plan, paying attention to things without trying to turn them into progress.
It sounds simple, but it goes against how most people are wired to think about success.
Finally, shrink the timeline. When everything feels off, zooming out can make it worse. You don’t need a ten-year plan while you’re at a low point. You need something that feels manageable today. A conversation that doesn’t feel forced. An hour where you are not trying to optimize your life. A decision not based on who you thought you would be now.
Low points have a way of making everything feel permanent. In reality there is nothing.
What they are, more often than not, is a transition where the old version of your life stops fitting and the next one hasn’t quite taken shape yet. It’s uncomfortable and disorienting, but it also means something is shifting, even if you don’t have a clear story for it yet. And honestly, you don’t need one right now.
