The Bible Tells us that Methuselah lived to be 969 years old. Do you suppose he had a midlife crisis when he turned 500?

Society seems to have a label and an accompanying scenario for every stage of life, a chronology of stereotypes to which all human beings are expected to conform. During the past century, the Sentinel has alerted readers to the false assumptions and limitations associated with, among other ages, the terrible twos, troubled teens, generation Xers, and senior citizens.

But there's another span of life that's also the subject of caricature—midlife. Men and women entering their forties or fifties are supposed to be vulnerable to a midlife crisis. It's often characterized by a restlessness that takes the form of a wild or unconventional pursuit or a desire to return to one's youth. It may even surface in the indulgence of an immoral whim "before it's too late"—though one wonders if it is ever too early to adopt a moral lifestyle.

The origin of this midlife caricature—as with the others—is a flawed view of who we actually are, one that identifies each of us at the outset as a collection of good and bad characteristics and skills packaged in a material body. This view is as misleading as it is common. It assumes that the lives of men and women inevitably conform to a predetermined trajectory that rises during youth and young adulthood, levels off somewhere in middle age, and then declines or plummets in later life. Of course, anyone going along with this perspective is likely to experience the symptoms associated with these life stages.

The liberating truth is, no one's life has to go that way! In her major work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy speaks of this incorrect and unhealthy life-pattern, and shows how to avoid it. She writes: "Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually. The result is that you are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your life-work, and adopt into your experience the angular outline and deformity of matter models.

"To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives" (p. 248).

The perfect model in this case is the Biblical description of creation in the first chapter of Genesis. Here, God's man, as the likeness of his creator, is good, very good in fact, and has full dominion over himself and his environment. This spiritual man is the true identity of each of us. Therefore, what we need to see is the truth that we don't follow a trajectory through various life stages; rather, we are at the point of wholeness and fulfillment at every moment.

In one way, the ongoing quest to improve oneself, to acquire new skills and knowledge, is commendable. Often, venturing in fresh directions for career and personal growth mirrors the constantly renewing quality of God's creation. This sense of ongoing renewal is captured in a comment attributed to English novelist George Eliot. It says essentially that it's never too late to become what you might have been. But the habit of pegging this reassessment and renewal process to midlife, motivated by the belief that time is running out, is a response to fear, and it needs correction.

Our true identity, as God's likeness, is not a perishable commodity. Our talents and competence are actually ageless, permanent; they don't expire. Unlike items in a grocery store, our spiritual faculties don't have to be used by a particular date. They are fresh and productive every moment. If people understood that ability and opportunity have a never-ending, spiritual source, they would stop the practice of rushing to capitalize on their talents and options prior to a certain deadline called middle age. And in the process they'd probably revolutionize their concept of old age.

What is the life expectancy of God's creation? The true, spiritual selfhood of all men and women is eternal. This individuality has always been known and will always be known by God, infinite Mind. So if our real life has no starting point and no end (sounds eternal to me), then it couldn't possibly have a midpoint—and, of course, no crisis associated with such a point.

The impetus for genuine improvement or growth is a spiritual impulse. Paul the Apostle refers to such renewal as a process of putting off the old man or woman and putting on the new. He writes, as The Living Bible translates it, "You are living a brand new kind of life that is continually learning more and more of what is right, and trying constantly to be more and more like Christ who created this new life within you" (Col. 3:10).

Now that's living right—at every age!