Seems like I am never going to get a midlife crisis

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I always thought I would get the mother of all midlife crises. Ok, I don’t have the money to build penis-shaped rockets like Jeff Bezos, but I was always a well-behaved and conformist teenager. So I thought I would eventually act out and become a rebellious middle-aged man, get myself a red sports car and an 18-year-old girlfriend with the right ‘assets’ and ruin my life that way. Unfortunately, it seems I am simply not narcissistic enough for that either.There has long been a theory that the only people who get a midlife crisis are narcissists. Alan Piper from Leeds University updated these results with the help of the Socioeconomic Panel survey of thousands of Germans (hence, this study is highly relevant to me).He split narcissistic tendencies into two categories. The first is self-admiration (“I am a special person and this gives me strength”). I am definitely guilty of that because – well – I am special. The second is antagonistic rivalry (“Most people are basically losers”). I am not guilty of that because, in my view, only about 90% of people are losers. Just kidding….The chart below shows four lines plotting self-reported life satisfaction against age. For both men and women, the results are split into people with above-average antagonistic rivalry and below-average rivalry. Only men with high antagonistic rivalry scores see their life satisfaction drop well into old age. These are the grumpy old men that you meet online and in the White House these days, and they will never be happy in life. Plus, they are much more likely to suffer from a midlife crisis and cheat …