The regime’s middle-aged crisis

It begins with an anxiety that does not pass, moves to an indifference that suffocates and finally to a distressing apathy. It usually ends with several drastic and sudden changes, such as the change of employment, the end of a relationship, and the sports car. The diet and the inscription in the gym. The middle-aged crisis is like this-it comes to many and reached our regime as well.

A fifties looks in the mirror and thinks nostalgia in his youth, the dreams he had to fulfill and in the goals to achieve. At 20, we can do everything. At 40, they hurt the joints when the race is large. Also our 50 -year -old democratic regime sees in the mirror his wrinkles and questions his future: the broken promises of his revolutionary youth, the postponed dream of achieving the same level of European prosperity and especially enormous uncertainty about his future.

You get there-the middle-aged crisis-coming. The comfort zone is comfortable, the resistance to change is human nature and the most predictable procrastination of the consequences. When you realize the situation, the solution seems obvious: cutting with everything that exists. This solution has a huge risk. As the Anglo-Saxon say-it is to send the baby out along with the bath water. Everything goes to drag, the good and the bad, which makes us happy and unhappy.

Portugal also arrived here, and this is seen and feels. In addition to the postponement, there are other problems of age: health that does not respond, education that does not correspond, the slow and suffering justice, the unique housing. Problems that would have been solved if in the eagerness of living we had made, not avoided, important decisions. Now we have fertile ground for emerging populism that present easy solutions to difficult problems. There goes the baby.

If I still get away from this fateful age, I leave advice to my future self, the way to avoid these boring (the sports car can come): first, find your purpose-make sure that you continue to do what makes you happy and accomplishes you; Second, celebrate and remember the deeds of the past; Third, it makes the gift the best you can do so you don’t have to wait for the future. If in doubt, it advances.

But for the regime it is late. The regime has not avoided its middle-aged crisis, so now it is important to solve it. The drastic and simple solution is to lay the regime to garbage and build it all over again. It is a revolutionary approach and is defended in a subreptious manner by some and in a way assumed by others. It is also an extremist – and above all destructive approach.

What the regime needs to do is simple (to do it is difficult): first, renew its purpose and energy-to realize that this is not our fado, that Portugal can be a great country; Second, to celebrate what Portugal has ever been and the epic that were written – Portugal has a great history; Third, change your lifestyle and get your hands on. This requires enormous political courage and conviction, but it is possible. It requires profound reforms, and is inevitable.

Carl Jung said middle-aged was an opportunity to find purpose and potential for growth-bedtime to lose or build a great future now depends on us.