> 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.