Midlife may not make us less ambitious, but more discerning about what deserves our time.

My brother recently hiked for three days in the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness with two long-time friends, with whom he had travelled in Thailand in his early twenties. They did not see a single other person for the duration of their excursion, and the expansiveness and beauty of the setting proved cathartic. The result was quality conversations, fresh perspectives and plenty of laughs.

Chatting about how meaningful the experience was afterwards, my brother and I went on to discuss the shifts in thinking that midlife can bring, and how, as we journey through our years, our paths do not, and cannot, unfold as we intended.

Those three boys in their twenties had a sense of what they wanted to achieve in their lives, and each experienced challenges and circumstances that they could never have foreseen. Reconnecting years later brought a deeper truth to light: that connection, quiet moments in nature, and the freedom to simply step back can matter just as much as the milestones that usually define success.

A Canadian psychoanalyst, Elliott Jaques, coined the term "midlife crisis" in a 1965 paper called Death and the Mid-life Crisis. Studying the biographies of many famous artists, including Mozart and...