Having Nearly Become One Myself, I Talk About the "Middle-Aged Men Who Don't Work" Problem

I've started frequently seeing articles and books with the keyword "middle-aged men who don't work."

Actually, I myself once nearly became a "middle-aged man who doesn't work." From that experience, I thought about why middle-aged men who don't work come about, and in a word, it's "learned helplessness."

Everyone is full of motivation and drive at first, but as their career goes on, those are lost more and more.

In a word, "because it isn't rewarded."

When you try to start something new, you meet resistance; even when you get results, they aren't reflected in your pay; you learn that people less capable than you get promoted or earn high salaries; and so on.

The world runs on unreasonableness. Now I understand that this is where the real starting line is, but people end up in the folly of "reinforcing the echo chamber"—drinking with colleagues, family, and friends in something halfway between seeking advice and swapping complaints.

Then you settle into the belief that "I get a fixed amount of money every month anyway, so I just need to go to the workplace and kill time," and the downward spiral begins.

Then you reach an age when changing jobs is hard, and if you're married, have kids, or have a loan, you cling to the company in that state.

And so a "middle-aged man who doesn't work" is born.

"Middle-aged men who don't work" are like the pus of Japanese-style employment, and though people talk about how to deal with them, as long as society "has started draining the pus," they will simply be weeded out.

In fact, an uncle of mine (in his late fifties) turned into a middle-aged man who doesn't work, went through restructuring several times, was abandoned by his family, and died alone.

In future generations, more people probably won't fit into Japanese-style employment, but for today's middle-aged men who don't work to avoid a miserable end, the only way is for them to wake up themselves.

Concretely, achieving redundancy in income through starting a business or side jobs is the realistic option.

Of course, most will probably fail, and I'm not recommending starting a business.

But humans are creatures that, at any age, can exert power even they can't believe. Doesn't it all come down to whether you can take that fact to heart and summon your inner energy once again?