That's not quite how he puts it to those willing to listen - and they are few and far between as his repartee alternates between bitter begrudgery and mean-minded moaning - but Jim and thousands like him in their early 50s are overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, selfloathing, sexual frustration or just plain old middle-aged malaise.

It's not all work's fault, but Jim and the disaffected cohort of career-minded children of the 1950s who made it to corporate high places may never have heard of Uri Bronfenbrenner's Theory of Developmental Psychology; they're miserably unaware that one of the biggest tasks they'll ever have to overcome had nothing to do with mergers and acquisitions, boardroom power play or tax avoidance.

According to lifespan theorists, bridging the late 40s, early 50s 'what's it all mean anyway' gaping canyon is about as big a deal as having a free house and a clear complexion was when we hit 15.

There is nothing else.

There are dreams, maybe unforgivably naïve, which each of us puts on hold from 18 on, when we begin to engage with the nitty-gritty bits and pieces of living. We cling to anchors like jobs and houses, spouses and children. It's all greased, if we're lucky, with love and companionship, responsibility, fun, respectability and a promise of something else out there.

When we hit middle age, which is now happening later and later, we hit the developmental task of making it all add up and if it doesn't, hitting a wall.

For Jim, it was about one thing - and not that thing that focused his mind at adolescence. He won the wife over, took a lump sum, enrolled in a top London media school and, being male, 'invested' in far too much photography gadgetry which he looks at lovingly and plays with daily.

He hopes to set up a business doing what he truly loves, taking pictures, by December.

And if he brings the determination, drive and strategic know-how he's developed over the years to his new career, he will be as successful at that within a few years as he was after the 20 he spent in a suit.

But there's no little brown pill to inject the psyche with the energy it takes to carry it off. Sustaining it over time is what matters if a 50-something whim is to develop into a rewarding, fulfilling new life.

It may take turning 50, or suffering a health trauma, a family crisis, divorce or somebody dying to sway our mindsets so that we arrive at that place when we re-appraise the rewards we get for the enormous effort we exert doing it the orthodox way, year on year.

According to the Harvard Business Review (April 06), being burnt out, bored or stuck in a bottleneck occurs from 40 to the mid-50s, and for those deeply affected the ensuing restlessness, disaffection and frustration can led to all sorts of mad, middle-aged malaise. We youngsters (ahem) are familiar with the age group's flights of unfancy. The small red sports car, the pony tail, the now ubiquitous and very creepy 'Botox way' and the harmless enough 50-plus 'disco kings and queens' 30 years out of date.

But the healthier - and surely happier - route to address what the review labelled 'Middlescence' - just like adolescence without the spots and tantrums, and more repressed - is to harness the energies and skills and do something new, different, challenging and most importantly, personally interesting to you, really, deep down in the reservoir of what's left from the long years of covering up and camouflage.

Which is what Aviva CEO Richard Hanson did a few weeks go when he announced he's throwing out the tie collection and heading to Africa to help out in the battle against the more fundamental challenges to human survival. Forget fighting for more market share and a bigger Lexus and see how the skills honed in the boardroom can be used trying to stop starvation and the spread of Aids, poor sanitation and rampant disease.

Hanson has always played an active part in corporate social responsibility initiatives and sat as a non-paid board member on charitable trusts, but when his daughter went to Africa on her gap year, he went out to visit and his heart never went back.

Foreign places used to mean opportunities for increased market penetration and higher share price for the world's fifth-largest insurer, but the African mission has meant more to its CEO, due to depart in June, than moving on up? and up? ever could. Hanson was obviously a Middlescent in waiting. Luckily for him, he's one with the financial wherewithal to forgo the security of salary and perks.

Of course, reappraising for many will mean discovering it's all been great and we should keep going. But for others it will be a story of years trying to break the company's records on sales, profitability, saleability and bottom line while slowly but stealthily breaking their own shrinking little hearts.

Dublin businessman Niall Mellon did it too, with his South African township building venture, and many more men of 40 and 50 are doing the same. Will Michael O'Leary be next?

That a career should be the fulfilment of all those values and dreams is a flimsy construct anyway and we were sold a pup there, for sure. Obviously other things - family and friends, hobbies and holidays - shape our lives. But bettering the world matters too; the more we suffocate in material rewards, the more we become aware of a vacuum.

The energy and skills born of years scaling the heights of the business world can be directed to many alternative ways to make a living or just live. Directing that energy, with a wiser head on older shoulders can bring that elusive meaning. It needn't be a 'reflexology moment' but it may take some fancy footwork to change direction and start afresh.