What is a crisis, mid-life or otherwise?

When we are in the process of changing, growing or transforming ourselves we set up an avenue for confrontation between our old self and our, as yet undetermined, new self. This friction is what causes pain: physical, emotional and mental. When we resist change, it is like demanding that the butterfly remain in its chrysalis. Resisting goes against Nature but for some reason we think we can escape change by calling our stubborness human nature.

Well then what is human nature? Is it to remain crystallized in our outworn shell because of convenience, laziness or fear? Or is it our right and destiny, as evolving human souls, to birth ourselves through individual striving?