The Best Advice For Someone Who Recently Turned 60. (P.S. The Best Is Yet To Come!)

It feels weird.

I’m only nine months from the twentieth anniversary of my 60th birthday. OMG, how did that happen?

I was recently asked on a forum what advice I would have for someone turning 60. Granted, they say advice is worth what you pay for it and it was a free forum, but since I’ve been there and done the 60-year-old thing many times over I felt reasonably qualified to riff on the topic.

It’s been a 19 1/3-year journey that has earned me a Master’s degree in Screw-Ups and a Ph.D. in Toe Stubbing. Which forces me to invoke (hide behind?) a fundamental success principle:

There are no failures – only research and development.

The experiences and decisions in my late 50s and early 60s played a big role in developing the roadmap for the rest of my life. I’m sharing some of what I’ve learned in hopes that there may be a pearl or two for those at this juncture to help develop a roadmap for their own “third age” or “post-mid-life-transition” phase of life.

The late 50s and early 60s present us with some of the most critical and significant decisions we will make in our lives.

Here are three pieces of advice to those 60 years old or greater that have been part of my two-decade discovery journey:

1. Reject the conventional, decades-old cultural expectations for what lies ahead. By that, I mean viewing this next phase as a time to “wind down and come in for a landing.” At 60, we are typically carrying forward decades of “retirement indoctrination.” We may be part of the growing number who are unprepared financially for traditional retirement and fearful of the subtle condemnation that our culture lays on us if we don’t retire on or before that sacred number 65. Or we may be financially prepared for this anticipated nirvanic experience and convinced we have earned and are entitled to the self-indulgence it allows.

Either attitude has peril embedded in it.

The traditional leisure-based, “vocation-to-vacation” model for this post-mid-life or post-career phase of life still persists, with the help of a powerful but relatively unchanged financial services industry. It’s a model with 85-year-old legs, conceived for political reasons in 1935 and establishing an artificial finish line of 65 when the average American didn’t make it past 62.

Back then, facing 3–5 years of retirement, it made sense for your parents or grandparents to head to the beach or the golf course or Leisure World. Today, with us living 20–40 years longer, the model doesn’t fit. Thirty years of golf or bingo, bridge and boche ball, and the bulging waistline that accompanies it doesn’t make any sense.

My advice for this life juncture is to re-define retirement. Understand that you may be going forward with a mindset that is out of step with the world around you – not to mention your biology – if traditional retirement is the model for the balance of your life.

2. Take some time to reflect, reassess, and resurrect. Have you had questions like these bouncing around in your head? “Why am I here?” “Is this all there is?” “Is it too late to leave a footprint?” Or my favorite: “Is it true that the number of people attending my funeral will largely depend on the weather?”

If so, you are in a healthy spot. This is the perfect time to respond to those healthy questions and carve out some time – alone or with a supportive partner – to reflect on what your life has amounted to. But, with an eye on the positive.

We don’t reach 60 without doing a lot of things right. We got there consciously or unconsciously using some skills that were wired into us at conception.

There is also a chance that some of those natural, inborn skills or talents were “barnacled over” as you dedicated yourself to “provision” rather than “aspiration” and helped build someone else’s dream with your career.

It’s a good time, if you haven’t, to do some basic personality or strengths assessments (DISC, Strengthsfinders, Enneagram, etc.) to uncover or remind you of how you are wired up.

Chances are fairly high that you have been operating outside of your core talents and strengths.  I certainly was, for the better part of 35 years chasing the 20th-century linear life model (Learn-Work-Retire). We all do it in the interests of providing and meeting cultural expectations defined for us by the “big Ps” in our lives – parents, peers, professors, preachers, politicians, and pundits.

I finally had to acknowledge that fact in my mid-sixties after leaving corporate life at 60, starting my own recruiting business, and realizing that my corporate experience – although successful by monetary and title standards – was never aligned with my core “uniqueness”, my “one and no other.”

I ignored the results of multiple assessments that were consistent in suggesting that I was at my best in a learning and teaching mode. My career in sales and marketing wasn’t ideally aligned with that. Yet I forged on, yielding to cultural expectations and rejecting the input of the assessments.

My venture into the recruiting business gradually moved me in the direction of these core talents and strengths to where now I feel that I am achieving the intersection of what I’m best equipped to do, what I’m good at, and a need that exists in the marketplace.

The Japanese called it “ikigai” – a reason for being. Or a reason to get up in the morning. I’m getting closer to “ikigai” day-by-day. But I had to shed some deep-seated cultural influences.

Based on experience and feedback from others, I’ve learned that the process of reflecting, assessing, acknowledging, and resurrecting latent talents and strengths can effectively put one on a path that will turn this extended period of life into the most productive, fulfilling, and purposeful time of your life.

3. Get serious about, and take control of your health. Let’s be honest – you probably haven’t done your body and brain a lot of favors up to this point. I say this with confidence because (1) I’m guilty; (2) the statistics on length of life and the level of extended morbidity and early frailty amongst our general population in this third age bear this out: (3) we let a culture that isn’t friendly to good health dictate our lifestyles.

Plan all you want for this period of extended longevity. It will be meaningless if you don’t feel good.

Dr. Mario Martinez, in his book “The Mindbody Self: How Longevity is Culturally Learned and the Causes of Health Are Inherited” makes an important point when he says:

“We inherit millennia of wisdom on how to achieve optimal health. Rather than mechanical products of our genes, we are the coauthors of their expression. With few exceptions, illnesses are only genetic propensities, not inevitable disruptions waiting their time to unfold.”

In other words, we start life with a birthright of good health. Our bodies are a collection of 35 trillion cells, or thereabouts, that have somehow been kludged together into this amazing 24×7 immune system that works its butt off to keep us healthy. That’s our inheritance.

Through our culturally-influenced lifestyles, we choose to screw that up.

Excuse my brashness, but collectively we are very healthcare illiterate. We don’t know how our bodies work and what they need to carry us through life optimally.

We succumb to a lifetime of seeking comfort and convenience and conformity. We view good health as the absence of sickness and have turned healthcare into a $35 copay experience with your doc when things skid off the tracks, within a healthcare system that only dispenses medical advice, not health advice.

Rather than adopting a lifestyle of “proactive prevention” we turn to a system designed to provide “reactive cure.”

For example, we know that over 60% of early death in our culture is due to an inappropriate diet. Yet, doctors receive no training in nutrition. So we are functioning within a healthcare system that doesn’t care much about what we eat. Or doesn’t seem to because you won’t get nutrition counseling in our “drug it or cut-it-out” system.

Couple that with a profit-driven food industry that doesn’t give a rip about our health, we are fighting challenging countervailing forces to maintain optimal health.

That’s why, regardless of age – and especially at 60 – it’s important to become the CEO of your health, become literate about how your body works at the cellular level, take charge, and change to habits that will support you with good health going forward.

It’s never too late to start. It’s always too early to quit.

The five top killers in our culture – heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, dementia – have not changed in decades. These are all lifestyle diseases and all are preventable.

We have a “whole-life potential” benchmark already established for us. We know that the body is capable of lasting 122 years and 164 days because Jeanne Calment of Paris lived that long – the longest living human on record.

Yet, on average, we fall seriously short of that benchmark, achieving only 66% of it on average.

The gap is lifestyle.

I was heavily influenced, in my 60s, by two books that helped me deepen my commitment to protecting my health, although I have been a strong health advocate and avid exerciser for over four decades.

“Dare to Be 100” by Dr. Walter Bortz, semi-retired Stanford geriatric physician helped me understand why “there is no biological reason that I shouldn’t live to 100 or beyond” and what I can do to enhance my chances of getting there.

The other was “Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond.” This perennial best-seller helped me understand how my body works at the cellular level and what those cells need to support me with good health.

Let me quote Dr. Henry Lodge, co-author:

“The simple fact is that we know perfectly well what to do. Some 70 percent of premature death and aging are lifestyle-related. Heart attacks, strokes, the common cancers, diabetes, most falls, fractures, and serious injuries, and many more illnesses are primarily caused by the way we live. If we had the will to do it, we could eliminate more than half of all disease in men and women over fifty. Not delay it, eliminate it.”

I’ll also leave you with this guideline, also from Dr. Lodge. It’s called “Harry’s Rules” and it is a simple, hard-hitting set of rules that will enable good health and successful aging.

Harry’s Rules

  1. Exercise six days a week for the rest of your life.
  2. Do serious aerobic exercise four days a week for the rest of your life.
  3. Do serious strength training, with weights, two days a week for the rest of your life.
  4. Spend less than you make.
  5. Quit eating crap!
  6. Care.
  7. Connect and commit.

Good luck on your journey. You are about to step into the most exciting, most exhilarating, most impactful, and fulfilling time of life.

If you so choose.

How are your 60s – or your post-60s – going? Let us know what you think about these three suggestions and PLEASE add to them. You can do that with a comment below or an email to gary@makeagingwork.com

Beware the Mid-life Default Mode (or How to Avoid Becoming a Pinprick)

Autopilot is death. Flipping the switch is hard.

I’m stealing these words from Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR correspondent and author of one of my favorite books and one I’ve referenced before: “Life Reimagined: The Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife.”

I decided I would just let BBH do most of the talking this week because she makes such a powerful point in her epilogue about the significance of the transitions we face at mid-life.

Living from the outside, headed for autopilot at midlife

She starts by pointing out her observation that morning-time commercials on network news are aimed at middle-aged women to peddle facial creams and wrinkle-shrinking treatments. Evening news is geared to both men and women past their prime, with “Cialis ads and medication for arthritis pain.”

Temporal, surface solutions, trying to hang onto youth.

All devoid of “how you think, how you engage your mind, your marriage, your career.” All that stuff is harder, but it works.

I’ll let Barbara take it from here:

“As I mulled over this observation, I realized that this identifies an unspoken theme of the research on midlife. Yes, autopilot is death, yes, you need to engage life with verve, but please note the fine print. It’s arduous. Flipping the switch from autopilot to engagement demands intention, energy, and effort every single day.

Every idea in this book runs against our natural tendency to want to relax, take it easy, reward ourselves for decades of work and child-rearing. Our default mode at midlife is entropy. But default is not destiny, and on this, the research is unequivocal: For every fork in the road, you are almost invariably better off making the harder choice. Harder in the moment, that is, but easier over the years, as your body and mind remain strong. By resisting entropy, by pushing through the inertia that beckons us to rest a little longer, to slow down just a notch, until your life has narrowed to a pinprick – by resisting those forces, you dramatically up the odds that your life will be rich to your final breath, deeply entwined with family and friends, engaged in intellectual pursuits, and infused with a purpose that extends beyond your self. Yes, it’s hard.

Yes, it’s worth it.”

What does a life “narrowed to a pinprick” look like? Maybe it’s what follows a vocation-to-vacation retirement. Research has informed us that full-stop retirees watch, on average, 49 hours of TV a week. We know, sadly, that the highest number of suicides in our country occur amongst men over 75. Health care professionals are expressing concern about the epidemic of loneliness. Harvard Business Review reports that 40% of U.S. adults report feeling lonely. I suspect that that percentage would be much greater if the study were narrowed to those at mid-life or beyond.

We continue to fill facilities with those seeking autopilot sporting an aging biology that still knows only growth or decay. The biology isn’t done yet, but the mindset is.

Pinprick is a choice

Hagerty is right – it’s a battle to avoid autopilot. The draw is strong. We’ve been told for decades that we’ve earned the right to become a pinprick and convinced that it’s expected and accepted. No warning labels on this life transition. Just do what the masses do and narrow it down. Move to that warehouse, wind down, forget intention, energy and effort.

How do you know when you are headed to becoming a pinprick? If the shoe fits – – –

  • The highlight of your week is MadMen reruns.
  • Your fitbit reported a total of 1,745 steps yesterday.
  • Your grandson called you by his other grandma/grandpa’s knickname.
  • Apollo 13 and the last book you read coincide.

I’ll let Barbara end it:

“Our longevity is both a blessing and a curse. Almost no one can afford to retire at sixty five and play golf. And even if you could, would you want to? So the question is: What will be the texture of those additional years. Investing inward (more stuff) – or outward (more meaning)? We’re given a chance to leave a legacy. What will it be?”

 

 

Are You Fearful of Old Age? What Age is “Old” to You?

I guess I’m supposed to be concerned about my advancing age. I get a daily reminder as I roll out of the sack every morning. But, so far, I’ve been able to keep it off my mental calendar.

Maybe someday, when all seventy-eleven balls I have in the air come down.

I don’t believe in “time travel” so I don’t travel to the future where fear is the main resident. I certainly have the option to sit here, at 79, and be fearful of my aging but to what purpose? It’s an easy trip to take, especially when your body reminds you daily that the feet and back won’t allow you back on the basketball court or your knees prohibit a 5K or 10K run.

I’m old by current cultural standards. Heck, if I were beholden to living the average male American lifespan (78.54 years, according to World Bank), you would have missed my funeral, which is OK because most people will anyhow if the weather is bad.

Early checkout is not on my radar.

I look, act, and feel younger than what I think most people call “old.” It’s not an accident.  Since my 40s, I’ve felt that it wouldn’t be difficult to avoid being considered old before it actually happens, whenever that may be. I’ve worked to be increasingly aware of the lifestyle choices that slow the aging process and more diligent in putting them into action in my own life.

Those center around the acronym D-A-R-E, which I learned years ago from reading “Dare to Be 100” by Dr. Walter Bortz, a transformational book for me.

  • D = diet
  • A = attitude
  • R = renewal/rejuvenation (for me, this is continuous, daily learning).
  • E = exercise

It’s a pretty simple equation but not one to be considered easy, especially the “A” part. It’s the toughest because the other three don’t get enacted unless the “A” is in place and working.

As Dr. Bortz says:

“D-R-E are biological compass points for aiming for 100, but A – attitude – is most important. Within attitude lie all the planning and decision-making that facilitate the biological steps. It is possible to reach 100 by chance, but it’s not likely.”

He also reminds us that chance favors the prepared person.

In my opinion, early old is largely a choice. We’re pretty good, especially in highly-developed (and supposedly more educated and aware) western cultures, at devising ways to bring “old” on ourselves ahead of schedule.

On average we die at an age that is only 2/3 of our current benchmarked full-life biological potential (Google up Jeanne Calment of Paris). Most of that is due to the lifestyle choices we make early in life and carry into mid-life where they manifest into an accelerated downward slope of aging unless compensated for.

What age is “old” to me? I guess I personally would probably have to start giving in to some “oldness” around 95–100. I haven’t, however, programmed that into the 25-year plan that I try to keep rolling in front of me.

Here’s the “die young as late as possible” model for aging I subscribe to that I borrowed from the late executive coach, Ms. Helen Harkness, and that I featured in one of my blog articles.

  • Young adulthood: 20-40
  • First midlife: 40-60
  • Second midlife: 60-80
  • Young old: 80-90
  • Elderly: 90 and above
  • Old-old: 2-3 years to live

At 79, I like the sound and feel of still being in my second mid-life. It feels right since I’m finding a surprising reserve in the old gas tank (knees and feet notwithstanding).

I also like the brevity of the “old-old and 2-3 years to live” except that I favor 2-3 minutes instead of years.

I still envision going face down in a trout stream having just fooled a 20″ rainbow.

At somewhere around 110.

What is “old” to you? Share your view with a comment below.

Retirement: Is Yours Running to Something? Or From Something? Or Just Plain Stuck?

Are you being pulled by aspiration, pushed by desperation, or just drifting in cultural sludge in your third age?

Given that 2 of 3 retirees enter retirement without a non-financial plan, drifting seems to be the default.

“Hey, no problem – what’s the big deal? Retirement will take care of itself”, they say.

Sorry. Guess again, bunko.

Entering retirement can be like an iceberg – 10% we may know about and consider in advance, 90% we may not. Many twists and turns can be expected yet retirement contingency plans remain rare.

I thought about this as I read the following excerpt from Chip Conley’s daily Modern Elder Academy blog. It’s a guest post provided by 80-year old Pat Whitty, a Certified Health Coach and “Modern Elder Whisperer.” He’s a regular attendee at Conley’s Modern Elder Academy (MEA) gatherings.

Pat and I just met this week via Zoom. Wow, do his message and life travels resonate. Maybe it will for you as well.

Two parts of Pat’s story stand out (there is a lot more to learn which I look forward to). One, he lost 55 pounds in his seventies and transformed his health. Two, he decided to abandon the corporate world and start a new business at 78.

Can we all agree that Pat is an outlier in both categories?

Here’s the article. Enjoy and ponder (the bolding is mine):

The Law of Inertia, also called Newton’s first law, states if a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force. I wonder if Newton was talking about the human condition as well as physical objects. Why is it that so many of us, in the midst of all the information about human potential, remain either at rest or in constant motion in the wrong direction?

I’ve struggled against this law most of my life. I’ve found three things that get me in motion: Inspiration, aspiration, and desperation. Inspiration is fickle. It doesn’t last. I keep looking for another fix. It has betrayed me many times in the past but I keep returning like a jilted lover. Desperation has always set me in motion because I was running away from something. As soon as that something stopped chasing me, I stopped running.

It has taken me a long time to learn that aspiration is the only sustainable way to overcome the inertia of my life. Running toward something is a more sustainable strategy than running away from something. It’s also much less tiring. As I approach my 80th birthday, I may be walking instead of running, but I’m moving in the right direction. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.”

It would seem that desperation would rule a person who is approaching 80. What does an 80-year old aspire to do? Whatever he or she wants. Mama said we can do whatever we set our mind to do. Mama didn’t say we could do whatever we set our mind to do until we’re x years old. Set our mind! Mama was talking about mindset long before Carol Dweck wrote a book about it. However, at age 80 it might be more like a mind re-set. We need to push that button and go back to the default condition when we left the factory. No preconceived ideas about ourselves, others, or the world. No fear. No concern about what others think about us. We’re filled with wonder, curiosity, and a love for adventure. I think it’s still there even at 80.

I’m grateful that MEA has helped me see these later years of my life as an opportunity for personal growth, happiness, and achievement instead of succumbing to the inertia of our culture. I’m enjoying being pulled into these later years by aspiration instead of being pushed by desperation.

It’s fun having a growth spurt at 80!

– Pat

Drifting into and through the retirement years is the default mode for many, perhaps most. No chance of that with Pat. Retirement isn’t on his radar.

But living past 100 is.

I like his chances – if for no other reason than it’s his aspiration.

Does your third age have an aspiration component? Let us know with a comment below.

How Is It OK That We’re Meant to Work a 9-5 for 40-plus Years Then Retire? Maybe We’ve Been Bamboozled!

Did you ever wonder how we, as participants in the so-called “western culture”, ended up in a 20-40-20 linear life model while other societies, with longer life spans and generally healthier citizenry, don’t?

Somewhere along the way over the last century, somebody crafted a manual that made the default life plan to “work-from-9–5-for-40-years”  and then bail out to non-work.

That makes it sound like work is bad, something to avoid.

How does it happen that we turn work into something to escape from when biological research tells us that leaving work completely is detrimental to our health? We are designed to work, to grow, to learn. Work is known to be a key component of healthy longevity. But today we seem to turn it into a nasty four-letter word that we can’t wait to get away from.

The fact is, western society has been set up this way for a very long time.  It has been since the advent of the industrial revolution and our current educational system. We can easily become pawns in this system which is designed to turn us into “factory workers.” Still today we get sucked into the linear-life plan that looks like this:

A century ago, our culture started building a corporate system designed around hiring the cheapest labor possible and defining the rules by which they can function (i.e. work). The educational system moved into lockstep by dropping us into a room with 30 other pawns to teach a simple formula which marketing guru Seth Godin describes as being taught to become a “factory worker”:

“Do your job. Show up. Work hard. Listen to the boss. Stick it out. Be part of the system. You’ll be rewarded.”

It’s worked for a long time, and most of us still subscribe to the model: getta degree, getta job, getta spouse and 2.5 kids, getta house, SUV, fenced yard, and golden retriever, getta title, 401k, and a gold watch.

But it’s changing because (1) technology has changed the formula and we have many more options and (2) we have awakened to the fact that this model pays little attention to matching innate, unique skills up with the work. This mismatch might just speak to the high level of job dissatisfaction that exists today – and to why most people can’t wait to escape into retirement.

Again, Seth Godin says it beautifully in his book “Linchpin. Are You Indispensable?”

You’ve been scammed. You traded years of your life to be part of a giant con in which you are most definitely not the winner. If you’ve been playing that game, it’s no wonder you’re frustrated. That game is over. There are no longer any great jobs where someone else tells you precisely what to do.”

So there’s the origin of the “9-5-for-40-plus-years-then-retire” model, helped along with the illogical and unnatural concept of “retirement” that has become entrenched as the escape route from the purposeless, uninspiring work that this 100-year old system creates.

We’re getting smarter – I think!

We are awakening to the fact that we have better alternatives to this model and that we can find ways to put our unique and innate talents to better and more motivating work. The old system doesn’t want our uniqueness and dreams to surface because then we aren’t likely to be compliant enough. But with the advent of technology, especially the internet, and the opportunities that abound therein, the old system has less of a hold on keeping us as factory workers.

Still, most continue to cling to the old model although the work is uninspiring and out of step with natural talents. Why? For the money and the false reality of a happy, carefree retirement and because they see only risk stepping outside that system.

Corporate life today may be the most vulnerable spot to be as our economy becomes more global and as technology accelerates the pace of disruption of entire industries. I see it week to week as I craft resumes and LinkedIn profiles for healthcare executives who have become unexpected victims of today’s corporate volatility. Many are in the twilight of their careers; few were prepared for the “transition” or have given thought to what will follow their career.

Thinking smart in the retirement years.

I remember a presentation by Dr. Ken Dychtwald, founder of the AgeWave organization in which he profiled perhaps the most sensible life model to apply to the retirement years. He calls  it the:

It’s based on the simple principle of mixing education, work/family, and leisure throughout the lifespan. He makes the point that more of our young people are viewing their lives through this lens.

It also makes sense for the retirement years: moving in and out of work, learning, and leisure at the pace and frequency of your choice.

It’s a platform for a healthier third age. Safeguards against sedentary living; living with a sense of purpose; continuing to be a producer and not just a consumer; forcing present-moment living by eliminating the regrets of the past and fears of the future.

Maybe even solving a world problem or two.

Do you have a model like this? Are you spreading your life over more than just leisure living? Does your retirement plan look something like this? We’d love to know – leave us a comment below. And tell your friends about our weekly articles from www.makeagingwork.com.

How Not To Waste a Retirement.

“The retirement age is coming down from 70, to 65, to 60 and may, in the course of the next 25 years, go below that.

But the dream come true is a nightmare.

For retirement, conceived as a protracted vacation, is a form of prolonged suicide. It marks the first formal stage on the road to oblivion.

Consider the loss to society and deprivation of the individual involved when a man in the real prime of life, the mental, moral, and spiritual prime, is turned out to pasture at the decree of the calendar – someone who has the most creative and most socially useful part of his labor still in him. 

Here is greatness wasted on the putting greens of Long Beach or the green benches of St. Petersburg.

What is the solution, or is there a solution?

Just – work. Work, not to insure your retirement, but to prevent it! You will benefit greatly from any kind of work which is a challenge to that part of you which continues growing.

It is finally time to distill wisdom from experience and to give of that wisdom.”

Darn! I wish I’d come up with that last line.

The statement belongs to the late Dr. Mortimer Adler, renowned educator and author. Dr. Adler had been invited onboard the ocean-liner Queen Mary to a luxurious meeting facility filled with the creme-de-la-creme of insurance executives who were gathered for a Million Dollar Roundtable of the National Association of Life Underwriters. Dr. Adler was asked to speak to this illustrious group “to aid in their continuing search for self-development.”

The year was 1962, almost 6 decades ago. Adler turned the tables on the expectations of this group by likening the American retirement dream to digging a premature grave.

I found this story in the excellent book by Mark S. Walton entitled “Boundless Potential: Transform Your Brain, Unleash Your Talents, Reinvent Your Work in Midlife and Beyond.”

Adler’s assertion rings true today. Walton continues Adler’s message: “Find a way to work for the sake of others and you will step up” Adler asserted, “from a lower to a higher grade of life.”

Our pre-occupation with retirement has turned “work” into another unattractive four-letter word for many. For nearly a century now we have re-categorized work into something we tolerate for 35-45 years with the goal to get away from it so we can hopefully do what we really wanted to do 45 years before. That is assuming we knew back then.

But research tells us that we abandon work at our own peril.

A study of 83,000 Americans 65 and older published in Preventing Chronic Disease, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that being unemployed or retired was associated with the greatest risk of poor health.

Jay Olshansky, a professor at the Chicago’s School of Public Health agrees with the article, saying: “We know that remaining in the labor force is good for us. Not working can lead to overall poorer health.”

Making it the best of four-letter words

In his 1989 best-selling business book “The Age of Unreason”, Charles Handy offered some prescient advice about work and its role in our evolving society. He points out that 50-60 years ago (from 1989) people signed on for work expecting to work 100,000 hours. His formula: 47 hrs/week x 47 weeks/year x 47 years (age 18-65). But now that number is closer to 50,000 hours (37 x 37 x 37) as technology enables companies to do more with fewer bits of our time, as we enter the job force later (avg: 22-24), and with a trend of people retiring earlier.

If we factor in a longevity bonus of 15-30 years that is now becoming more of a reality, I don’t think I’m too far off  Handy’s mark by suggesting that we not only risk our health and longevity when we stop working, but we are also robbing society of 50,000 hours of productivity, creativity, and contribution back to mankind.

In Handy’s words:

“Those unused 50,000 hours can be our opportunity to discover the missing bits of ourselves, to explore new talents, to add variety to ordinary weeks, to meet new people, and to learn new skills.  Those unused hours can add up to a huge new resource for society rather than a pile of unwanted people if we start thinking positively, if we find a way to pay for it, and if, first of all, we start redefining “work” so that it no longer means only a job. It is not the devil who finds work for idle hands to do, it is our own human instincts which make us want to contribute to our world, to be useful, and to matter in some way to other people; to have a reason to get up in the morning.”

Some thirty years ago, Handy put a dagger into the heart of the prevailing concept of retirement with his appeal to his readers to consider work the purpose of life.  He lists “the three P’s at the heart of life – purpose, pattern, people”.  Work provides all three.

Yet, still today, so many can’t wait to abandon work to pursue – – – what? The “what” becomes the rub. For 2 out of 3 retirees, the “what” tends to be shallow and short-term. Garage cleaned and re-organized, golf lessons scheduled, checking off the travel bucket list, alarm clock disabled, pigging out on deferred Netflix series, self-indulgence to the max. One or two years in, those irritating questions surface: “Is this all there is?” “How am I relevant?” “Why am I feeling bored?” “Can I get my old identity back?”

The AgeWave organization confirmed, in their survey of 50,000 retired Baby Boomers that despite 80-90% of pre-retirees being confident they would realize their retirement dreams and goals, only 40% of retirees achieved those happiness and retirement dreams. Vitality, energy, and still-fresh skills are atrophied and productive years wasted.

Active Wisdom

I wrote about the concept of “active wisdom” last year in this article about purpose. It’s a term coined by anthropologist, activist, and writer Mary Catherine Bateson.  She calls it a “new stage” where “wisdom is reaped from years of experience and living.”  She calls it the “most acceptable and positive trait associated with longevity.”

Purpose brings the “why”. Active wisdom brings the “what.”

If you’re past 40 and can fog a mirror, you’ve got “active wisdom.” Our culture needs it spread around, although it doesn’t give a rip about encouraging you to spread it.  It’s more inclined to think of you as a drag on society and prefer that you shuffle off to a warehouse, out of sight, out of the way, out of mind.

Adler had it right:

“It is finally time to distill wisdom from experience and to give of that wisdom.  Find a way to work for the sake of others and you will step up from a lower to a higher grade of life.”

Let’s empty the warehouses!!

Love to hear from you with your thoughts on all this. Leave us a comment below or drop an email to gary@makeagingwork.com with your feedback. I’m doing these articles weekly, so if you aren’t on our mailing list and would like to receive future articles, join our email list at www.makeagingwork.com.

 

Four Steps to a Bountiful Post-career Harvest

“For the unlearned, old age is winter; for the learned, it is the season of harvest.” Hasidic saying

I’m curious. Has your financial planner – assuming you are working with one, which I hope you are –  ever dropped the word “harvest” into your conversation as you pour over the charts and graphs and talk “what’s next?”

Let’s look at the word first. Merriam Webster says this:

  • Noun: “the act of gathering in a crop; the product or reward of effort.“
  • Verb: “reap.”

I may be wrong, but I can’t imagine that word getting a lot of play in insurance sales school.

Now, maybe you are one of the fortunate few who have engaged a financial planner or adviser that thinks “beyond the numbers” and pays more than lip service to the non-financial components of retirement. Financial planners are important, valuable, and necessary. But, chances are they aren’t going to lead you into a deep discussion of the four biggest concerns that retirees have beyond money: (1) boredom; (2) loss of identity; (3) becoming irrelevant; (4) deteriorating health.

Planners sell financial products, not psychological counseling.

How can we avoid these four concerns, reap a reward for our first-half effort, experience a purposeful “harvest”, and avoid a retirement winter?

Here are four suggestions that may help.

1. Build a new “friends list.” With your retirement, we can safely assume you disengaged from the largest, longest-lasting, and one of the most important sets of relationships in your life when you left work. No problem, you say. I’ll stay in touch with most of them. Guess again – 90% of them forgot your name as they gulped down a slice of your retirement cake and watched you vacate the building. Don’t expect return calls – they are all entwined in their own sets of issues still building somebody else’s dream.

Start now to build a new list. Who can you add to keep it alive and vibrant? Who do you know casually that you want to go deeper with because, well, they don’t have time for ageist, senior-citizen-type conversations and they light up a room when they enter. Who can you add that would agree to a plan to hold each other accountable for not heading to geezerville?

Don’t let retirement become a winter void of sustaining relationships. Social isolation is a killer – ARRP reminds us that it is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

2. Commit to a holistic self-care plan. Sorry, but your planner didn’t get a lick of training on how your or his/her biology works while in insurance school. Oh, I appreciate that you will be advised to “take care of yourself.” But what about some detail? That’s on you. Now, perhaps for the first time, you need to be the true CEO of your health.

Your self-care plan should include a relationship with a primary-care provider that goes beyond the typical “drug or cut-it-out” mentality and can engage you in a holistic conversation about your bio-markers, general health condition, what to include, and what to avoid – a trained clinician who is willing to partner with you in your self-care plan. Your “back nine” years will probably require making up for some marginal “front nine” lifestyle patterns, so it shouldn’t be treated casually. Those bad first-half habits have an insidious nature that creep up and manifest on an accelerating basis in our 50s and 60s unless accounted for and slowed down or stopped early in the retirement years.

Consider a commitment to learning about the basics of your cellular biology. Can you explain to me how your body works as effectively as you can about how your lawnmower or dishwasher works?  Probably not, if you an American. Why should you when the “fix” is only a $35 copay away? A physician once told me that the biggest killer in our culture is healthcare illiteracy. If we did appreciate how our body works, would we still take 35% of our meals through the side window of our cars? Or spend, on average (as retirees), 49 hours a week one with the La-z-Boy and voice-activated remote.

The book “Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond” turned the ship for me eight years ago, particularly Chapter Five. Yes, it was written 16 years ago, but your cellular structure hasn’t changed in billions of years. Dr. Lodge’s chapter will help you understand the consequences – good and bad – of your daily treatment of your 100-trillion-cell immune system.

3. Accelerate your learning. Wait, haven’t I done enough of that? Truth is, you probably had pretty well stopped any kind of serious learning a couple of decades ago. Just as you want that physical self to remain vibrant, you need to work even harder at keeping that 2 1/2 pounds of fatty acid between your temples in even better shape.

Fifty years ago, even neurologists believed that neurological senescence was automatic and unalterable. Fortunately, they are all now dead. We’ve learned tons about the brain since then and know that we can build new neural connections for as long as we want. Yep, it’s slower and harder, but what isn’t after 60? What are you not doing that you always wanted to do because you feel it would be too hard or take too much time? There’s your starting point. Stretch yourself mentally with something that takes you outside your comfort zone. Evidence mounts that doing so is antidotal to dementia.

4.Let your purpose find you and go fix something. Have you noticed that a lot of things in our culture are broken right now? What if you headed off the boredom and loss-of-identity that accompanies full-stop retirement and dusted off your peculiarity, your uniqueness and packaged it up with the skills and experiences of 40 years of work and went out and “made a ruckus” aimed at fixing something. What if you got back in the ring – on your terms, at your pace, doing what you may have forgotten you are/were really, really good at and loved doing? You don’t have to look far to find something that needs fixing. Substitute “re-creation” for “recreation” and go change something. And when that’s fixed, go change something else.

Here’s a quote from a recent Chip Conley blog to ponder:

“While recreation and re-creation are not mutually exclusive, the latter promises the elixir of life. An alchemical cocktail of curiosity and wisdom, garnished with fresh sprigs of a beginner’s mind, creativity, and service. To regenerate is to make new again. To retire is to withdraw into seclusion.”

 

I spent a bunch of my formative years engaged in farming activities. I’ve seen a harvest or two. I’ve also seen what happens if the harvest doesn’t happen. It’s called rot. Rot can be a post-career option. It is for many. But you, dear reader, are a harvester. And society will be better for it.

So You Think You’ve “Peaked.” Probably Not – Read On!

A question came up recently on Quora.com that intrigued me and motivated me to put the pencil to paper with a response. The question asked:

“At what age is your prime age?”

Fertile ground for thought and opinion, don’t you agree?

So I stepped up with my two cents worth. Here’s an expanded version.

There would seem, to me, to be two different types of prime: physical and psychological.

Physical prime is easier to define. Generally, we reach our physical prime in our mid-to-late 20’s and a gradual decline begins from there. My understanding is that this physical decline in terms of muscle mass and strength really begins to accelerate in the mid-to-late-thirties and picks up serious speed as we approach our fifties unless offset through strength training.

Mental prime may be more elusive as it would seem to be unique to each of us and have so many dimensions. Your psychological/emotional prime is likely to look different and have a different timeline than mine or everyone else’s.

I did some research and found this interesting article on the topic published in 2017 by Business Insider:

Here Are The Ages You Peak at Everything Throughout Life

Here’s the chart that they developed which shows interesting prime ages for a broad selection of phenomena:

As the article emphasized, this is not a controlled study and the points mark the middle of an age range. So these are averages. That’s important for you, my readers, to know because you are all above average on so many levels.

Some things are pretty obvious. For instance, you’re 60 and deciding to learn to speak Russian. Good luck with that. It appears you are 5 decades too late to expect significant results from that worthwhile mental-gymnastics effort.

Double-dipping “Life Satisfaction”

It’s interesting to note, from the chart, that life satisfaction pops up peaking in two spots: age 23 and again at 69 but with psychological wellbeing peaking at 82. This is all according to science.

At 79, I honestly don’t remember what my life satisfaction level was at 23. I was between stints in college and mostly a “wandering generality” into muscle cars and bar hopping. Maybe it’s saying that there is some life satisfaction in wanderlust which was a pretty popular lifestyle with the reprobates I hung with in mid-1960s Cheyenne, Wyoming. Fortunately, sanity returned and I went back for my third and final run at a college degree (P.S. I succeeded). My biggest contribution through that meandering stretch was to the economic welfare of pubs and gas stations.

I will, on the other hand, attest to there being greater life satisfaction at 69 – and in the 10 years since – than all the earlier times in my life. But then, that’s just me. It was in my seventh decade that I grew to realize that my “good spots” came when I stayed true to my birthright of uniqueness and didn’t succumb to other people’s opinions and the pressure of cultural expectations. Unfortunately, it took me that long to recognize and acknowledge that uniqueness – or, as I wrote last week, my “inclinations.”

That discovery, in and of itself, is not an easy or common one. So few of us ever acknowledge and honor our true inborn giftedness. Our culture snags us with our outdated educational system, pounds us with cultural expectations, and hooks us into a life built around comparison instead of our uniqueness.

I’m reminded of the article written by Australian hospice nurse, Bronnie Ware, who spent many years with patients who were in the last few weeks of their lives and who had gone home to die.  In her article “Regrets of the Dying, she shares the five most common regrets that they expressed in their final days. Far and away, the most common regret was:

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

Age 82 is a head-fake!

I don’t expect anyone in my cohort to claim they haven’t passed their physical peak. They know my bull**** filter, albeit not great, wouldn’t let that one through.

But what about that “psychological wellbeing” peak at 82? Seems kinda early, don’t ya think? Couldn’t we move that one out another decade or two – and make it a really brief peak, like overnight, maybe? As in “die young, as late as possible.” Sort of like the Okinawans have tended to do – live happy and purposeful close to 100 and then check out with virtually no morbidity period. Unlike we Americans with our average 10 1/2 years of morbidity.

What’s the Okinawan magic? Prior to being invaded and infected with western culture, it was mostly a strong sense of purpose built around community and family combined with non-western lifestyle diet and movement choices. Historically, Okinawans haven’t relinquished their identity and sense of purpose to retirement – they have no word for the concept in their vocabulary.

So maybe we move that 82 to 92 or 97 or – heaven forbid – to 102. Rather than hopping off the cliff from labor-to-leisure at the “obligatory 65”, we turn our retirement into a purposeful, service-filled period that is balanced with labor, leisure, and learning. Your thing, built around your “inclinations”, on your timetable, at your speed, in whatever form you choose but with an eye to changing something that needs changing.

Why not? Remember, these are all averages – and you’re not!

Hope you are coming out of this COVID year unscathed. We appreciate you sticking around and giving us a read. Let us know your thoughts on this peak issue. Scroll down and leave a comment or drop me an email at gary@makeagingwork.com

Oh, by the way. I just launched my new website for the other part of my life – my resume writing, LinkedIn presence development, and career transition and retirement coaching. Give us a visit over at www.turningpointcareerservices.com and schedule a call if you would like to discuss any of the services I’m offering.

Don’t Give Up Your “Unrepeatable Uniqueness.”

I’ll bet you’ve heard this before:

  • No two snowflakes are ever the same. You are a snowflake.
  • You are a unique, unrepeatable collection of DNA.
  • You have a genetic makeup that has never happened before and won’t be repeated again.

It’s true. You are “unrepeatably unique.”

 

So what? Am I supposed to do something with that esoteric insight?

 

Hang with me – I think I can make this less esoteric.

For a big chunk of my life, I have been fascinated by this thing called Mastery. For some time, I harbored a resentment that I wasn’t especially gifted, a prodigy, a genius, or born of genius parents, or raised in the right neighborhood (rural S.E. Wyoming is not known for its production of world changers).

I faced a path to mastery blocked by my DNA and heritage – at least, in my mind. I carried that psychological ball-and-chain around for a long time.

That ignorance began to dissolve when I read a book entitled “Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-term Fulfillment” by George Leonard. In it, Leonard defines mastery this way:

“It resists definition yet can be instantly recognized. It comes in many varieties, yet follows certain unchanging laws. It brings rich rewards, yet is not really a goal or a destination but rather a process, a journey. We call this journey mastery, and tend to assume that it requires a special ticket available only to those born with exceptional abilities. But, mastery isn’t reserved for the supertalented or even for those who are fortunate enough to have gotten an early start. It’s available to anyone who is willing to get on the path and stay on it – regardless of age, sex, or previous experience.”

If this is all true, why do we see so few true masters? What was it about Mozart, or Tiger Woods, or Einstein, or Leonardo de Vinci, or Tommy Emmanuel (my acoustic guitar master/hero), or Seth Godin (marketing guru) that took them to the master category?

There’s no magic to any and all of their mastery achievement. None of these people are or were prodigies.

Prodigies almost never become masters. They fizzle out.

What these masters did was to (1) honor their uniqueness and deepest internal drivers and (2) hop onto a path that they never abandoned, regardless of the twists and turns.

Leonard offers up an explanation of why the path to mastery is so rare:

“The trouble is that we have few, if any, maps to guide us on the journey or even to show us how to find the path. The modern world, in fact, can be viewed as a prodigious conspiracy against mastery. We’re constantly bombarded with promises of immediate gratification, instant success, and fast, temporary relief, all of which lead in exactly the wrong direction.”

In his view, this anti-mastery mentality not only prevents us from developing our potential skills but threatens our health, education, career, relationships, and perhaps “our national economic viability.”

So there I had an answer – I had been conspired against by the very culture I existed in. Who knew?

A “Third Age Master?” Resurrect your inner genius.

In my continued pursuit of an understanding of the nuances of mastery, I dived into a book that’s been gathering dust for a couple of years on my crowded bookshelf: Robert Greene’s “Mastery.” It’s a 300+ page, dense, small-font project with guaranteed nap-generating qualities if you aren’t an off-kilter reader like yours truly. It takes Leonard’s writing to the next level.

Greene pretty well clears up any mystery about mastery using a plethora of real-life examples, ranging from Mozart to Einstein to Buckminster Fuller to John Coltrane.

Honestly, the book started out feeding my frustration at being severely short of having mastered anything other than sitting and thinking about mastery.

But, Greene jolted me out of my drift toward a mid-page nap with the statement that “intensity of effort lies at the heart of mastery” and that:

“-at the core of this intensity of effort is in fact a quality that is genetic and inborn – not talent or brilliance, which is something that must be developed, but rather a deep and powerful inclination toward a particular subject. 

This inclination is a reflection of a person’s uniqueness. This uniqueness is not something merely poetic or philosophical – it is a scientific fact that genetically, every one of us is unique, our exact genetic makeup has never happened before and will never be repeated. This uniqueness is revealed to us through the preferences we innately feel for particular activities or subjects of study.”

I bolded the word “inclination” because, as I read on, it occurred to me that it’s the word that best describes what nearly all of us fail to honor in our lives.

How did yours truly, a wandering-generality from rural Wyoming who relished time alone to think, who liked to read and write, and who most enjoyed his three semesters as a journalism major in college end up selling wood-fiber ceiling tile to lumberyards in St. Louis?

It turns out that this anomaly isn’t all that hard to sort out. Like most, my “uniqueness” and my “inclinations” bowed before the cultural expectations of the “big P’s” in my life: parents, peers, professors, politicians, pundits, paycheck.

You recall the not-so-subtle message, don’t you?

Don’t stand out.

Stay in the middle of that bell curve.

Do as you’re told.

Keep your head down and enjoy a “getta” life: getta degree, getta job, getta spouse; getta house, 2.5 kids, fenced yard, 2 SUVs, and golden retriever; getta title, 401K, gold watch, and retirement cake.

Somewhere along that sorry path, inclinations got buried deeper and deeper into the depths of our accumulated, culturally-influenced neural connections.

Then, we bump up against that artificial finish line called 65, roll a stone and permanent seal over the tomb containing our withering inclinations, and call it retirement.

So, you’re tired and can’t wait for retirement because you bought the Koolaid that retirement is the relief you need from a life and “job” that, on a good day, injects an unhealthy dose of cortisol (hint: stress hormone) and has nothing to do with those inclinations you tormented your parents with at age 9 or 10.

So you bag it – or start planning to bag it – and wander into unchartered territory with a timeline that could be longer than the one spent in your “career.” Chances are good you may jump in armed with nothing resembling a roadmap.

Escape is the operative word. Not relaunch or take-off. Been there, done that, through with it.

And the accumulated skills and experience begin their retreat deep into secluded sections of the brain. The highly developed neural connections you formed over 10, 20, 30 years begin to shed their myelin and shrink, helped along with enchantment with the voice-activated remote, Netflix, and an average of 49 hours/week of TV watching.

You’ve just denied yourself the chance to become a “third age master.”

Our youngers, our off-kilter society need you to honor your “inclinations.” Yes, those inclinations are likely barnacled or crusted over by meeting cultural expectations, accumulating, conforming, fitting in. But, they ain’t dead yet. In fact, they are like the flowers that suddenly blanket Death Valley once a decade when perfect conditions develop.

Your “third age” could be that Death Valley flower experience. Conditions could be perfect for massaging those inclinations back to life. And making-a-ruckus in the world, or in somebody’s life.

Don’t waste your 10,000 hours!

It’s generally accepted that true masters have invested 10,000 hours in pursuing their inclinations. Tiger and Amadeus felt and acknowledged their inclinations at age 4 and were pushed into and nurtured along their journey to mastery by their fathers. They had their 10,000 hours as teenagers.

How many of 10,000 hours might you have that can be supplemented and channeled into bringing your inclinations to life?

You were anything but a slug through those career years. You accumulated skills and experiences that are worth a lot. Just think what might happen if you took those acquired skills, experiences, accumulated wisdom and turn it all loose on your “inclinations” with an eye toward making things better for you, the world, and the people in it.

Somehow that just seems to have a better ring to it than just escaping.

The Size of Your Funeral Gathering Will Be Determined By the Weather. Whaaaat?

I remember how that quote rocked my world a few decades ago when I first read it in my mid-50s. I was in that life phase characteristic of most American males where there is this sinking realization there are more yesterdays than tomorrows and the “is-this-all-there-is” questions start surfacing. 

Am I relevant?

Will I ever be relevant?

What is relevant?

Does anyone care that I’m here? (News flash: Most don’t!)

You would think that by 45 or 50 or 55 that we would have most things about life figured out. But, we don’t. We’ve been too busy being heads-down, meeting cultural expectations.

Maybe the timing of this speed bump is built into the male genetic arrangement. Women don’t seem to bother with it so much. More likely, it’s because we’ve pulled up short of the cultural goalposts expected at that age – image, title, boys toys, neighborhood, retirement account, etc.

And there is that sinking feeling that there isn’t enough time or enough gas left in the tank to catch up.

 

The hour-long funeral procession

Coming across this quote reminded me of an experience I had nine years ago. I was doing my recruiting thing ensconced in my 9th-floor office in a building that overlooked one of Denver’s busiest east-west thoroughfares. I was on the phone with a candidate when I heard the “woop-woop” of a police siren. I looked out my corner window and saw a group of motorcycle policemen blocking off intersections ahead of a funeral procession.

From my perch, I could see a couple of dozen cars behind the hearse winding around a curve a few blocks away. I thought nothing of it and turned back to my phone call which continued for another 15 minutes or so. As I hung up, I glanced again down to the street and saw the funeral procession continuing to steadily stream by with the trail of cars still disappearing around the curve.

I remember thinking that there must have been some dignitary that passed but I hadn’t heard or read of any.

I turned back to the paperwork on my desk and stood up a full 30 minutes later to discover the funeral procession still streaming by.

Over an hour passed before the last car and trailing motorcycle cop passed.

As far as I knew, the governor was still alive, as was the mayor. And I hadn’t heard of the passing of any mega-church pastors. Or any Broncos/Rockies/Nuggets/Avalanche sports heroes. Or any of our small collection of Colorado billionaires.

Who was this person?

I still don’t know. The obits revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

This much I know – –

It was a sunny, warm spring day. But good weather didn’t explain this procession. This person, whoever he or she was, had touched a lot of people in a positive way.

This had “silent hero” written all over it.

The event has stuck with me and is a constant reminder that it’s the “internal” and not the “external” and the “give” and not the “get” that ultimately counts.

That’s a hard part of this mid-life transition for many. It’s a point where some of the hardest career and life decisions are made. I’ve written before about the “happiness curve” and the research that has revealed that age 47, on average, is the low point of happiness for most men.

Having been there personally and listened to lots of stories from folks at this stage, I’ll offer up a few thoughts on what one should know or begin to discover at this phase of the life span.

  • You should know if your life quest is aligned with your core essence. By age 45 – 55, you should feel, at the gut level, that you are, or are not, doing what you were designed to do. For most of us, our decisions up to this point have been largely driven by cultural influences and not by recognition and acknowledgment of our deepest talents, strengths, and dreams. It’s important to take seriously those aforementioned questions that are starting to dog us. They are a sign that there may be a misalignment that, if not acted on, could carry us into a second-half full of discontent and the negative biological consequences that can accompany the discontent.
  • You are now on the “back nine” and don’t get to do the “front nine” over. I love the golf analogy. I borrowed it from pioneer exercise physiologist Dan Zeman (see this article) Dan is on a life quest to raise awareness amongst male boomers of the health and wellness impact of decisions made in the back-nine or second half of life, reminding us that we don’t get to play our front nine over. There is a good chance, as Americans, that our “front nine” didn’t do us any favors, physically and emotionally. More than likely, we have coupled the stress of striving to accumulate and meet cultural expectations with a relatively unhealthy lifestyle of poor diet and immobility in a quest for convenience, comfort, and conformity.

We don’t have to look far for proof of the significance of marginal “front nine” decisions. The “happiness curve” seems to confirm that the mid-40s is a point where “turning point” decisions need to be made as one heads into the “back nine.” It’s also a time when the accumulated effects of poor “front nine” lifestyle decisions begin to manifest in the form of health issues. Most of us enter our mid-40s in pretty good shape but beginning to demonstrate signs that a downturn is underway that needs attention. Most common are weight gain, hypertension, increased cholesterol, arthritis, anxiety/depression.

The CDC has announced that over 60% of American males are overweight and 25% are obese. Nearly 70% of the American population is pre-diabetic and 50% don’t know it. This age and later is when all this begins to show up. That alone is a call to action at this point in life.

A few other things come to mind that we should know if we don’t already:

  • Things are rarely as good or as bad as they seem. Most anxiety is self-inflicted.
  • Most of the things we worry about are out of our control. (Reference the Serenity Prayer as a guide).
  • Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. The treasure is in today and doing what’s important to you. Today is all we have.
  • We will rise to the level of the five people we hang out with the most. It behooves us to be careful of our relationships and not be afraid to glean.
  • Our potential in life is limited not by the external but the internal. Live internally and accept that you are gifted in a special way. Don’t let our culture take it away from you.

It’s possible, as medicine and the biosciences continue to advance and we learn more about self-care, that 45-55 may not even be life’s true mid-point (more on this in a future article).  We can seize the opportunity and couple our inborn talents with accumulated life experiences, skills, and knowledge to virtually explode into your second half, be a world-changer, and have the time to do it.

The only thing holding us back is what we allow to happen between our temples.

Maybe the visual of that hour-long funeral procession will help.