I am on a mission to retire the word retirement. We are not retiring from but moving to. The question is, what are we moving to? Three years ago, I left a 30-year career as a college professor of business management in search of a new path. I was elated at the possibility of starting my own business, which would allow me to practice what I had preached and with no 45-minute commute. But I also felt a nagging insecurity about starting over as a baby boomer in a young person's world. What did Jann Freed not Professor Freed have to offer?
Fortunately my career mentor, Elmer Burack, Ph.D., a professor and author of various books on career guidance, had predicted baby boomers would struggle with the aging process. He had sent me the book From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Ronald S. Miller (Warner Books; 1997). Reading this book convinced me I wanted to focus on transitioning and aging. Schachter-Shalomi founded Sage-ing International, an organization with the mission of "helping elders reclaim their role as leaders, sharing wisdom and spirit essential to creating a better world for current and future generations. I became a Certified Sage-ing Leader in hopes of helping aging people live the second half of their lives in the most fulfilling way. Here are challenges my clients experience and advice I share.
Challenge: In general, our society does not like to discuss aging, but would rather emphasize antiaging. While many other cultures embrace the wisdom of their elders, in the United States we tend to push older people out in favor of the young. Women in our youth-centric society can feel especially invisible.
Advice: Seek out positive role models who are "sage-ing" rather than just aging and borrow traits you like from them. When we are in the presence of positive people who are making the most of life and sharing what they know, age seems less relevant. Traits I admired about Dr. Burack included his pushing me while also lifting me up. He gave constructive feedback and support, and he believed in my abilities, which in turn boosted my confidence.
Challenge: Americans are in uncharted territory living and working longer while staying healthier than past generations. This has created a new and unscripted life phase between ages 55 and 75. Many baby boomers are feeling lost, not knowing how to navigate this phase of life.
Advice: This is the time, especially after becoming an empty nester for many, to hit the "reset button" to determine what to do next. Marc Freedman, author of The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife (PublicAffairs; 2011), argues for "the creation of a new stage between the end of the middle years and the beginning of retirement and old age, an encore stage of life characterized by purpose, contribution, and commitment, particularly to the well-being of future generations. As you move to rather than retire from, consider what you are moving to. Most of my clients focus retirement planning on financial planning instead of life planning how they want to spend their time, money, and energy after their main career. I encourage making intentional decisions about living life with purpose and meaning. A good starting place is to reflect on your life experiences through journaling or memoir writing, which helps you move forward more clearly.
Challenge: Middle-age confusion or searching is known as midlife crisis, which can be a very stressful time. The characteristics of this condition have remained the same over the decades: longing to stay young, dramatic life changes, makeovers in appearance, trading a spouse for a newer model, feeling stuck in work, and often unexplainable life decisions. According to the Pew Research Center and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the numbers for divorce, depression, suicide, and substance abuse are increasing faster for people 50-plus than for other age groups. While there are no clear-cut causes for these trends, research by the MetLife Mature Market Institute concluded that meaning trumps money and significance trumps success.
Advice: Embrace your mortality and accept it, then leave a legacy. The embracing of death instead of fearing it enables us to live more fully. Also, as you think through your life and what is meaningful to you, consider what you can give back. Ways of leaving a legacy can be tangible (money or stuff) or intangible (storytelling or a written ethical will). The intangible are ways of passing on your beliefs, values, life's lessons, and wisdom with the people who matter most in your life. .
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