Why you should give this some thought.
Mark Twain:
“Twenty years from now, you’ll be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do, than by the ones you did do”.
This phase can be the most exciting time in your life as it gives you the most opportunities to explore your options. And by doing that, you get to discover more things about yourself that you may not have spent any time thinking about. For some people this can be scary, for others tremendously liberating. Think about where you fall along that scale.
You can spend many hours reading self-help books and articles. I find them long, wordy, and tedious, albeit well intentioned. I recommend instead that you focus on a few basic ideas, and then be willing to spend some time seriously contemplating them. I’ve attempted to summarize them on this page.
And, if you have the opportunity, find inspirational people to hang around with – people who are making a real difference in their “leftover years”.
10,000 people turn 65 every day in the US.
Here are a couple of recent reports addressing the over 65 age group and the over 80 subset:
The New Life Map, A Report from the Stanford Center on Longevity, November 2021:
“The 65+ demographic – all 52 million of them – are often lumped by marketers, media and policy makers into a monolith assumed to represent a drain on society, rather than an enormous, untapped source of human capital.”
Depressing.
According to the Joint Center on Housing Studies at Harvard:
“Over the next 20 years households led by people in their 80s will be the fastest-growing segment defined by age group.”
Encouraging.
Meaning, purpose, and fulfillment are not the same thing.
Meaning is attached to the feelings we get when we believe our actions make a positive difference in the lives of others.
Purpose is an answer to the questions “Why are we here, and what are we supposed to do?”
If you find this question to be too philosophical, ask yourself what your passion has been in your life, and see if that helps you define the idea of “purpose”. Or, ask yourself why you get out of bed every day. Or what makes you unique, and whether you want to make the best of those qualities and talents.
For Leo Rosten, American writer and social scientist, the purpose of life “is not to be happy, but to matter – to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.”
Fulfillment is a feeling of happiness and satisfaction; it’s also the completion of something such as the fulfillment of a promise.
Challenges:
Not losing sight of meaning and purpose as we age and deal with less energy than we once had. There is well-documented medical evidence that having a sense of purpose yields physical benefits.
Remembering the passion we once had for meaningful aspects of our lives and finding ways to keep it alive.
Reassessing goals we had when we were younger, and creating new ones appropriate to our current ages and abilities.
Avoiding falling into routines of doing the same unfulfilling activities day after day, every day.
Letting go of “expectations”. It’s too easy to talk yourself out of trying new things because of harboring negative expectations.
Forgetting that there are likely a number of things in your life for which you should feel a sense of gratitude.
Endless possibilities for involvement:
Volunteer work. The US ranked #1 in citing “Service and civic engagement” in what makes life meaningful.
Relationships with family and friends. There are usually opportunities for improvement here.
Home improvement.
Exercise and sports. The medical evidence for improving physical health is convincing.
Anything creative: hobbies, art, music, gardening.
Education and learning. Including travel.
Church. Remember that the US mentioned religion more frequently than any of the other 16 countries in the Pew study as being an important factor in their lives.
Advocacy. Accompany a friend to a medical appointment to help ask the right questions and take notes.
When you need a little enouragement:
Check out For Inspiration, an ongoing list of people who have mastered this phase in their lives.
And recall an old Greek proverb: Society grows great when older people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.