Seeing Yourself in the Future
Those who will live to 100 are among us. Maybe that’s not a goal of yours. Still, you are receiving the gift of a life longer than your parents or grandparents ever imagined.
This contribution of longevity creates a new life stage of an extra 25-30 years. Wow.
How do we begin to plan a high-quality, satisfied, century-old life?
Big task ahead. And, we don’t have many tools in the toolbox.
First, there is no map. (Yes, Stanford Longevity Center has begun an initiative to create The New Map of Life. Expect this wonderful and valuable information in 5 years. Meanwhile, no map.)
Second, there are no apps, few role models, and no crystal ball for the best of a 100-year life. In fact, despite the identified transition of 2-5 years after retirement, there are few guidelines to manage the transition and no markers to let you know how you’re doing.
Third, a budget is imperative. Sixty percent of retirees fear running out of money more than death. Few of us have huge sums of discretionary income so finances are still an integral part of your future. You don’t need to be a financial whiz kid. Simply learn to better master your priorities, get creative and make smart decisions.
Finally, and worst of all, today’s culture is not designed to support a grand 100-year life of engagement and productivity. This is a youth-oriented culture where age discrimination is rampant; volunteerism while revered loses luster after a while; and grown children think nothing of asking you to come help raise their children. (It takes 40 years to change a culture so one that supports century-old lives should be here about 2059.)
After this dose of current reality do you really believe I’ve got super news? I do.
The best of life – and the best of you - can be in the last third of your life. It’s just that it’s all up to you.
The triumph -- an extraordinary life after retirement—can start right now. You don’t need more therapy, more education, a new or perfect job, a spiritual advisor or a sabbatical. (although all of these can be good things.)
What you is essential is to step up and pull off one Grand Act of Imagination.
Imagination Collapse
“You cannot achieve what you can’t envision,” states Laura Carstensen, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Stanford Center for Longevity, at the Chautauqua Institution weeklong event in July 2019 dedicated to addressing the benefits and challenges of longer lives.
In this remark, Carstensen makes the case for that gathering of 50 renowned, world leaders who will work over the next 5 years to create that New Map of Life.
However, the idea – to imagine in order to attain – is also the first step for an individual who wants a great life in the future.
How do you go about envisioning a long and extraordinary life after retirement?
If you are 60, you may soon leave a job you love, and you don’t much want to. You could, on the other hand, be overly enamored and giddily deep into the anticipation of leaving a job you hate.
Perhaps, you’re just getting used to the idea of living that long, very long life.
All to say, you have a lot on your mind.
To begin to envision a future, do we simply wish-up a new life? Get out the markers and mind-map the hell out of the idea? Find the bucket list? Make a bucket list? Check out monthly rates for lodging in Bali on Airbnb?
People who are intentional about living their best life work on the skill of “dreaming up life.” Crystal balls, Tarot cards, gypsy input, and energy audits may help some. But as a practical, nuts-and-bolts coach I’d prefer you crack open the “what if’s” of your life on your own – under your own steam.
Larry, 64, is whip-smart, capable, and financially secure. Losing out on a promotion last year to an individual half his age was a disappointment. He’s planning to retire in 3 years and is making an investment to explore life ahead in Third Act Coaching.
My clients receive a summary following each session that includes observations and ideas from my perspective.
Here’s an excerpt from Larry’s second session summary from a list of eight of my observations:
6. Dreaming Up Life– One key learning to absorb that we talked about is that the past is not predictive of the future. As you launch into a long life ahead professional aspirations (and partnership aspirations) that were not met are a part of you, but ahead is new. Risk-taking as part of new life design involves as much letting go as taking things on.
I’d like to see you dream up life a bit. What you end up doing may not involve bongo lessons, walking around the world, or learning Mandarin but taking a survey of “crazy Larry ideas” needs to be a part of your work.
While I see you as self-aware, I’m not convinced you have dug deep enough here. Exploration for the last third of life is less pragmatism and more shall we say – ‘dreaming up life.’
Sitting in traffic after a long day of work, Larry texted me last week.
“Do you know how to become a beekeeper?”
The inability to imagine an amazing life ahead, fill your head with dreams, and explore what could be diminishes the chances for a future of well-being and happiness. Larry, like many of us who are facing a long, bright future, may simply need a nudge (which I will make sure he gets) to begin to aspire to day dreaming.
The fifteen minutes of your time and energy I ask for at the end of this post will blast or trickle future notions for consideration. Either way, it’s a worthy beginning. Aim to find those minutes.
But the process of bringing a new life forward at this time in our lives is riddled with old perspectives on aging, loaded with real worries and decisions. We are grown-ups. We have lived long enough to have made good decisions and bad, and had success as well as failure. Our minds are full of lessons learned and long-held beliefs.
In other words, we are not immune to mind-fences that hinder our chances to dream unfiltered.
What Gets in the Way?
Before you take a walk in the woods, ponder at stoplights and start to imagine life as you would love it, let’s check in with real barriers of mature thinkers – thoughts or ideas that will diminish our best efforts.
Life has peaked. Let’s not forget the belief that the best things have already happened to us and dream time over is the general narrative of growing old. Many smart people, maybe even you, cling to past defining moments as peaks of happiness never to be replaced.
Riddled with worries. We worry about our health, running out of money, loneliness, falling, loss of independence, death, our partner’s health, finding love, dementia, and the kids taking our car keys. Dream around these.
Too many possibilities. “Well, I could do this, or that, or this-and-that.” Presumably since dreaming up options is the goal, this might sound swell. But nothing overwhelms moving forward more than a swirl of ideas that keep swirling. We feel more lost than ever in an avalanche of ideas. But dream big first; judge later.
Richard Rohr, an American author, and Franciscan friar based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, gives us a worthwhile perspective on this time in our lives – a way to calm our thoughts and pay attention in a different way.
When you were a child, you traveled from place to place by dancing, and now you cultivate stillness, which is great, but you are forgetting how to move to the music of your soul. You can hardly even hear that inner music over the clamor of all your obligations.
So, like it or not, you are faced with the challenge of designing a new chapter in life. You can, of course, just take what comes. Good luck with that.
A Smarter You is 15 Minutes Away
Let’s get moving, shall we?
Imagine an extraordinary life ahead. Bring your strength, confidence and unbridled optimism.
If you want to go to the Moon (trips begin in 2020), study to become a physicist or a street juggler, start a mushroom farm, open a Marijuana dispensary, flip a house or be a contestant on Ninja Warrior (you must be at least 19 but there is no upper age limit), bring these ideas forward to investigate or bring a smile at your outlandishness.
If inspiration is needed or just for the heck of it, pick two of these questions, put yourself in a 15-minute trance and start your engines:
If money were no object, how would you live your life?
What would you do if you had one year to live?
What are two things you are curious about?
What would your twenty-year-old self advise you to do for the last twenty-five years of life?
What have you always wanted to do that you have not done?
Where in the world would you go if I gave you an airline ticket today?
Age brings many things including experience wisdom and perspective. Add the ability to dream big to inspire your great future. This is a last chance at living life on your terms.
Dream on…
Me in a park in Quito, Ecuador dreaming of what it would be like to live there. Six months later, I rented an apartment for 3 months. I’ve now done that twice in Quito as well as in 6 other locations in Central and South America. Sweet!