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Chapter 4
The Flame of Meaning
Reclaiming Our Purpose
New Elder
Frederic Hudson
“I refuse to become a marginalized person! So many people just disappear, lose their nerve,and disconnect. Not me. I’m at the end of who I was. But I’m at the beginning of who I might become. That’s exciting to me.”
These bold reflections from Frederic Hudson opened his dialogue with Richard on a sunny May morning in Santa Barbara, California. As the sunlight slanted through the living room windows of the Hudson household,Frederic took Richard on a passionate journey through his recent paintings. As he spoke,he was describing—as someone who is coming to terms with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease—what it is like to confront the limitations of the flesh.
“I’ve had to give up one era of my life,” Frederic claims, “in order to enter another. I’ve always been fascinated with how people deconstruct and reconstruct their lives. We all need to constantly do this, to reinvent ourselves.”
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Frederic speaks slowly,crisply,and clearly. This friend and colleague of Richard,this new elder who one year ago worked with a vengeance—traveling,speaking,writing and creating, always creating. Frederic, founder of both the Fielding and Hudson Institutes,is one of the thought leaders in adult development and coaching in America. Today Frederic savors solitude.“The life force,”he says,“now is about celebrating life and about generosity—giving it all away. It’s all about being. The peace I’m gaining is coming from using my illness as a challenge,as permission to be.”
Frederic uses his affliction as a new calling to confront the larger human condition. He’s matter of fact about his disease. He says,“I don’t call it Alzheimer’s. I call it some kind of brain thing. My situation is only a particular type of what we all face,”he says,“for we all live in bodies that are imperfect.”
Richard reflects,“Suddenly I find myself confronting a great paradox. I see before me the possibility of all that Frederic may lose. But the mystery lies in what remains. What is clearly evident in Frederic is “the defiant power of the human spirit”—the stuff of life that our mutual teacher, Viktor Frankl,modeled and espoused.”Why are we so obsessed with what we lose as we age,and unclear about what we gain?
“Just doing things now, for their own sake,is enough,” claims Frederic.“I’m living for the sake of the songs in my heart and giving any service I can render.”
Frederic is finding meaning in his suffering, facing his condition like another calling. He is reversing an entire illness stereotype along with all the habits of thought that perpetuate it. Why does it seem that so few people are endowed with this defiant power—the courage to face suffering without embarrassment?
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Frederic relates,“This condition has minimized my impact and changed my outer world identity. It has given me a new permission to be. It has allowed me time to speak with flowers, trees, birds,and my dogs.”In his daily routines now,he engages in as much nonverbal expression as possible. He feels less need to be with people to feel good. He feels liberated from talking,writing,and working.“This is ultimate cocooning,”he says.“I can go for walks, paint,compose,play the piano,and garden. I’ve always been an experimenter with new ideas and this solitude is new for me. I’m reviewing a book a day and I paint every day. I plan to keep writing some and sharing my views on this process.”
Recently,while looking for something else,Frederic started recycling his vast library of books to places he felt would like them.“Clearing those shelves heartens me,”he says.“In going through my books,I wanted to unearth some answers to this question:‘What do we need to become an elder?’ Living in that question, I’m releasing all the ideas I no longer need,which is most of them. In all ways, I want to enter this elder phase of life carrying as little as possible—unpacking as you say. That way my mind, hands,and heart will be free to be.”
What Frederic learned as a child was how to challenge the system; that’s what wise elders taught him. They helped him move beyond the set limits of his upbringing. They helped him create his own future scenarios.
“Adelaide Mead,my 70-year-old mentor when I was a child,was a radical socialist and painter in my Baptist church,”he recalls.“She was totally alive. When I was 15, I would visit her to learn her ways. She adopted me. She always inquired of me,‘How is your life shaping up? You need to go to college and get out of here!’At the time I was attending a vocational high school to become a manual laborer,a tradesman. She kept telling me,‘You have gifts beyond this town.’”
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For over 30 years,Frederic has been a student of elder-hood.“ Most elders are not about wisdom,”he claims.“They haven’t earned the right to be considered wise. To earn the right,you have to know yourself,know your boundaries, know your gifts—and then be generous. I used to call retirement protirement. But I was wrong. There’s no tirement at all. In elderhood you’re more a human being than a human doing. Elderhood is just another calling.”
Richard left his interview with Frederic in a mood of high alert. He saw that purpose is giving sense and meaning to the changes in Frederic’s life. Purpose is a therapeutic idea. Frederic is living for the sake of the songs in his heart. Richard relates, “I saw the power of purpose on display in his style, habit, gesture, mood, and presence. His face reveals purpose and appeals to purpose. His new mantra, permission to be, reveals an example of another calling.”
Frederic, like many of the new elders we interviewed for this book, takes pain to stress that he is proud of being an elder, not ashamed. He is proud, in spite of his challenges, of the deepening of his creativity and the ripening of his soul that would have been impossible in his earlier years. For Frederic, as for us, learning how to live has gone hand in hand with learning how to age.
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Theodore Roszak’s book, America the Wise, looks forward to the age of wisdom and to the triumph of elderhood. The sheer number of elders could revolutionize society to what Roszak calls, “the survival of the gentlest.” Frederic is furthering Roszak’s vision by being a gentle revolutionary.
And these days, could there be any revolution more revolutionary than gentleness?
Retiring from Retirement
The book, About Schmidt, by Louis Begley, upon which the movie is based, has other insights into retirement than those explored in the film. In one passage, Schmidt’s oldest friend, Gil, chastises Schmidt for his decision to retire.
“I told you to take a leave for as long as necessary after Mary, and not even think of retiring. There is a race of men— all federal and state and bank employees, and most dentists— who are born to retire. They aspire to retirement from the moment they are born. Youth, sex, work, are only the necessary intermediate states: progresses from larva to pupa to nymph until, at last, the miracle of metamorphosis is complete and gives the world the retired butterfly. Golf clubs, funny shoes, and designer sunglasses for the dentist, campers and gas-fired barbecue sets for the employees at the low end of the pay scale! You and I belong to a grander race. We need to be kneaded by misfortune and modern medicine before we are ready. Praised be to the Lord, I am happy to announce that you strike me as unripe for a living death. What you need is a job. I’m going to think one up for you.”
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We would take Gil’s admonition one step further: As far as we’re concerned, no one, even the dentists and state workers, is fit for retirement. Retirement is an artificial concept and one that for new elders is becoming obsolete.
What is retirement for, anyway? When we grow old, how exactly do we grow? Why do we hear so much about “staying” young and so little about growing old?
Because we have grown up in such a youth-driven culture, we face both an opportunity and a danger as we consider retiring. The opportunity clearly is that we can look and feel and act younger than our parents’ generation. The danger, however, is that we will shun the value and meaning of aging. Popular culture reveals a deep denial about aging, a denial far deeper than our wrinkles. Even our aging comics are in denial when it comes to aging. Bill Cosby, in his bestseller, Time Flies, draws a gloomy self-portrait of aging by deciding that he needs help “either from a divinity or a drugstore.” Page after page Cosby laments the passing of his athletic prowess and the arrival of his paunch.
Stripped of its humor, this is our culture’s general wisdom about aging: Resist it at all costs! In writing the book Age Wave, Dr. Ken Dycthwald was shocked at how deep our anti-aging bias is. He “quickly learned something very interesting about how Americans want to think about aging: they don’t.”
Caught up in the eternal quest to stay young, we are unaware of the growth and transcendence possible in the second half of life. As Stephen Levine writes in his book Who Dies? “We live in a strange land where one is punished for being old.”
In our study of new elders, we are struck by the similarity between what happens around retirement and what happens to those who experience “near-death experiences.” After undergoing calamities like September 11, 2001, or accidents that brought them to the edge of life, people report value shifts in their lives that are similar to many experiencing retirement. During profound transitions people go “higher” and they go “deeper” in their experience of life.
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They go higher in terms of their appreciation for nature and the beauty and interconnectedness of all life. They go deeper in terms of renewing their relationship with God or a spiritual presence in their lives. Together, they claim a generally heightened awareness of the spiritual purpose and meaning of life.
In his 30s Richard began his studies of elders, and he read Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer prize-winning book, The Denial of Death. He recalls, “I was fascinated with what Becker called ‘the real dilemma of existence, the one of the mortal animal who at the same time is conscious of his mortality.’”
At the same time he read Becker’s work, Richard attended a program by the eminent death and dying expert, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and something clicked. Kübler-Ross’s stages of dying, starting with denial (stage 1) and ending with acceptance (stage 5) come only after deep, often painful transformation experiences that fit perfectly with Richard’s observation of his life and the lives of his coaching clients. Learning about the process of death seemed to be an essential part of all life transitions, as well as of growing up.
The Wisdom of the Body
Fifty-four years ago, psychologist Rollie Larson’s body spoke to him with considerable authority. He didn’t listen. After all, he was on a fast track to “success” as he envisioned it.
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So why should he slow down when things were going so well when he was an active, healthy young man? Result: a severe case of pneumonia—misdiagnosed, leading to a lengthy hospital stay, saving his life with 49 penicillin shots and lots of rest. Such inactivity gave him an opportunity to learn a bit about what his body was trying to tell him.
Little by little during the next few years Rollie began asking himself the big questions: “Who am I, really? Where am I going? Is this all there is? If not, what else is out there? Do I trust this inner voice that seems to nudge me at times? Do I need to keep pursuing the same old things on the job, duties that are increasingly repetitious and boring? Who’s in charge, anyhow?”
It was a time when he had reached many of his career goals, with little challenge left. At age 46 he was (unknowingly) ripe for change. But he had not really considered changing his job because it represented everything he wanted: adequate compensation, security, recognition, use of his talents, great working conditions, and wonderful colleagues. But something was missing. Rollie recalls, “I knew it and I didn’t know it. My life was just too busy, living the whole success lifestyle of a public school supervisor.”
It was a time when, in many ways, Rollie was at his peak. His department had just been commended as a “model for the nation” by a team of educators sent from Washington to learn what he was doing and how he did it. With all of this happening it seemed there was no logical reason to change his vocation.
It was a time, however, when his body was sending messages that he was slow to pick up. He recalls, “In retrospect I now see things more clearly. I was tired a great deal, yawned a lot, and often had tight feelings in my chest. Periodic chest pains would accelerate during times of tension from work-related problems.”
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It was also a time when a friend encouraged Rollie to join him in a pioneering effort in a small, start-up nonprofit organization. His encouragement made it sound possible and exciting. Rollie said, “For the first time I realized I could not spend another 20 years where I was. I felt boxed in, trapped, and hadn’t realized it.”
Rollie wanted badly to take the new position, but he also needed the security features of his present job. He would need to give up his accelerating pension plan, 120 days of accumulated sick leave, and other fringe benefits for a job that was grant-funded for only three years. He would also take a salary cut of 30 percent to leave what he had considered to be his ideal job. He recalls, “It seemed crazy to give up all of this with four kids in school, ages 11 to 17 and a wife not employed outside of the home. We had no savings!”
Fortunately, Rollie’s wife, Doris, was there to listen and help him clarify. They grew closer, and he began to realize that security in the conventional sense did not mean everything. He began to experience a feeling of freedom and control of his future. Security took on new meaning. “Security,” Rollie learned, “is largely within me.”
Rollie felt more alive than he had in a long time. Continuing to develop his talents made him feel as if life were beginning again. He felt younger, yet unsure and self-doubting at times. He recalls, “I was certain that the choice to leave my secure position was the right one. It was as if Goethe had written these lines for me: whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
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The decision Rollie made at age 46 eventually led to opportunities that he could never have imagined. Working alongside a highly creative colleague in an exciting, challenging career was followed, seven years later, by Rollie, and his wife Doris, going into private practice together. Prior to retiring they conducted over 800 workshops and seminars worldwide and co-authored four books.
In retrospect, now at age 82, new elder Rollie claims, “Within my heart is a feeling of deep gratitude. It is like a priceless gift was given to me as I trusted a spiritual process of growth at a critical juncture of life. Doris and I learned that honest communication, listening, and risk taking are our best friends. I cringe when I think of the opportunities and life satisfaction we might have missed if we had not ‘just done it’ at age 46!”
“At 82,” says Rollie, “it’s easy to lose your motivation. My purpose keeps me motivated. Sun City turns me off. I don’t want to spend all my time with old people. Keeping a youthfulness (and mentoring youth) is critical to me. Working out brings me to life! And giving something away brings me to life. I don’t want to hold onto stuff anymore. If there is joy in giving, I want to give it now. A lot of people give money and things away, but the ultimate contribution is giving of yourself. My purpose is to give myself now, through deep listening. ‘Listen to someone today!’ has been and still is my daily mantra.”
Purpose is not a matter of theology. Our beliefs about the hereafter are not what ultimately matter. What matters is whether we live out our beliefs. Or as Stephen Levine puts it in Who Dies?: “Death is not the enemy. The enemy is ignorance and lovelessness.”
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The reason why the issue of purpose is so important to a vital second half of life is that it raises issues that, ultimately, are inevitable. None of us is going to get out of this life without facing the question “Why am I here?” None of us is going to be able to avoid confronting the question of our life’s meaning. We don’t really get away with not wondering what our legacy will be after we’re gone.
By thinking intentionally about our life’s purpose—by thoughtfully reflecting on our life’s meaning—we give ourselves the time and space to think about things that sooner or later we’re going to have to think about, whether we want to or not. And if we do this well and do it with intention, we can define our life’s purpose and reclaim it so that we are able to integrate it successfully in all that we do throughout the second half of our lives. New elders do this and do so in ways that make their lives more vital for themselves and for family, friends, and, in many cases, clients and customers as well.
New Elder Cal Wick
American industry spends 31 billion dollars a year on corporate education. The problem,though,is that few people who attend corporate training courses actually apply what they learn. All their good intentions to put into practice what they’ve learned in seminars, trainings,and workshops quickly evaporate once they are back on the job.
Cal Wick, the 60-year-old CEO of Fort Hill Company in Montchanin,Delaware, recognized this problem and has built a business in response to it.“‘Creating new ways to help people learn how to do important things is how I define my purpose.”Cal has turned his purpose into a profitable enterprise in the second half of his life. He is passionate about the things that Fort Hill is doing as an expression of that purpose to help transform companies such as Pfizer,Home Depot,and Hewlett-Packard.
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Cal, a former Episcopalian priest, is a new elder. Like the other new elders who appear on the pages of this book,he has life lessons to teach us.
Cal takes pains to stress that he is proud of being well into the second half of life; it’s not at all something he is ashamed of, recoils from,or is afraid to admit. He is proud of the deepening of his emotions and the ripening of his faith that would have been impossible even five years earlier. He says,“I’m in roles that I’ve never had before. At times, I wake up with wisdom that was previously inaccessible to me—I’m like a child learning to speak.”For Cal, learning how to lead has gone hand in hand with learning how to age.
In our interviews with new elders,we were struck by the similarities between what happens as we approach the second half of life and what happens to those who survive near-death experiences. After undergoing medical emergencies or accidents that brought them close to death,people report major changes in their lives and attitudes about living. These major changes include a deeper sense of purpose and a fuller appreciation for the interconnectedness of all life.
At age 59, Cal found that he had potential throat cancer and was losing his voice. This awareness of his mortality penetrated deeply into his consciousness. He says that as a direct result of this experience,“I feel much more open about saying what’s on my mind. Having cancer you know that you don’t know how much time you have left. It causes you to wrestle with your faith.”
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While passing by a San Francisco bookstore several years ago, he saw a book about honoring the Sabbath and it changed his life.“I was working flat-out seven days a week and I was fried.” Today, Cal Wick lives out his beliefs through his own “Sabbath practices.”
Cal reports that, for him,Saturday and Sunday are both Sabbath days. He says,“In my prayers from Friday to Sunday, I only give thanks. I spend no money on Sundays. Through this practice,a real sense of gratitude has emerged. It slows me down enough to listen. Sometimes prayers come to me which I put on my website: www.greatprayers.com. The book of Genesis talks about time being holy. My Sabbath practice connects my living with eternity.”
People who are living on purpose during the second half of life like Cal Wick are not drifting quietly onto the golf course but are using their gifts,purpose,and passion in service to others. For Cal,this means not only running a purposeful organization but also serving through preaching four or five times a year,plus doing weddings and coaching people through difficult life transitions. As Cal demonstrates, the gift of the second half of life is fully appreciated only when it is shared.
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The Freedom to Choose
According to adult development researchers, the epiphanies that followed a taste of their mortality for people like Frederic Hudson, Rollie Larson, and Cal Wick happened right on schedule. In the second half of life, this awareness of mortality shifts our perspective and opens our eyes to the deep and vulnerable wonders of the sacred. Whether this awareness will be a negative or a positive force, one that undermines life’s purpose or enriches it, is up to each of us. It’s our choice whether we will draw strength from life’s challenges or be defeated by them.
Or is it?
Are we truly free to live the second half of our lives on purpose?
In every situation we find ourselves in, we have the freedom of deciding for or against the influence of our surroundings. Viktor Frankl, in a moving description of inmates of the concentration camps during World War II describes examples of men and women who, under the most adverse circumstances, were able to “do differently,” to choose to care for others, in a situation in which every other external human freedom was denied.
Frankl describes this in Man’s Search for Meaning: “Probably in every concentration camp,” he reports, “there were individuals who were able to overcome their apathy and suppress their irritability. These were the ones who were examples of renunciation and self-sacrifice. Asking nothing for themselves, they went about in the grounds and in the barracks of the camp offering a kind word here, a crust of bread there.”
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From them we learn that freedom is not something we “have,” and therefore can lose, it is what we “are.” It is our deepest potential, only needing to be embraced.
The notion of reclaiming our purpose is not new—the essential questions facing us have not really changed over time. What is new, at least to some extent, is the degree of freedom we now have in the second half of life to develop our own answers.
Virtually everyone we interviewed for this book referred to some event that heightened awareness of their mortality. During the second half of life, purpose is on our minds, and it should be.
New Elder
Dr. Jeffrey Life
Growing older is a fact of life; if we’re not growing older, then we’re not living. How we feel about the process of aging profoundly influences our experience in the second half of life. Is getting older a blessing or a curse? Do we see it as a decline or an ascent? Do we resist it at every turn or welcome it into our life? Our answers to these questions are critical because in the second half of life, they shape our destiny.
For Jeffrey Life,M.D.,at age 58,aging was a curse. Going through a traumatic divorce left him emotionally and physically exhausted,and his relationship with his daughter seemed ruined. He recalls,“My self-esteem had never been lower,my waist never bigger,and my cholesterol never higher. It was time to get my life under control.”
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Jeff started exercising and setting goals. His patients asked him what he was doing to look so healthy. His friends couldn’t get over his transformation. More importantly, his relationship with his teenage daughter began to flourish. They even exercised together!
Jeff signed up for the “Body for Life”program—and won it at age 60! Through this 12-week personal transformation program,he became fascinated with exercise, nutrition,and longevit. He began to incorporate “age-management” principles, along with his own experience, into his medical practice.
Today,he says,“I look at myself and I feel a sense of pride. I really like what I see. I’m reminded of the Bob Seger song:‘Lean and Solid Everywhere—Like a Rock.’ Only I’m not 18 years old as he was—I’m over 65!”
Behind Jeff’s story of mid-life transformation—ending addictions,losing weight,building strength—is a common pattern. He was fed up with the way he had lived in the first half of life and wanted to make changes in the second. He was seeking deeper grounding in himself—a new purpose.“Deep self-renewal,”writes Roger Gould in Trans-formations,“ is not just a mental goal. It is so deep that we cannot grasp its origins with the mind alone.”
Dr.Alex Comfort once reflected that only 25 percent of what we call “aging”is rooted in the actual biology of being older. The other 75 percent of aging he called “sociogenic”—that is,caused by stereotypes,myths,and misconceptions that society and culture impose on older adults.
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As Jeff faced the second half of his life,he confronted a critical choice about his purpose. What,he wondered, was his life all about? What was the legacy he was leaving? The answers to those questions helped him structure his choices.
Five years ago,he attended an “anti-aging”medical meeting. He heard from a company called Cenegenics Medical Institute about three other aspects of the anti-aging program: nutrition,exercise,and hormone modulation. Coming fresh on the heels of his victory in the “Body for Life”contest, this information launched him on a new direction in his medical practice for the second half of his life.
Today,in addition to his M.D. in Internal Medicine,he has a Ph.D. in Nutrition and a black belt in karate. Certified in Age-Management Medicine,he works as Institute Physician for Cenegenics Medical Institute in Las Vegas, Nevada,helping to keep people at the highest levels of wellness possible for as long as possible. He even writes a Performance Nutrition column for Muscle Magazine’s 500,000 readers.
Jeff’s purpose in the second half of life is helping people sustain youthfulness as they age.“My goal,”he relates, “is to die young at a very old age!”To achieve this,he heads to the gym at five AM five days a week. He works out with training partners half his age. He says,“It energizes me for the whole day. It helps me to stay fit for the stressful life of a physician in this day and age. By not being encumbered by ill health,I’m physically free to do what I want to do!”
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Traditional medicine doesn’t pay a lot of attention to age management,Jeff claims.“How we see aging,and how our society sees it, is a question that goes to the very heart of claiming your place at the fire. New elders will face the choice of not just whether or when,but HOW to search for that elusive fountain of youth.”
Talking to Our Ancestors
One of the things that inevitably happens as we age is that we get closer and closer to those who came before us. As we move into the years of the people who represented elder wisdom for us, we quite literally draw closer and closer to them spiritually and emotionally. “Every year,” says Dave, “I hear and feel the presence of my father, my grandfathers, and my grandmothers more deeply. I really believe that, as I edge closer to the edge of my own life, I am gradually entering into their realm of wisdom. Each year, I’m more and more able to communicate with them, through a deeper connection to something within me.”
As far out as this may sound, it’s a common experience of elders. Moving into the second half of our lives, we move more closely into the circle of our ancestors. The fullest expression of this is that, in some sense, we develop the ability to communicate with anyone who has ever lived. We develop the ability to talk to anyone who ever lived.
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In the heartbreakingly beautiful novel, The Lovely Bones, by Alice Seybold, heaven is a place where those who have died can look down on the living and watch us all the time. We need not take this literally in any sense nor require a change in our deeply held spiritual beliefs to feel the pull of Seybold’s metaphor: Everyone who ever loved us, even a little bit, is up in heaven watching over us. The closer we get to our own journey to heaven—whatever that means for us— the more we are able to connect with those dear ones who have been attending to our progress through life from above.
Claiming our place at the fire, then, is in some sense, joining into the circle of heavenly watchers. Our role becomes more and more to be a conduit for their wisdom to those who need it here on Earth.
As we age, most of us, in some way, get more in touch with the spiritual nature of our existence. As our bodies decline, it’s only natural that we should be drawn to aspects of life that are less ephemeral, more eternal.
For some people, this turning toward spirituality manifests itself in a return or reconnection to the spiritual practices of their earlier lives. For others, this emerging spirituality leads them to seek other practices in new or more esoteric traditions.
Whatever your theological or spiritual bent, be it atheist to devout theist, you will do well in the second half to find new ways to attune to your spiritual side. This wellspring of emerging spirituality becomes a source of greater power and fulfillment. It becomes an important font of creative expression and connection with friends, family members, and the community at large. It becomes, in short, another way to claim our place at the fire.
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Fireside Chat
Reclaiming Our Purpose
This fireside chat encourages dialogue around how to reclaim our purpose and communicate that sense of purpose to others. Ideally, this fireside chat would involve a group with a variety of spiritual perspectives. If that’s not possible, though, it can still be valuable and successful as a conversation between just a couple of people.
The Firestarter Question
Ask yourself: “For the sake of what am I living in the second half of my life?”
With the answer to that question in mind, write a clear statement of your purpose. Answer the question, “For the sake of what?” and you have the essence of your purpose. It’s an easy question to ask, but a demanding one to answer. It’s a lifetime question. Purpose has a spiritual core; at our core, we are spiritual beings.
Once you’ve identified your purpose, have a fireside chat about it.. Encourage your fireside partners to contribute to the discussion. Speak your minds. Speak from the heart. Keep the fire of dialogue alive!
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Tending the Fire
The Flame of Meaning: What Is My Purpose?
In our earlier book, Repacking Your Bags, we reported that research shows that people’s number one deadly fear is the fear of “having lived a meaningless life.” Naming one’s purpose can help us overcome this fear and, as such, is perhaps the most critical activity in which we can engage in the second half of life.
A purpose statement is, in essence, a written-down reason for being. As such, a purpose statement can be used to initiate, evaluate, and refine nearly all of our choices in life.
In John Gardner’s book, The Art of Living, a character says, “The thing a person’s gotta have—a human being—is some kind of center to his life, some one thing he’s good at that other people need from him, like, for instance, shoemaking. I mean something ordinary, but at the same time holy, if you know what I mean.”
What is at the center of your life? Did you discover “something ordinary but at the same time holy?” as a driving force in the first half of life? Do you have it to carry you forward in the second half of your life?
One of the first questions to ask yourself in naming your purpose is: When have I been willing to commit myself to something beyond the scope of my own self-interest? When, in other words, have I been at least as focused on the needs of others as my own? That willingness has to be there; it is a necessary condition of living on purpose. When we are acting with purpose, our life is never quite entirely our own. We are giving of it rather than getting for it. Acting purposefully, we find ourselves using our gifts in the service of something bigger than or outside of ourselves.
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In spite of the power of living on purpose, most people find it rather difficult to craft a statement of personal purpose. Fortunately, a few techniques can help you render an initial purpose statement that then can be modified over time.
When Richard first developed his purpose statement, it was broad and encompassed many activities. Subsequently, it has become simpler and more straightforward, more of an affirmation that says, “This is what I am about.”
We cannot fully name our purpose until we know ourselves— our spiritual nature, what we stand for, our emotional core. And yet this knowledge inevitably emerges as we put words to our purpose and refine them throughout our lives.
Richard currently defines his purpose as “to uncover and inspire divine callings.” Dave identifies his as “fostering understanding.” Both of these have undergone a series of changes and we continue to look over, revise, and reclaim them as we age and grow.
As a spark for naming your own purpose, begin by looking over the following list of verbs. Pick the three that resonate most powerfully within you. These are the action verbs that will shape your purpose statement. awaken ignite organize create teach support empower develop accept encourage help listen inspire seek design enhance challenge act upon learn heal energize
Write down your three choices.
Now, in just a few words, write down the answer to these questions: “What do I stand for? What is my core?”
Combine that answer with one or more of the verbs you have chosen. This is your draft purpose statement for now.
How do you feel when you look at it? Say it aloud. Does it fit? Would others agree that it fits you? Are you enthusiastic about it?
Is there anything more important in the second half of life than directing ourselves in accordance with our true purpose? George Bernard Shaw wrote:
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
Ultimately, it is not so much a matter of finding a purpose that gives us such true joy as it is a matter of recognizing what our purpose already is and claiming it. And when we are able to claim it—and live it—we will have taken what is perhaps the most important step of all to growing whole, not old, in the second half of life.