Introduction

The place to begin, as I often say, is where we are. It’s fun to imagine the future, and we need to do that, but that imagining frequently fails to become actionable unless we start with and remain candid and well informed about where we really are today. It’s too easy to get lost in the joys of possibilities and frequently too painful to look in the mirror and acknowledge where we are. Where are we?

We’re generally over age 50 and have some growing level of awareness that we’re likely to have a MUCH longer active future in front of us than our grandparents did. If you’re age 50 now, that means you could live, have to pay for, and want to find engagement and meaning for another 50 years. Not everyone will live that long, of course, but you should consider this possibility. Those additional 50 years are the equivalent of a lifetime for our ancestors.

Not so long ago, the word “retirement” meant essentially the same thing to everyone. It’s as if you said the word “apple.” There would be little variation of the apple image across socioeconomic groups and individuals.

Today, on the other hand, if you say the word “retirement,” multiple and diverse images spring into mind because while people still aspire to some form of retirement, they’re unclear about what is both probable and possible. It’s as if you said the word “shoe.” There could be endless variations in size, shape, and fit of the shoe image across socioeconomic groups and individuals.

We live in a time in which chronological age is less and less an indicator of who we are. Most of us know old 65-year-olds and young 85-year-olds. What makes the difference in their lives?

We live in an era in which women generate income, participate in building family wealth, and outlive men. They are running households, being caregivers for their own and others’ parents, while juggling education, work, and careers. I think they are deserving of special attention and information as we proceed to explore “How Do I Get There From Here?” We also live in an era in which men’s lives are much less linear, gender role-driven, and predictable than in the past. This book contains sidebars throughout, some that will resonate more strongly for women and some for men. It’s my hope that these sidebars will foster learning for and through each other.

We live in a world in which we still tend to cling to the Four Stage Life Model (1. Childhood, 2. Education, 3. Work and Family, and 4. Retirement) even though there is evidence all around us that for many of us this model is outdated and even dangerous because it leads to expectations and decisions that are no longer realistic.

We struggle with the New Normal vs. the Old Normal. We live in a time of at least as much Disruptive Change as Continuous Change.

We live in a culture that likes short, easy labels and roles that purport to tell the complete story about us at an auditory glance. Dentist. Soccer mom. Plumber. PTA president. Runner. CEO. Straight-A student. Competitive swimmer. World traveler. Voter.

Easy labels are just that: easy. They often aren’t particularly true and certainly not complete. There are endless ways we can limit ourselves and our futures by preventing the lights from going on in our heads by allowing others to limit who we are through easy labels and, worse yet, using those same easy labels to establish who we are now and will be in the future.

What would it be like to choose one label only or several labels? How satisfied are you with one label that is presumed by others to tell the story about you? Here’s an example of someone whom I truly admire who doesn’t easily fit into an easy “label.”

Michael Alec Rose has become one of my identity heroes. I experience him as a complex, edgy, warm, funny, earnest, and talented man. He has found ways to combine being a university educator at Vanderbilt with composition of music, fatherhood, professional speaking, and being a spouse with a myriad of other activities and interests. I cringe a bit at using these nouns and adjectives, knowing he will have a sharp rejoinder for me that is both grounded and intellectual.

George: If we wanted to understand who Michael Alec Rose is, where would we start?

Michael: Wow. OK. Well, I guess to work backwards, biographically, because I do think you’re right, that we only come to realize things at a certain point long after we are 40, if we’re lucky enough to live that long. And we begin to understand ourselves better and more wholly. And I think with more holiness as well!

George: One can hope.

Michael: How to figure out what’s sacred, and how to be as generous as possible in defining such a thing. So I am a composer, and I think that what makes my profile as a composer unique, perhaps, at least I hope to think it is unique, is that I don’t see myself in the conventional professional way.

Some of that is very willful. I have not made many connections with my fellow composers, who are much more ambitious and much more centrally involved in pursuing careers. I don’t have any jealousy about this. Because this is the path that I’ve chosen for myself just as deliberately as my colleagues have chosen their more obviously ambitious and successful paths. I’m using the word “successful” in a conventional sense.

George: Putting quotation marks around it.

Michael (laughter): Right. So the reason why I think I have set myself apart from the business of being a composer is because I don’t see composition—I don’t see the act of composing, the daily practice of composing every day—to be something that I can . . . what’s the right word? Reify. You know? Actually turn it into a solid thing. It doesn’t have any reality for me, apart from the rest of my life. It’s a continuum, with all the other things that I love, and all the other things that I do. Of course, most importantly, my job as a husband and as a father. And I know that all composers have to deal with these pressures, and have to find a balance between the work of creating music and of being in the world.

But for me, it feels like the texture of my life is an ongoing refusal to define myself in any way. That’s how I define myself. I refuse to be an academic. I refuse to be a professional composer. I refuse to be merely a Jew just because I happen to have been born Jewish. I refuse to be a masculine person, or a male person, because I don’t like those gender stereotypes, or constructs. I refuse to be old just because I happen to be 57. It doesn’t feel like I’m old. I refuse to be a white person because I’m also a Jew, and have a history with my people having been persecuted apart from the typical white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, or an earlier condition into what you would call the Aryan race.

These rather stubborn refusals to define who I am are somewhat ironically, and without any illusion, a very definite identity that I have constructed for myself.

Plato even talks about it and one of the dialogues—that you have to give 20 years of service first to the community, before you can go and be a contemplative philosopher, or in my case a composer. Now I’m sort of overstating it, and oversimplifying, because of course I was also writing music that whole time. But I think it’s only in the past decade or so, after those first 20 years, when I really—with the help and understanding of a wonderful dean at my music school—I was able to make the turn, and truly accept at the age of 45 or 46. And this speaks to your own project here—it was only then that I gave myself the time that I needed to develop fully as a composer.

And the past 10 or 12 years has been an extraordinary adventure of finding my own voice, coming into my own, with the help of dear friends and colleagues—performers who have been the champions of my music. So, I think, to go back to your earlier question: How would I define myself? I’m someone who loves difficulty.

You can learn more about Michael and his music by going to https://michaelalecrose.com/.

We live in a culture with a huge bias for action. Just give me the six steps so I can leap into action. Let me admit here that I have a huge bias for action myself. Frequently my wife wants to discuss a possibility and, out of my bias for action, I often have it done before she has all of the words out of her mouth. This isn’t what she wanted at all. She wanted an actual discussion about the possibilities, a definite plan, budget and dates, and the sense of joint ownership regardless of whether she or I did the action. I constantly have to check my bias for action impulse, and listen carefully before leaping into action. Sometimes, I don’t catch myself in time but usually I do after all these years together.

Action feels so much better than reflection and worrying about the details. We love to solve problems and achieve goals and move on to what’s next. While this may work for fixing a leaky sink, or helping your grandchild get an A on a spelling test, or learning to cook fondue, when it comes to an evolving plan for your life, pursuing it, dealing with surprises, and adapting the plan and ourselves, action is only part of the formula. It’s called Your Life for a reason. And it—and you—deserve the best you can provide as you go along.

We live in a culture that focuses on the three steps to do something or the six winning strategies. These immediate word pills can spare us—and deny us the rewards of—the really hard work of figuring it out for ourselves in personalized, smart, and lasting ways.

We live in a time in which long-term planning is increasingly impossible. Instead, we have to become better and better at creating, updating, and adapting not only our plans but also ourselves as we go along.

We live in a highly connected time. Geographic, time zone, local, and national boundaries are highly permeable. In fact, on a practical level, thanks to technologies, the boundaries almost don’t exist. Instead of not having enough information, we can actually have too much of it, leaving us both saturated and numbed.

After age 50 many of us have both the broad life experience and the future possibilities ahead of us to be unwilling or unable to fit easily under a single, permanent label like retiree or senior.

In my own case, I’m a developmental psychologist. That usually means the study of children. How does a great five-year-old get to be a wonderful 10-year-old? (Hint: The child doesn’t start at nine.) Not in my case. I’m especially interested in developing and growing—skills, expertise, approaches, adaptability—between age 50 and Elderly-and-Needs-Help (as opposed to elderly and still successfully independent), whenever that may be for us individually. How does a great 50-year-old get to be a wonderful 75-year-old? (Hint: You don’t start at age 74.) Just because you were good at something at age 30 or 40 doesn’t mean it will serve you well at age 55 or 75. The people in your life when you’re 45 may not be the people you need around you when you’re 70. Who will you need to be to craft a great life? What will you have to be good at? What will you have to leave behind with appreciation because it was valuable but no longer serves you well? Who will you need in your communities and networks? At a time of life when seemingly long-term decisions refuse to stay made or prove to be an inadequate choice, how will you find the necessary ways to adapt yourself and your plan? That’s what this book is all about.

If people need clinical therapy—individual, couple, or family—I immediately refer them out to great clinicians. Diagnosis, treatment, and cure (the medical model)—also known as therapy—still have an important place in our tool kits.

If, on the other hand, people are undergoing a transition that is painful but right on schedule (e.g., the kids are leaving and it’s painful but supposed to be happening; there is stress because it’s beyond time for a large or small career change for your present and your future; we’re feeling the exciting and uncomfortable need to begin anticipating life After 50 and what we’re going to have to be good at; we’re suddenly and sometimes painfully realizing that the people we are hanging out with now are not, and should not be, the people we will need to be with at age 70; we need to finally begin to stimulate our dormant creativity and ambitions), these are developmental opportunities. Challenging who you are, acquiring new skills and viewpoints, letting go of some of the old ones, and developing a number of alternatives for yourself, leaving behind what will no longer serve you well while creating space for new things to come in your life, these are what can make After 50 great. Therapy may not be the answer if the life transition is right on schedule with or without your permission.

Just because we were good at something earlier in our lives doesn’t mean it will serve us well after age 50. In fact, it might get in our way. I’m most interested in those developmental situations, those life transitions that have little if anything to do with the medical model—diagnosis, treatment, and cure. Instead I’m devoted to the ongoing and evolving acquisition and development of skills, strategies, networks, and meaning that will best serve us as we age.

This reflects, of course, the reality that the old model of retiring and then coasting slowly downhill through golden years of leisure until death takes us is essentially over for many of us. Not only are we going to live longer, need more money to do so, and require continuing engagement and meaning in our lives, but this is happening at a time when, for many, permanent and full retirement won’t be an appealing or viable option. It’s entirely possible that in the future we will have two classes of people:

1.Those who retire entirely and have more than enough money to afford to do only what they want to do indefinitely, without paid work being a part of it. There will be such people and circumstances but they might very well be in the minority.

2.Everyone else. The most successful in this group will begin early, plan incrementally, adapt regularly, and create over time their own unique “right retirement fit.”

I’m also an organizational psychologist and a working entrepreneur. I’m a formerly divorced man who raised his sons alone at a time when the societal norm was that a man couldn’t raise children well and a woman couldn’t be an effective CEO. I was divorced for a long time and have been remarried for a long time, as well. I’m also a speaker/author. I also have some rental properties and manage the managers. I’m a grandfather of seven. I do vocational expert witness work. I’m in the midst of designing a digital game with a friend. I’m writing another book with more planned down the road. I ride my new bicycle, by far the most expensive one I’ve ever had, farther than I could have 15 years ago. I’m a husband and a partner. I’m a volunteer board member. I’m a Sogetsu Ikebana Sensei. Which label box should I choose? None. My time for single boxes and primary labels is done. My lifeline, as you can see, hasn’t been continuous or without curves. I suspect your lifeline wasn’t all that straight either. Chances are there is more to you After 50 than a single label can contain. Plus, given 50 or more years of life experience, you aren’t easily going to meet someone else’s need to categorize you for easy reference with a single label.

We in this After 50 demographic have a huge opportunity and responsibility. Many of us are realizing that, however linear or nonlinear our lifelines were in the past, our futures will be full of surprises. Many of us are going to live a very long time, perhaps 50 years or more beyond age 50.

Whether we live two or 50 years longer than expected, we face a crucial question: Do we want to add those additional years to the middle of our lives or to the end of them? The importance of our personal answer to this question and the decisions we make as a result cannot be underestimated.

We’re going to need the money to pay for the additional years, a plan for our lives that can and will adapt as we go along, and a new paradigm that’s more about life satisfaction and less about endless goal achievement and bias for action. Doing this will require developing new skills, approaches, and adaptabilities.

What can we do to take responsibility now? What do we need to understand now that will be of maximum benefit and utility for us in the future? Who will be our companions who will help us learn and adapt even as we do the same for them? A reminder: This book is primarily for people between age 50 and elderly. What do I mean by that?

Fifty is clear and arbitrary. It’s about the time many of us come to the end of some of our roles—custodial parent, youthful athlete, devoted employee—and begin to not only question the right fit for us but begin to pursue other options. Fifty could be around age 50, 45, or 55. You’ll know who you are when you want to leave some roles or some of them leave you with or without notice or your permission.

Elderly is, in my opinion, not definable by chronological age. In fact, when you think about it, aging isn’t really the point. Quality of life is the point. Lots of companies sell us products and services, all framed by what a problem aging is for us regardless of whether this is true for us individually or not. I don’t even like the word elderly but am using it in the absence of a better one. I’m not so crazy about the word senior, either. In fact, I think our language has failed to keep up with the pace and realities of individual and demographic change as we, our country, and the world ages.

Is someone elderly because he is age 90? Is someone elderly because she is age 70? We all probably know 70-year-olds who act in some way that we consider elderly. We also all probably know 90-year-olds who do not act in a way we think of as elderly. Elderly, for me, will be that point at which I will have to say to my wife or to my sons, “I need help here. I can no longer be fully self-managing.” Or they will have to say it to me. I hope that we are all able to acknowledge that, whenever it is, it will be natural and right on schedule—not fully within my control but not without my influence, either.

A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT “TRANSITIONS”

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Many of us are accustomed to thinking and talking in terms of “transitions.” For want of a newer, more accurate term I’ll use the word as part of the conversation you and I will be having in this book. In quieter times of predominantly Continuous Change, transitions often occurred individually. We could clearly see the beginning, the middle, and the end. Example: Joe and Amy had been a married couple for five years. Then they decided to start a family, a significant transition. The beginning of the transition: getting pregnant. The middle of the transition: pregnancy. The end of the transition: bringing their newborn son home from the hospital. Joe and Amy would experience many transitions, a bit spaced from each other, throughout the growing-up years of their son and, later, both of his sisters. Each of the transitions had a clear beginning, middle, and end. Joe and Amy were able to see the transitions more clearly because each was distinguishable from the others.

Discontinuous Change isn’t brand new. It has always been with us but not in such profusion or spaced so closely together and overlapping. The presidential race of 2016 and its aftermath may serve as a powerful example. With the increase in Discontinuous Change in our lives and our environment, “transitions,” in my opinion, has become a less useful concept. In fact, it has become a somewhat quaint and dated construct. Why? The pace of change has increased. Multiple, demanding transitions can occur, overlapping and tightly spaced. If several transitions are occurring at once, are interrelated, and can’t be broken down into clear beginnings, middles, and ends (or it isn’t useful to try to pull them apart to see the three segments), we will have a more difficult time analyzing what is really happening and what to do about it.

Joe and Amy’s son left for his freshman year of college across the country. He had always been around to open tightly lidded jars and carry the heavier grocery bags for his mother. Also, he served as a kind of surrogate father to his younger sisters during Joe’s frequent and extended business trips. Later in the same week, Joe received the surprise news that his division was being eliminated and Joe would lose his job. Three days later, Amy, distracted, accidentally started a fire in the kitchen that almost burned down the house. The older of the two daughters, complete with shiny new driver’s license, was rear ended (not her fault) and experienced shoulder and neck injuries. The next day, the for-profit university where Amy had been taking classes—in anticipation of needing additional income for the kids’ college expenses—filed for bankruptcy and announced it was shutting down.

Of all of these overlapping and densely packed changes and transitions, only their son going off to college could be seen clearly in advance and was a form of Continuous Change. The others were all forms of Discontinuous Change and transitions. Pulling them apart and finding ways to cope with each of them through identifying beginning, middle, and end was simply not going to be as useful as it was in previous, slower times. What’s my point? I recommend that we 1) understand and use “transitions” thinking wherever it will be useful but 2) realize that it may have its reasonable limits in our increasingly change-oriented world and that we have yet to develop a new model for deconstructing multiple, overlapping Discontinuous Change as a way of coping and problem solving.

I’ve written this book for you and for myself. We’re “transitioning” from our traditional and previous roles and age-driven norms without exactly knowing where we’re going or what the world is going to be like. We’re going to encounter moving targets and winding roads. We need plans. We need to NOT feel like failures if parts or even most of the plan don’t work out, whether changes were forced upon us or we changed our minds. We need to know that success lies in our ability to adapt the plan and ourselves to match evolving reality, probability, and our anticipated preferences.

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The best choices available to you down the road may not be the same as the ones available now. The best choices available to you may not include a solitary option such as a specific job or one location and might not be answerable with a yes or no answer. The finest choices for you may have a limited shelf life and not be permanent. The most workable choices for you may be several selections you piece together as if you are traveling down the road with some straightaways and lots of curves, too, often unexpected.

There will be a menu of choices. We can greatly influence what’s on the menu if we’re paying attention and doing the planning, living, and adapting. If one big choice is the best for you AND is available, that is great. If not, don’t think you have failed. Begin to gather the best pieces together into a shape that works well for you in the short run and can be modified as you go along.

The best choices you see now may be fleeting. In fact, as we get older, there is an increasing probability that choices we make will be made as part of a series rather than as independent/free-standing, permanent decisions. We won’t have the satisfaction of saying to ourselves, “Whew. That’s decided forever. I won’t ever have to worry about that one again.”

Our heroes are often no longer the people who “made it” early and retired to live a life of fun and leisure indefinitely. Instead, our heroes seem to be those older people doing amazing things with their lives whether they have “retired” forever from paid work or not . . . and often not.

The goal is a high-quality and satisfying life, one fraught with humanity and surprises and learning you can be proud of and enjoy on a daily basis until the end.

If your image of a satisfying life is dominated by extended leisure time and few commitments to yourself or others, perhaps with significantly diminished ambition and curiosity, this book probably isn’t for you.

I’m an ambitious guy, myself, eager to lead a really satisfying life each day. I want to do some things I didn’t have the time, energy, or life space to do earlier in my life, like writing this book, forming memories with my grandchildren, and creating income streams that are long term so that we’re not simply living on savings and Social Security. I’m ambitious to be more creative than I’ve ever been. I’m ambitious to face every type of change head-on and adapt both my plan and myself accordingly with grace. I’m not checking things off a bucket list; my ambitions are woven into the demands, activities, and leisure of each day—my idea of a highly satisfying life regardless of age.

My own core strategy is having multiple, overlapping professional and personal interests and commitments that require my attention and that produce energy, which can then be used toward each of the others, a kind of symbiosis of interests and activities. No single one is allowed to take up so much of my life space—except temporarily such as writing and completing this book—that it suddenly owns me instead of the other way around.

I don’t want my future to be locked in by and limited to the structures, consequences, and outcomes of my past. I want to be clear about what I’m bringing with me from my past—the most useful for my future and what I love the most that can realistically be a part of my future. I also want to honor—and release with appreciation—everything else. I can’t bring it all. It’s too heavy and bulky. And in many cases it’s too dated and comfortable.

I expect to leave the nest, my comfort zone, regularly for an hour or a day or a week, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes involuntarily. I also plan to come back to the nest but not as precisely the same person without any new experiences and insights. And the nest may not be exactly the same, either.

If all of this interests you, you’re in the right place. And the information in this book is for you.

At various points in the book I will ask you to stop and complete an exercise. I recommend you do these exercises when you first read them to maximize your learning and enjoyment of the rest of the book.

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