Chapter 8

Handling the Surprises and Curves

Okay. Where are we now? Your three-perspective plan is beginning to emerge. Your intentions are more focused and you can clearly see the importance of paying attention, being adaptable, and having a plan that is built in segments from fairly concrete in the immediate future to a set of intentions and ideas extending out toward the further time horizon.

SURPRISES AND CURVES HAPPEN

I am suggesting that only a minority of us end up with surprises that demand a whole new plan from scratch because so much Continuous and Discontinuous Change has happened that the cleanest and surest way through is to start over. I am also suggesting, however, that very, very few of us will craft a plan at age 50 or later that won’t change and that we can execute flawlessly for the rest of our lives, which could be a very long time for those of us who prove to have extreme longevity. Life, surprises, and changes of mind are more than likely to intervene somehow.

Surprises can, of course, come in an entire array of forms. Some give us well-advanced warning. Many do not. Some are within our control. Many are not.

We’re cruising along a straightaway and, boom, suddenly there is a curve. Or a series of adjacent curves we didn’t see that we were approaching.

What forms can they take? They can include, but aren’t limited to:

•Our own or others’ health.

•Financial condition changes.

•Work and employment changes.

•Interruption or termination of leisure because of necessity or lack of interest; the sudden irrelevance of roles long depended upon for our identity and self-esteem.

•Major change(s) in our social networks, especially our immediate and familiar network of the people we trust the most.

•Something someone else does that we think reflects badly on us and we don’t want to be associated with it anymore. Here are several examples: Example #1: Your business partner does something that you think is borderline unethical. Example #2: The team captain of your baseball team strikes someone on the opposing team in a fit of bad temper. Example #3: A fellow member of a nonprofit board consciously and publicly misrepresents something you really believe in.

•Residential and community changes.

•An unanticipated change in our interests and passions.

•The return to our nest of children and grandchildren.

•The arrival in our nest of needy elders whether from our own family or someone else’s.

Sixty-six-year-old Betty was enjoying her first year of retirement. She could see that down the road she might want and need to add more structure or activity to her life, but she didn’t want that right now. She knew she wouldn’t have to be a caregiver for elders because both of her parents were deceased. One day her closest cousin called to say that she had a big problem. Her cousin was going to have to accept a work transfer three states away or lose her job. The kicker was that, at least in the beginning, she couldn’t take her elderly mother, Betty’s favorite aunt, with her because she had no idea where or how she would live yet. Could her mother come to live with Betty for a while? Aunt Jane, now 87, had always been especially kind to Betty, doing all those special little things that parents often don’t have time to do but grandparents and aunts and uncles may do regularly. Aunt Jane was still intellectually crisp but physically frail. She needed support but neither Betty nor her cousin could imagine putting Jane in a care facility at this point. What was Betty to do? Of course, she said, “Yes.”

“But this wasn’t in my plan! This can’t be happening to me! Why me or us? Why now?” said Betty.

These are statements and questions based on weak evidence, the irrational idea that, if we didn’t anticipate it, it shouldn’t be happening. While it makes sense emotionally for a few minutes or hours, if it’s extended it makes moving forward to adapt and alter our plans even more difficult than the driving circumstances themselves.

“Darn. I hate being surprised. I know I can’t see everything coming or build a plan that covers absolutely all contingencies forever, but it still stings. Having said that, I guess it’s time to adapt again, both my plan and myself. What does this surprise mean for me/us and our plan? What has to adapt, how fast, and for how long? How will I have to change my thinking and priorities?” This kind of reaction accelerates moving forward to a new, well-thought-out situation and ways to deal with it.

My job here is to talk about some ways to approach surprises and curves. It will help to see more clearly what is happening from more than one viewpoint. That will give you more informed perspectives and alternative ways to think about your experiences as they happen and afterward.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT STAGE THEORY

Stage Theories attempt to organize and cluster different experiences or periods of our lives or the processes we go through. I admire Stage Theories as a way to understand and organize our experiences but not as a rigid and mandatory and highly validated road map of how we all must operate.

One example of a Stage Theory is Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. One goes through grief by going through these stages in order until emerging at the other end. I think this is a brilliant way to understand grief and how we deal with it. I don’t think life is as tidy as progressing through 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, like a row of hurdles, to the end of the race. Instead, I think it’s much messier than that. While the stages, in their order, may be representative, in practice I think we tend to ricochet and wobble and loop around our progress forward in very individual ways that make our path look much more like a wavy line than a straight roadway. A client once said, “I must be doing something wrong about my grief. I’m finally feeling fairly accepting, which would be great if it weren’t for my suspicion that I haven’t done this right because I wasn’t depressed long enough.”

Why do I think keeping Stage Theory in mind will help with surprises and curves? Because in taking a good look at yourself in the midst of change you can see that, regardless of how permanent it seems in the moment, in fact, the developmental opportunity is to move through it to something as good or even better. This information is important to keep in mind because I’m going to introduce what I think of as a non-stage Period Theory. You’ll see and I’ll explain when we get there.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN “IT’S PAINFUL BUT I’M RIGHT ON SCHEDULE” AND “SOMETHING IS DEFINITELY WRONG WITH ME THAT NEEDS FIXING”

Early on in this book, I made an important distinction between therapy based on the medical model (diagnosis, treatment, and cure) versus a developmental psychology approach that tends to assume there is nothing wrong with you that needs a cure (i.e., there is nothing wrong with you if you are bored after doing the same job for 10 years). What you are experiencing in your life may be painful but is right on schedule (the kids are going away and being an empty nester sounds more wonderful in theory than it is turning out to be in practice), or a developmental opportunity may be lurking as a large gift as a result of what is happening now (your friends have pushed you into dating, something you have been afraid of after years as a divorced person) and you are actually having a good time and discovering aspects of yourself you had forgotten.

Why is this information important to working with surprises and curves? If you go back to our work on assessing where you are and identifying your assets, a significant asset was your professional advisors. You don’t necessarily have to have two psychological advisors: one for therapy and one for developmental purposes. Lots of great professionals out there do both. What you do need, in my opinion, is to understand which situation you think you are in and which approach you are looking for because that’s what will help you make great choices about whom to work with and what to focus on.

You have come to a surprise or a curve. You will have to adapt. Your plan will have to adapt. Maybe the surprise or curve really represents a more dramatic instance of Continuous Change. Maybe the surprise or curve represents a game-changing, totally discontinuous situation or opportunity. Either way, you will need to think about which kind of change has arrived at your doorstep and whether or not it indicates something is wrong with you that needs fixing OR if it’s painful but nothing is wrong with you and this is a developmental moment and opportunity that’s more about clarity and adapting than it is about diagnosis, treatment, and cure.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TAKING THINGS IN MANAGEABLE BITES

Earlier in this book we dealt with the importance of having three perspectives: up close/short term, mid-range, and far away/long term. This is crucial not only because it immediately brings your short-term priorities into full view, it also reduces the stress load because you can work with the shorter term first before you move out into the more distant and relative future.

The same technique applies to handling the surprises and the curves by taking them in perspective bites. Sometimes you will experience Continuous Change, which you may or may not see coming. Regardless, it’s unlikely to be a total game changer, the equivalent of a bomb going off in the pattern and assumptions of your life. Sometimes you will experience Discontinuous Change and, by definition, you are unlikely to see it coming. On top of that it may momentarily confuse you into thinking there is something wrong with you. Probably not. You will be suddenly faced with having to rapidly see the size, robustness, and implications of something you haven’t experienced before that’s a game changer.

In order to minimize the surprises and curves of your upcoming years, I’d like to propose that, based on years of observations and working with clients, there is a kind of ebb and flow that happens. I offer this to you, not as a locked-in Stage Theory in which you must do all the work of one stage before advancing to the next climbing through a row of box cars in motion behind a locomotive. I offer this to you as a way to see in advance some of the surprises and curves that so many others have experienced.

A Non-Stage Period Theory as a Window onto Surprises and Curves

I especially like this way of understanding our lives because it doesn’t come with the prejudices and assumptions of homogenous, age-driven, inflexible models. And it assumes that our priorities and plans are inevitably going to change to reflect what we don’t want/can’t have anymore and what we’ve discovered we would like that we hadn’t needed to focus on until now.

New Freedom

The first of these periods, which I call New Freedom, often begins with becoming empty nesters around age 50, totally unaccustomed to the new discretionary space, income, time, and possibilities. Remember, it’s an individual experience, so age is not an absolute predictor of this period in our lives. It also includes people whose career ambitions are significantly met so that their relationship to work and ambition has been modified. They stop being consumed by their work like a man who looks up and suddenly realizes—to his surprise—that different priorities are emerging. The reverse is also true. Someone who has stayed at home for decades when suddenly faced with freedom may want to consider exploring options. Discretionary life space is suddenly available. Priorities shift. It can take some getting used to. People in this period often find themselves at least temporarily disoriented by having or taking additional time, space, and planning after years of incessant commotion and action. It is kind of like pushing on a rock for years and it suddenly moves, changing all assumptions.

Sam’s New Freedom Story

Sam went to law school, the first in his family to graduate from college, much less graduate from a prominent law school. He chose family law, especially divorces, as his specialty early on because it would allow him to make a lot of money and work with individuals to solve and move beyond complex emotions and problems.

At age 25 he began to practice law, got married, and began to raise a family. On his 33rd birthday he announced to his wife and children that he would spend 17 more years as a divorce attorney and that on his 50th birthday he would quit and then do something else. He repeated this statement to his family on each of his next 16 birthdays. “Sure, sure, Dad!” his family said each year.

While he liked practicing law, Sam was clear with himself all along that it wouldn’t be his life’s work until he keeled over. He wanted at least a second career if not, eventually, a third. At noon on his 50th birthday he came home, something so unusual that his wife wanted to know what he was doing there. “I’ve been telling you for years that on my 50th birthday I’d stop practicing law. That’s today. Here I am.”

“But what will you do?” asked his startled wife. “I’m going to be supportive but I don’t want you at home every day getting underfoot and suddenly supervising me.” “I haven’t had much time to think about it until today,” he replied, “but I think I’ll spend the next six months working with someone who specializes in midlife career change. In fact, I think you should join me because you are about to have an involuntary career change. The kids are going to go away within two years and you will be para-unemployed.”

They sat down at the table in the kitchen with a sandwich and coffee, beginning to work with the fact that they both were happily entering a period of New Freedom but having only a hazy idea of what to do about it.

Masie and Clifton’s New Freedom Story

Masie and Clifton, ages 59 and 67, had been married and in business together for years. They owned a landscaping business, selling specialized gardens—installation and maintenance—to real estate developers, golf courses, residential builders, parks departments, and other customers. They had worked hard, made sure their company was always positioned as a woman-owned company (Masie was always the face of the business; Clifton primarily worked with the sod growers), raised a family, and now, in their mid-50s, were making plans to sell the business.

Their son, Jezel, graduated from college and returned home with a shocking announcement. Having looked at all of his employment options, he wanted to join his parents in their business and eventually buy them out.

Masie and Clifton had always assumed they would retire upon selling the business, not anticipating an interest by any of their children who had all claimed they could hardly wait to get out and explore the world professionally. Still, they were pleased and proud that Jezel had discovered a real interest in owning a business, and theirs in particular.

They worked out a 10-year buyout with their son. His stipulation was that both of his parents remain working in the business for at least five years. They could come and go as they wanted provided they worked enough to keep everything on an even keel while Jezel worked full-time.

Suddenly, instead of having full-time freedom, they had part-time New Freedom. For Masie and Clifton, it turned out to be a real blessing. They didn’t have to go instantly from full-time work to no work. They could have some time to explore their options and get used to having space, time, and freedom—at least part-time. And they had the satisfaction of knowing that the business they had worked so hard to create would have an extended life. They were free in just the right amount for the transition period.

Jackie’s New Freedom Story

Jackie, age 68, had worked for a major national bank for years. She had risen from teller in the early years to branch manager in her mid-career to regional manager later in her career. She had a reputation for being really smart, beautifully dressed at all times, and always cordial if a bit distant. For a variety of reasons, Jackie had never married, devoting herself instead primarily to her work and to her small army of nieces and nephews who adored her.

What most people didn’t know about Jackie was she had an artistic side. She loved clothes, especially shoes, and spent much of her leisure time sketching new designs for everything from shoes to earrings. During her vacations, she had sometimes attended sessions at a New York design school.

Five years before her retirement, Jackie crafted a plan for herself. She developed an online design business with one employee—herself. She marketed her services and began to supply apparel designs to clothing manufacturers. This was an evenings- and weekends-only effort for the most part. Now, as she approaches her retirement and with a small but successful apparel design business, she is looking forward to New Freedom. Maybe she will grow her business. Maybe she will sell it. Maybe . . . ? She is intent on living with the New Freedom after retirement. Then she can decide what’s next.

New Horizons

The second of these periods, which I call New Horizons, usually begins after New Freedom has been around for a while and we’re comfortable with having some open, uncommitted life space. New Horizons involves greater focus and clarity about where we want to take the freedom, what we’re curious about, how we want to spend our energy, and how we’re going to move into being good at this new phase of life. A year after the last of her kids left for college, Alice took a job. She wanted the experience of still being a breadwinner and more routine/structure to her days. None of her friends saw that coming.

Six months after finally making VP in his company, Peter suddenly took up wheel-turned pottery. He had to work even harder as a VP than he had at any other time in his career BUT he was no longer willing to be consumed by it. Peter knew he had the freedom to make choices. He wanted something he could pick up and put down that was both creative and demanding away from work. None of his colleagues saw this coming.

Joanna and Dennis Cole’s New Horizons Story

Joanna and Dennis Cole, both 59, have been empty nesters for a while. They have enjoyed their New Freedom and they took advantage of the time to explore at length what they want and don’t want in their individual lives and their life together.

Self-employed, to his surprise Dennis wants to retire and is planning to do so in two years. He will sell his dental practice to his younger associate and is negotiating the sale now. He is surprised how much he is looking forward to no longer being responsible for a business yet continuing to work part-time, tapping into his creative side. Always into fine metal work with his hands, Dennis decided he would like to be a jewelry maker and sculptor, traveling to fine craft fairs and making custom pieces for clients.

Once that piece of his life was clear to Dennis, he invested in some home equipment and materials. He also began taking fine arts classes at their local university and museum. While he doesn’t know what he will do with all of his time, he knows what will make him happy with a significant portion of it. He will figure out the rest as he goes along.

As Joanna began to anticipate the kids leaving, she went back to school to earn an MA in engineering. She had worked for an architectural firm as an engineer when she and Dennis started dating, putting her career aside for her family as it grew. The New Freedom period turned out to be essential for her because not only did she earn a new degree, she also grew her professional network in the process. She has recently started working full-time as an engineer. Her horizons are growing as she hoped they would. She will be on the road part of the time, but she and Dennis don’t see that as a problem since they are both so excited about her professional future.

Paul Simmons’s and Jack Tracy’s New Horizons Story

Paul and Jack, 59 and 58, respectively, have been a couple for 23 years. Recently married, they celebrated with travel and long weekends together. Neither one wants to retire. Both are professionals who earn a good living. Their decision to get married after all these years felt surprisingly like New Freedom to both of them: the freedom to be a couple of grown-ups in a legal, respectful relationship in public and in private. What has surprised them both is the anticipation of the future that has come with this New Freedom. In the past 23 years they have bought, remodeled, and sold 17 homes. Having had a great time doing it, somehow their New Freedom was a catalyst to decide to search for other activities they could do together. Jack and Paul are in the midst of exploring owning a boat, buying an airplane, becoming foster parents for a teenager, driving the Alcan Highway, and going to culinary school. They like the freedom, especially the powerful effect it has had on considering New Horizons for themselves.

New Simplicity

The third period I call New Simplicity. It’s that period when we decide we don’t want (and maybe cannot handle) so many complicating things in our lives. Large houses and their maintenance, too many relationships that don’t nurture us, excessive volunteer commitments that used to be meaningful but aren’t anymore, physical clutter we’ve held onto for too long, and dreams and intentions that no longer hold appeal or punch for us. Carl and Mona loved the big house where they had raised their family. With five bedrooms and sitting on an acre of land, it had been the home of their dreams. Somewhere along the way—probably as a result of New Freedom and New Horizons—they found they needed to make a choice. They had finite energy, time, and money. They could devote themselves to the house and acre or they could do other things that were emerging interests. Downsizing was their solution. Their kids all saw this coming before they did.

Each of these important—even essential—periods requires choices, sacrifices or letting go, and trade-offs.

Minna Stanley’s New Simplicity Story

Minna and Bob Stanley, ages 72 and 74, had it all planned out. Minna finally retired three years after Bob did. She loved her work and had trouble giving it up. The couple kept their longtime Ohio home and bought a small house in a warm climate on a golf course for their winter retreats. They would rent it out the rest of the year. They had one season living in the middle of their three-phased life plan, complete with friends’ visits from snowy Cleveland. Then Minna was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Always a team of two, whether they were raising children or going to graduate school or attending to each other’s health, they didn’t pretend everything would be all right. Almost instantly they both yearned for greater simplicity and less physical baggage as Minna’s illness progressed. Bob admitted that he dreaded going through all of their things to decide what to keep. Minna admitted she had certain things she wanted each of the kids to have, things she associated with them and that would have an extended life in their homes. By the time Minna was really sick, they had slimmed down everything to a point that Bob could handle it. Minna felt relieved that she had been able to have her hand in the upcoming New Simplicity. They both seemed very peaceful. Bob has promised to live a good and full life. He is assisted in this by the amount of simplicity they created together.

Natasha and Irving Wallace’s New Simplicity Story

The Wallaces, both in their 70s, are newlyweds. Each lost a spouse about six years ago. They both owned large homes full of furniture, accrued stuff, and memories. When they became a couple, about 18 months before they married, they went back and forth about who would move into whose house, which furniture they would keep, what they would let go of, how they would go about consolidating households, and what to give to the kids. One morning they woke up, looked at each other, and said in unison, “This is dumb!” While trying to compromise to make sure the other’s needs were met, it took quite a while for them to realize and admit that they would both be happier by starting fresh in a smaller home, newly furnished, that belonged to the two of them. They put their houses on the market and sold them, living temporarily in an apartment while awaiting construction of the bungalow-style house they had selected and purchased together. They had a decorator they really liked go through each of their houses and the new house plans. Together with the decorator, they selected those things they wanted to keep and had all of those things placed in storage. And then both of their houses sold within a week of each other. The new house was ready, they went through the punch-list process to make sure everything was completed, and immediately left for a three-week road trip before moving in.

While they were on the road trip, the decorator furnished the house with the new furniture and all of the things from storage they wanted to keep. The decorator also arranged for all of the remaining furnishings in their old houses, after the kids took what they wanted, to be donated and taken away when the sale closed. When Natasha and Irving arrived at their new house at the end of their trip, they left the luggage in the car, opened the front door, and tiptoed through their new simple house with simpler furniture and the treasures they had wanted to keep. They were simply home without having to deal with any of the hassles of the move or redecorating. What does this have to do with sacrifices and tradeoffs? Sacrifices and trade-offs are an integral part of the learning loop decisions in Chapter 3. They are a part of the wisdom we will all need between 50 and elderly.

WE’RE ALL PIONEERS

There will always be straightaways and surprise curves on our life’s roadway, sometimes a hairpin turn and sometimes a switch-back and sometimes a road so straight and clear that it’s obvious why no speed limit is required. Like it or not, we’re all in a transition. We’re all pioneers. Imagine you just stepped off a sailing ship onto a beach with a large rock. You don’t know the territory. You don’t know the culture. You don’t know the topography. You don’t know the rules. What you already know and have experienced may or may not be applicable and useful. How do you find out? You pioneer your way through transition after transition. This is increasingly what our world between 50 and elderly will require because there are so many of us, our institutions cannot be relied upon to solve things for us, and our assumptions may or may not prove to be true.

TO REPEAT: SURPRISES AND CURVES HAPPEN

There is a world of difference between being surprised by change, unable to name and see it for what it is, and being surprised by change with the knowledge, vocabulary, and insight to see what’s really going on in a reasonably short period of time.

Surprises can be joyful, if shocking, sometimes. They can also bear gifts of opportunity you may not see immediately. It’s not my hope to save you from surprises and curves any more than I would expect you to save me. It is my hope that throughout these chapters you increasingly have the tools to see what’s really going on, work with it in manageable bites, and adapt both yourself and your plan without the crushing assumption that something must be desperately wrong and horrible. It may be difficult but you are increasingly up to it as a result of doing the work we’ve described in this book.