retirement with the same sense of urgency to ‘get it right’ that drove
us to get through college, find the best job, raise that great family
and participate in all those community groups and projects. Now, as we
turn down the home stretch, are we continuing to accelerate or are we
slowing down? Like Verna said over at Out of the Cube, we’re supposed to spend the first half of life acquiring everything and the second half letting go. So what’s the big hurry?
The whole phenomenon of the mid-life crisis really has little to do
with speed and everything to do with direction. The real question to
ponder: “Why are we moving so fast if we don’t know where we’re going?”
Couple this with the fact that a bunch of us are still working on the
question of ‘who we are’ and you have more of a midlife mystery than a
straightforward inquiry into velocity.
I like the metaphor of a racecar track for life because it seems to me
that, at the end of the day, we end up pretty much where we started.
One of my teachers once distinguished “purpose” from “goals”. Goals are
like milestones on a journey…they are not the destination. One’s
purpose in life is like a direction — going East, for example. If we
leave from San Francisco, then our ‘goals’ might include Denver, St.
Louis, New York, London, and so forth. But then, he suggested, if your
purpose was going East, and you turn around 180 degrees, you realize
that you are as far East as you can go.
I note that many people, particularly in large organizations, cannot
wait for the magical day when they will have completed their 30 years
(or whatever the formula dictates that will entitle them to walk away
with a full pension). What are they waiting for? I cannot think of very
many activities that one would have to wait until retirement for that
are not available before we stop working. Oh, I know we probably won’t
be able to do our around-the-world sailing odyssey just yet. But short
of a time-consuming adventure, the rest is mostly doable now. And if
the truth be told, most of those retirement fantasies don’t come to
pass anyway.
So relax. If we are serious about what we want in our lives, now and in
the future, then just about anything is possible. The only question is
one of taking action, moving forward one day at a time and enjoying the
journey. The problem is that we can only act in the present moment. If
we are concerned with how fast we’re going or if we are fixated on
doing it right, we are always living in an imagined future (or past).
This is what keeps us struggling against the flow or resisting whatever
we imagine could threaten our dreams, which in turn prevents us from
achieving them (since we keep getting what we resist). Now that is what
I call a crisis—getting more of what we don’t want.
But a crisis isn’t actually bad. It is simply a breakdown — an opportunity to make new choices and begin again.
