Where to Go from a Mountaintop? Not Up.

SEATTLE.   I wasn't on official business, but I find that when I meet new people age 50+ and they ask what I do, they often have a story to tell... and usually proceed to do so unsolicited. 

Such was the case at a recent social event in this uncommonly beautiful city.

I was talking with a woman from Idaho who told me her retirement was going swimmingly, replete with volunteer activity, learning new things, and enjoying her grandkids.  "But," she said, "My husband's another story."
 

Indeed, he was. She introduced us and he commenced to tell all...

He was miserable.  He missed his job terribly.  He could find nothing to do with his new found free time.  Nothing he liked. Nothing he hated.  Nada.

And then he launched into a reverie about working alone for years on a top of a mountain as part of our national security system (Who knew?).

What Becomes of a Former Warrior?

It was an adventure.  There was danger. It gave him opportunity after opportunity to test himself.  There was nothing like it in the world. Agreed.

And it made me start thinking.  This transition to the next stage of life following full-time work clearly is (and is going to be) harder on some than others. 

It made me think about the attorney in Philadelphia who confessed at a focus group that he had been a litigator for most of his legal career-- "A warrior!" was how he put it. 

What journey do you go on after that that might lead to a meaningful, purposeful life?   Most likely, he's facing major, not gradual, change.

To be sure, you can do it.  Get in touch with life influences and patterns, gifts, strengths and deferred dreams.  But I think it does make a difference what your jumping off point is.

Hate Your Job?  Good!

Heading to retirement from a job you hated?  Many of those who I've heard from who started down their Third Age pathway after leaving such work revel in the process. 

John Baker, the man in the Coming of Age Radio Story series on WHYY who decided now was the time to catch up with his dream of becoming a sound engineer is one.  He was so delighted with what happened to him that he lost all sense of having had regrets. 

Will the dancer so blessed with talent that we could not "tell the dancer from the dance" simply hang up her toe shoes and leap into retirement?  I would think not.

How about the nationally-syndicated columnist whose paper folds and he doesn't have another to go to?  Talk about a bummer.

Or the man who tested himself daily as he defended our freedom solo on a mountain peak?   

That is a tough place from which to begin a new journey.