As I continue to inquire into my own aging process and that of others, I am finding there is a recurring question many of us over 60 years of age are asking ourselves: “What is my purpose?”
Obviously, not everyone asks this question. Probably not even most people. They either simply don’t think about it, or are too afraid of the answer. But more and more, I am listening to people talk about meaning and purpose, and how they feel a need to re-define it for themselves now that they are getting older.
As healthy older adults, we are living in masses 10-20 years longer than our grandparents. Not all of us, but those of us who are already 65-70 years of age, disease free, and take care of ourselves by exercising regularly and eating well, will probably live to 90 or beyond. The simple fact is that some of us will live a lot longer than our parents and grandparents, and many of us that fall into this category also have the means to do something really special with this extra time. The basic question is: “What?”
The stories we heard about retirement or growing old when we were younger play heavily into this. The word “retire” means to “stop work willingly,” “withdraw,” or “go to bed.” As a result, many of us grew up thinking retirement would be this wonderful life of repose and contemplation – a time to dis-engage from worldly pursuits and live a life of leisure and enjoyment.
Other people retire and want to keep doing the same thing that was meaningful to them during midlife. I know a couple of doctors like this. Being consumed by work, accumulation of knowledge, and patients for 40 years, they don’t know what to do with themselves after they retire. Many cannot see themselves doing anything other than being a doctor, but knowledge in that field fades rapidly when you aren’t seeing patients or working with colleagues. Some people – who similarly cannot let go of their past – remain overly attached to their children and grandchildren, unable to move beyond the role of parent. Many fail to recognize that their children are trying to make it on their own, and don’t need their advice and caretaking any longer. Other people, who can, might continue to work – maybe at a job that is different from the one they held in their primary career, but for them it is important to just keep doing something “productive.”
The baby-boomers have fueled a new paradigm for aging in America. It is called “Activity Theory.” We all know people like this: they work hard, party hard, travel whenever they have the opportunity, visit friends and family, have projects they work on when they are home; play softball, tennis, jog, bike, swim. They are always on the go, always active, always doing something. I know many people like this, and they are generally great people. However, this is clearly not a sustainable strategy into the indefinite future.
The one thing in common between all these different ways of aging is that there is no emphasis on finding new – age-appropriate – purpose or meaning in the final third of life. They are either acting out some role thought to be appropriate after retirement, trying to maintain an identity structure they had during midlife, or else trying to get as much enjoyment out of life as possible from the ways that made them happy when they were younger. Most people seem to either give in to the aging process, or else fight it for all they are worth.
If we look at this from different stages in life, we can generally see that in the first third of life our purpose was given to us by our parents and our peers. We were told to go to school, get a job, find a mate, build a career, start a family, or some variant of these societal directives (or the occasional “reaction formation” by an individual against conformity into a completely alternative lifestyle). I know there are lots of exceptions to this sort of upbringing, but probably not among those looking at this website. So, if you are reading this blog, then I am sure you recognize there is a clear upward trajectory to this stage in life, taking us to the next stage.
The second third of life is again heavily influenced by societal directives, because we have not yet reached a stage of psychological development where we have any degree of autonomy, and the purpose of this stage is clear: raise your family – while building self-esteem and security through career, role fulfillment, making money, paying off the mortgage, building a 401K, etc. Our identities are strengthened as we decide whether we are liberals or conservatives, for or against abortion, religious or not religious, and so on. At this stage in life our purpose is to develop a strong identity and then learn to feel somewhat good about who we are. Again, there is a clear upward trajectory – we have purpose and meaning in our lives.
However, now we get to the final third of life, and most of us face a shattering of our old identity structures: Our looks and strength are in decline, we retire (or get retired) from our careers, our children grow up and move away. In some ways, every day provides a new blow to our egos. We look in the mirror and ask ourselves: “Who the hell is that?”
Now, what does society tell us our purpose should be for this last third of life? It really depends on whom you are listening to. Some people say it is time to dis-engage from an active life and prepare for death. Others say the purpose is to maintain your identity from midlife for as long as you can. Still others say to keep active for as long as you can. Probably the thing I hear most from older people is that they want to have fun and be happy.
Now happiness means a lot of different things to different people, but I generally agree with this strategy – except for one thing. I am also now seeing many of those people who initially chose this strategy beginning to question if there isn’t more to life than just having fun. They are starting to look for something meaningful to do, some purpose; they are looking to put some upward trajectory back into their lives – similar to their prior life stages. However, this time there is no one telling us what that purpose should be, nor are there any consistent societal norms. This time, we must find our purpose within ourselves – and most of us have never done this before. We don’t even know how.
This gets us down to a very basic structural component of human nature. We seem to need to be striving for something larger than ourselves in order to be truly happy. We don’t seem to be able to simply retire and be happy – especially if we now have all these additional years to think about it. Eventually we get bored, we feel like we are missing something, things don’t feel quite right, the zip goes out of our lives, a grayness sets into our brains, and we lose our passion for living. We can’t go back to who we once were. We also can’t simply remain who we are now, and stabilize things forever – that’s obviously crazy. We have to find some way to instill new meaning, purpose, and growth into our lives – or these extra 10-20 years many of us now have are going to become a living hell.
I think this is all I am going to say about this for now. But I think you get the point. We need to find new – age-appropriate – meaning and purpose for ourselves in this final stage in life, or else we are losing the opportunity of our lifetime. Think about it.
Love, Dudley