My absence from the roadSIGNS Coach blog duly noted, I am now here to say that I am officially back. This last year has been an informative one:
- I turned 65, that magical age where we are told that retirement is an option
- I experienced my first ‘mid-life’ crisis – it seems that I did not think turning 65 would mean anything and it did!
- I enjoyed one of the busiest years on record with our business and subsequently decided that I no longer needed or wanted to work with that same level of intensity
- I completed my Certificate in Positive Psychology, an intense program offered through the winter
- and I was introduced to the concept of the Third Act, the final decades of life beginning at age 60.
It is this business of the Third Act that has really captured my attention. In her amazing TedTalk on the topic in December 2011, Jane Fonda stated that we need a new metaphor for aging in our society, one which considers aging as a staircase — the upward ascension of the human spirit, bringing us into wisdom, wholeness and authenticity. Age not at all as pathology; age as potential.
In a society with such a strong youth orientation, it is easy for those of us approaching or beyond 60 to wonder what belongs to us. And yet when I look inward, when I consider my future, I am aware that I want to do so with gusto, perhaps even a bit of bravado. I am struck by how much desire I have to learn, develop and pursue. I am hungry for meaning and a desire to continue to be of service and I am convinced that I am not alone.
As a generation, those of us 60 years plus, are physiologically younger than any generation before us. We have the potential to live 3-4 more decades or more. While we may see some decline in our health, this decline does not have to apply to our spirit. We are in charge of that just as we are in charge of our curiosity, our passion, our attitudes and beliefs. As Fonda suggests:
Entropy means that everything in the world, everything, is in a state of decline and decay, the arch.
There’s only one exception to this universal law, and that is the human spirit,
which can continue to evolve upwards — the staircase — bringing us into wholeness, authenticity and wisdom.
Perhaps the Third Act is really our time, a time to FLOURISH, a time to expand on those things that escaped us in our youth, a time to exercise our curiosity and be active learners, a time to finish what was left undone.
I invite you to join me in this conversation as I pursue Flourishing in the Third Act.
Using the principles of Positive Psychology, I intend to carve out a course for us to follow, one which will allow us to become re-acquainted with the many aspects of who we are and who we wish to become, one which will help to find our way into this new territory called the Third Act.