Gratitude Friday 1 10 25 - Stage Not Age

This is a big year for me and for all in my cohort born at the midpoint of the 1960s. We are now or rapidly approaching the big 6 0. Everyone has their own way to cope with aging, which all things considered is the worst possible outcome except the only other alternative. While I have more aches and pains than I did at 20 and would not even attempt some of the things I could do at that age, my coping style is not to look behind me longingly in the past and curse the road ahead. My high school days were not my finest hour, and in many ways, I see a lot of potential in front of me, so cursing the passage of time is beyond a waste of energy.

I see myself as a student of life who like all of us has no certainty of the lesson plan. What I am convinced of is that there is plenty more to experience and learn if it is the cards for me to stick and stay through the next revolution of the sun. While I have no idea if that will happen, I know that, inevitably at some point there is an end. That is part of the ride, we do not know when the music ends, just that at some point it does. We can choose to enjoy it or waste what we have. I try to do the latter instead of the former.

In turning 60 this year, I considered the stages of life model. The terms for these stages include late adulthood (boo) and senior adulthood (not so harsh).  Over 60? Think Of Your Stage, Not Your Age, in Forbes asks us to consider seeing the stage as one of reinvention rather than an final phase, which can support people focusing on reevaluating and refocusing our skills and talents to meet life goals. It is more than a curtain call.  

I found this piece on CNBC, There are 5 main stages of life—here’s what to do at every age to ‘minimize your regrets,’ says life coach it suggests that the phase between 54 and 72 is one focused on mentoring. Sharing gifts, listening to the needs of others and being contributive. These are themes that resonate with me. I hope to focus energy here. A friend and colleague recently noted on one of my posts that we have to give away what we have to keep it. I am a product of tremendous mentoring. People who invested their time and energy in me. Paying that forward is simply something I need to do to honor what was done by others for me.

Erik Erikson came up with a model of psychosocial development first published in 1950. As an avid reader, who consumed all written material in my vicinity as a child, I recall seeing it in a series of books on human development that my parents had. This is how one learned pre-internet. I also read encyclopedias, but I digress. I first run across Erikson’s stages at age 11. I recall considering the stages across a life span and attempted to imagine how they may unfold in my own life. A decade later, when addiction was kicking my butt, I felt overwhelming despair in an era of life according to the model was more about identity development. I had a sense of deep despair beyond the scope of the written word. I had the insight of a short, sad and painful life without meaning or focus. That insight was a game changer. It helped propel me into recovery, which became a huge part of my identity in ways more consistent with Eriksons model.

Like any model, it has limits, but the themes of ego integrity vs despair are ones that I grapple with now, but not entirely in the way I had considered in my formative years. One of the facets that come up for me now is how my life experience and the generation I came from has influenced who and what I am. In this way, the dynamic between integrity and despair in some ways expands beyond what I have done with my own time and energy and extends to the way the world of now differs from what I was raised in and learned to believe in. Simply put, I see at this juncture that it is possible to live with integrity to one’s self and still experience pangs of sadness and loss about how the world changes. Things outside of my control about how society has changed and beyond my capacity to grasp as a child when I first saw the stages of life model.

Yet it is also true that within the challenges of our world also reside opportunities to share knowledge and insight into things that I have found true in my own life that worth in this era. I guess those things are opportunities for sharing and mentoring. As much of everything is outside of my control, my reflection here is that focusing on sharing what I have learned in my life has value in our current world is a viable avenue for me to sustain ego integrity as Erikson framed it. I am grateful for the opportunity to focus energy here and for all those who helped me in similar manners over the course of my life.

What are you grateful for today?