HOW TO LIVE The Second Half of Life (part II)
Editor’s note: Meridian is pleased to partner with the Eyres in presenting their new online course called HOW TO LIVE The Second Half of Life. The course is in its final stages of development and is built around short posts and emails so that members can listen and participate with five minutes here and five minutes there, whenever they have the time. The pre-course is now underway, and Meridian readers can join for free at https://valuesparenting.com/how-to-live/. The Eyres will lead the course, but several “adjunct faculty” including the Proctors, will also contribute. We are pleased to present this second part of a two-part overview from the Eyres (part one was two weeks ago and can be read here.)
Who and What is “OLD”?
We were watching a BBC special the other evening on the topic of AI, and one issue discussed was how the workforce is divided between the “young” who learn and use and thrive with AI and the “old” who resist it and want to keep doing everything the “old school” way.
The troubling part was that the reporters defined “old” as everyone over 50. To those of us who have children over 50, that is a bit of a blow. Putting the “old” label on people only half way through their lives is not only incorrect, it damages society as the senior half of the population along with their huge asset of experience and wisdom is disregarded and undervalued.
It is easy to blame the culture or the system or “younger people” in general when we seniors begin to feel marginalized or irrelevant or disrespected. But we sometimes bring it on ourselves. If we disengage, if we “retire” from much of life and just seek to entertain or amuse ourselves, if we pull away from life to the point that when people ask what we are doing we say “Oh, I’m keeping busy,” or when asked how we are doing we say “Oh, not too bad”…if we do or say things like this, then maybe it is ourselves that need some examination and adjustment.
We live in a world that is already so polarized and divided politically and economically and culturally, and if we also divide it generationally—the young and the old, the first-half-ers vs. the second-half-ers, everyone loses. Age diversity and age compatibility and age synergy are what makes a society strong. The mentoring and mutual learning and communicating connections between the old and the young make our culture and our individual lives richer and deeper.
And that is nowhere more true than in our families!
Irrelevant?
We have a wonderful study group that has been meeting since it was formed 50 years ago in graduate school (that will make it pretty easy to figure out the average age of the group) and while most of its members are robust and proactive, it did come up in a recent discussion that feelings of “irrelevance” are one of our biggest concerns.
Do those feelings come because we really believe that we are “losing it”, or that we have no more ambition or goals; or are the feelings inflicted on us by a “youth culture” that shuts out and disrespects our abilities and our experience?
The simple fact is that any culture—that of a business, that of politics, that of the Church, works best when young and old and everything in between values each other and respects each other and the fact that each of the “others” are better at some things than we are. Every level and part of society works better and operates in sync and cooperation when young and old respect and learns from one another.
We may not have much control over whether a company, or a government, or the Church operates in that age-synergistic way, but we have a great deal of influence over whether our families work that way—each of us do. If we are grandparents, we can find effective ways to gather and support and help manage our three generation families. If we are parents, we can consciously link our children to our parents in countless ways. If we are younger, we can show deep respect to our grandparents and complement them by asking for their advice.
We know that there are ideas and discussions going on in the Church at every level about how to foster this powerful blending of ages and stages of life, and how to support and value all parts of the family. It happens so beautifully in missionary work and temple work and within well connected wards and stakes. And if there are world-wide broadcasts for the youth, should there not also be Face-to-Face global broadcasts to seniors and grandparents? And if all the other elements of families are represented by a Church Auxiliary, perhaps something akin to a Senior Auxiliary should also be considered. Every age and every part of families has its own set of worries and needs and issues, and we trust the Church above all other institutions to help and support us with these concerns.
HOW TO LIVE The Second Half of Life
All that we have written so far in this article has factored into the online course HOW TO LIVE The Second Half of Life that we are doing in connection with Meridian and the Proctors and other supporting “Adjunct Faculty.” The course will explore and examine how those of us who are well into our “Second Half” can make this Autumn Season the best part of our lives and continue to be relevant and contributing within our families and communities as well as in the Church. (And by the way, the reason we call it the “Second Half” is that even if we are numerically three fourths through, we likely have as much to give in what remains of our lives as we have given in the part that is past. So, think of it as the second half of our lives in terms of our contributions to the people and institutions we love.)
The course will be unique and flexible in that there will not be a set schedule for classes or meetings. It will all be presented in short posts on Instagram or in podcasts or brief email notes that you can watch or listen to or read at whatever time suits you best—and you will be able to respond with comments or questions whenever either one occurs to you.
Join Us, Have some Autumn Goals, Become a “Soc”
What we find as we talk to other Seniors (actually we like the term “Masters” better—that is what the upper-age divisions are called in the tennis tournaments I (Richard) play in.
In our Master years, what we need for motivation in our lives is what we have always needed—clear GOALS. But we need a different kind of goals than in the first half when most of our objectives were about getting and accumulating and achieving. We now need more family goals, more relationship goals, and more character-creating and spiritual goals. These are essentially “becoming” goals. What kind of person—or grandparent—or empty-nest parent—or mentor—or supporter—or gatherer do we want to become? What sort of goals do we have that can help manage or slow our inevitable decline in the physical and mental aspects of our lives? And what social or emotional or spiritual or familial goals do we have that will aid and increase our ascent in these other four aspects? And what plans do we have to make these goals happen?
If you draw a blank on some of those questions—you are in the majority! Most of us have not thought enough about the potential power and joy of this phase of life. In these HOW TO LIVE classes we will help each other become what we like to call “Socs” or people who are Socratic in how we think—who agree with Socrates who was himself was an old guy when he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” In the online course, we will examine ourselves as Seniors, as Masters, as Grandparents, as 3-generation family leaders, as physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual beings who can make the determining fourth quarter of a game or the final crescendo movement of a symphony become the best part.
Join us! Get signed up now for free at https://valuesparenting.com/how-to-live/ as a member of the pre-course that will further examine the changes and adjustments of the second half and give you a spread of ideas and inputs to think about as you decide if you want to stay on board when the main course on the Fall and Winter of life unfolds in the Fall and Winter of this year.
As New York Times #1 Bestselling Authors and Global Speakers on Family and Life Balance, the Eyres have now turned their writing and speaking to where they are—The Second Half, The Fourth Quarter, The Fifth Set, The Crescendo.
The post HOW TO LIVE The Second Half of Life (part II) first appeared on Meridian Magazine.
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