Who Do You Want To Be When You Grow Old?

One of my favourite things about the new book from philosopher David Shapiro and purpose-guru Richard Leider, is the title. They had to fight with their publishers to keep the dreaded word ‘old’ on the cover. Which sums up the challenge we collectively face. Our dread of the word, and our inevitable arrival at its door.

The title summarises the book’s entire premise in a wise and witty way (the authors are in their 60s and 70s). It riffs off the annoying question (‘what do you want to do when you grow up?’) that children are asked by adults confronted with making conversation with small humans (similar to women’s most-hated career interview question, ‘where do you see yourself in five years?’). Then, in a sleight of wordsmithing, transforms it into a more profound question.

From Doing to Being

Instead of ‘what’ you will ‘do’, they ask ‘who’ will you ‘be.’ That switch neatly sums up the task of our Third Quarters. Moving from the first-half-of-life identifying with your role / job / title, to learning (late is better than never) what makes you sing. We are all getting old, notes Leider, but are we ‘growing’ old?

Leider has been involved with adult development for over a half century. He worked for a time with the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest running such studies, following a group of (male) students from 1938, summarised in a wonderful TED talk. In the decades since, he has run a company inviting people to lead ‘a purposeful life.’ As people age, he notes, the search begins to define a well-lived life, whether “pushed by pain or pulled by opportunity.”

Quoting geriatrician William Thomas, the authors note that people will have to learn to age twice, once from childhood to adulthood and once again from adulthood to elderhood. Doing this well doesn’t mean remaining attached to the oft-admired idea of staying the same. Thomas says the word ‘still’ is the red flag of this attitude, as in, “she is ‘still’ working,” or “he ‘still’ looks young.” There is no such stillness in life, and humans need to grow to feel alive.

Later-Life Crisis?

The authors suggest that up to a third of people will experience a ‘later-life crisis,’ characterised by a loss of relevance. They differentiate this from the better-known ‘mid-life crisis,’ more rooted in a loss of opportunities.

They also suggest, without quoting any source, that while mid-life crises are “mostly a guy thing,” the late-life crisis is not gender-specific. “Women and men seem equally likely to experience it.” As both the authors are men, and almost every book they cite is written by a man (much has been written about why men don’t read books written by women), I’m sceptical of this claim. The Harvard study cited above originally focused only on men, and the lives of women have been utterly transformed in the last half-century. Why the hurry to claim there are no gender differences in ageing? The research on gender differences is sorely lacking – especially in ageing. There are probably fascinating contrasts that may be a fascinating key to a more holistic understanding of adult development. The way women age may even become a model men will one day wish to emulate. But that will be for future books.

While crises make for dramatic reading, it seems to me that we will want to calm our language and normalise the feelings of discomfort and questioning as perfectly healthy moments of transition. In most lives, these happen far more often than we think. Calling them crises doesn’t help us cope with them. Especially as they seem to appear at predictable ages and stages. Adult development is not yet abundantly researched, but I suspect it will one day show that healthy humans change and evolve constantly. And that there are big differences in the arcs and narratives of men and women. For now, it seems clear that if people resist change, they get stuck – and sick.

The Problem with ‘Purpose’

My other favourite part of this book is its definition of purpose. Purpose is often a loaded word. Too many people seem to weight it down with all the pressure and benchmarking they ascribed in earlier decades to achievement. Many ambitious people transfer their self-measurement and striving from a big for-profit goal to a big for-purpose legacy. With a capital ‘p.’ And too many struggle remaining forever short of their internal critic. I have had clients resolutely hunting for years for an elusive sense of purpose the gurus promise exists. “What you seek,” quote the authors, “is seeking you.”

But they then temper the lofty call with the more pragmatic reality. The book’s subtitle is ‘The Path of Purposeful Aging,’ and the authors have written previous books and run organisations devoted to ‘purpose.’ For them, it involves recognising the choice inherent in the life we are currently living – including those avoiding making any choice. Are we stuck in what they call the ‘default life,’ the unexamined version we’ve been dealt by circumstance, culture, or history? Or are we living ‘a good life,’ based on the four pillars of ‘living in the place you belong, with people you love, doing spiritual work, on purpose.’ Their invitation is simple: if life lacks meaning, change something. Lack of money or opportunity or visibility is no excuse. It’s about shifting from an effortful and eventually expensive striving for what you want, to wanting what you have. (They acknowledge that they are privileged, well-off white men, and that this last injunction may land badly in many quarters of today’s hugely unequal world, with older women less well off in all countries than men).

I prefer the rather simpler mantra of ‘something to do, someone to love and something to hope for.’ Given people’s internalised dramatisation of ‘purpose’, I’ve become rather wary of the term. Most women I know, especially those who’ve successfully raised a kid or three, feel they’ve accomplished what society told them was their purpose. In later life,  they are often on to projects that may feel more selfish, or passion- or ambition-driven. It helps to choose the word that suits your own particular shape of life.  

But the book concludes with a definition of purpose I completely resonate with – “to grow and to give.” A wonderful mantra for our latter halves. I will adopt it as my ‘old’ goal. What’s yours?