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5
 Elderlescence

Not long ago I, Rick, had an extra day off from work due me, and because my wife was at work, I stayed home, vegged out on the couch, and watched daytime television for hours.

The ratio of commercials to actual television programming is amazing. There must have been a lot of older people watching television at that time of day because many of the commercials were aimed at us. These commercials don’t make us look too bright or durable. There are commercials about falling and not getting up, removing brown spots from our skin, and women having leaky pipes. It seems that men’s pipes don’t leak as much. We also apparently don’t know how to invest our money and so we should put it all in gold. If that doesn’t work, we can get a reverse home mortgage just to survive. After a day of watching all that I was ready to go back to work and deny that I was getting older!

Although we can’t deny our age, and even if some of the old parts don’t work as well or look as good as they used to, we do have some reasons to embrace who we are at this older age. One of my favorite shirts is my “OLD GUYS RULE” T-shirt. Wherever I wear it I get a laugh, a chuckle, or a word of encouragement.

Most people really do understand that no matter how old we are getting, and no matter how much we may have forgotten, we still have a lifetime of acquired wisdom and understanding of how life works. It is something to embrace and something we can share with the younger generations. That is pretty much the core of the idea of elderlescence.

We are living longer and staying healthier than any previous generation. And with that time and energy we have a lot to give and a lot to do. Even AARP is getting in on the elderlescence bandwagon with their new “Life Reimagined” initiative. They too are tossing the old “retire at sixty-five and go to the beach” paradigm in favor of helping people who will live a lot longer find meaning and purpose and reimagine their lives at this stage.

Boomers and older Americans are giving retirement a major makeover: The old stereotype of the 65-year-old trotting off to a sun-filled life of leisure is quickly becoming a thing of the past. A new life stage is emerging—one that takes place between leaving a career in one field and flat-out retiring. Think of it as an “encore career.”1

Think encore, not pasture. You may think that you don’t have much wisdom to share. One perspective is that you can share with others the various mistakes and pitfalls you have encountered and the lessons you learned through them. We can help those who come after us not make the same mistakes we’ve made. That can be a career in itself!

You don’t have to be an expert on a subject to share some age-acquired wisdom. It may simply be drawing on a life lesson from your past. I remember when Kathy and I were driving out to Palm Springs to celebrate our first wedding anniversary (that’s forty years ago now). It was about 120 degrees in the desert and our old clunker car started to overheat. I pulled off to the side of the road and took a look at my steaming engine. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I thought if I loosened the radiator cap, it would relieve the steaming pressure. Well, it did! Hot pressurized steam boiled out of the radiator and burnt my left arm. Not a great way to start your anniversary weekend! Fast-forward forty years: a younger friend drove into my driveway with his car steaming and overheating. He opened the hood and reached for the radiator cap to loosen it. Looking down at my left arm and feeling the pain from forty years ago, I said, “I’m not a mechanic, and I don’t know a lot about cars, but I’m pretty sure you don’t want to touch that radiator cap.” “Why?” he asked. I said it had to do with serious pain in your arm. He didn’t believe me, so he grabbed a towel and put it over the radiator cap and loosened it just a little bit. Hot, hot steam started spewing out quickly. He retightened the cap and said, “Thanks for your advice. I think I will just let the engine cool down.”

How many situations like that have you experienced over your lifetime? The older we get the more bits of wisdom we acquire. Part of our elderlescence stage of life is passing them on. But in reality there are many more significant contributions we have to offer to those who care to listen.

Let’s think about practical places where you could share your wisdom with the younger generations. Try this exercise: write down a list of the top ten things that you are really good at and could share with others if you had the chance. Don’t be too humble; this is the time to be honest and real. Solicit the help of your spouse or good life friend. Whatever you are good at, whatever you feel you can contribute to others, you have to find your delivery system. We will get more serious about venues in the later parts of the book, specifically chapter 19, but here are a few ideas now to whet your appetite:

Many boomers want to start a new encore career after their main careers are over. According to AARP, nine million Americans ages forty-four to seventy are engaged in second careers, and thirty-one million more are interested in pursuing one. In a survey conducted by encore.org and the MetLife Foundation, 25 percent of baby boomers hope to start a business or nonprofit in the next ten years. They want to make a difference in the world while earning money.2 All this is ripe elderlescence experience.

In an article by Eric McWhinnie, this sentiment is clearly shared by the majority of boomers:

Retirement is no longer viewed as a time to simply play shuffleboard or Bingo all day. Almost eighty percent of boomers expect to work in some capacity, even after they retire. Fifty-one percent plan to work full-time, while twenty-eight say they expect to work part-time. However, many are using retirement as a chance to change careers.3

A lot of our wisdom comes from our life experience—like the radiator story. But as good as all this sounds, some of you reading this are skeptical. If there is one thing we have learned about aging people, it is that everyone is different. We know what some of you are thinking. Yes, Hans and Rick, I do have a lot of wisdom, but I don’t see anyone asking for it. They prefer to ask Google. Google is great on facts but not so sharp on wisdom. We are going to explore in later chapters the venues you can find to share your wisdom with those who need to hear it from you. But, as in all the examples above, you will need to make the conscious choice to seek a platform for your influence. Unfortunately there are not a lot of people who know what you have to offer. So as uncomfortable as it might seem, you need to go out and sell yourself and find that place of contribution.

It’s time to cash in your experience and find a platform for your new life. Marci Alboher, in her book The Encore Career Handbook, says that there is a collective feeling in our generation of “we’re not done yet.”4 So if we’re not done, let’s get geared up for that next encore act.

You probably have more to share than you think—wisdom from your positive and negative life experiences that can benefit others. Can you help those who will come after you avoid falling into those same pits? We have all acquired a great deal of life wisdom from our years of experience. There are also other ways to acquire wisdom such as reading books, obtaining an education, and learning from others. A fast-track method of acquiring wisdom can be found in a source you may not have thought of. The book of Proverbs in the Bible is filled with the power of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom that resides within its pages. I, Rick, have been reading a chapter of Proverbs every day over the last several years. Since there are thirty-one chapters, it naturally correlates with the days of each month. So if today is the sixth of the month, I will begin my day by reading Proverbs 6. As a result of being exposed to these practical proverbs on such a repetitive basis over the years, I feel like I have absorbed God’s wisdom into my heart of hearts. I am amazed at how often I can speak into people’s lives and their issues with an exact quote from God’s proverbs. I feel like I have the power of God’s wisdom with me, which does way more than just dispensing my own understanding.

I challenge you to try reading a chapter of Proverbs every day. See what it offers in the very first chapter as it outlines a great promise:

The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:

for gaining wisdom and instruction;

for understanding words of insight;

for receiving instruction in prudent behavior,

doing what is right and just and fair;

for giving prudence to those who are simple,

knowledge and discretion to the young—

let the wise listen and add to their learning,

and let the discerning get guidance—

for understanding proverbs and parables,

the sayings and riddles of the wise.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,

but fools despise wisdom and instruction. (vv. 1–7)

Elderlescence is a time of exploration. We hope you have a pioneer’s spirit and are willing to do some good old-fashioned trial and error. You might not find your sweet spot the first time around, but don’t give up. Keep looking for that place of contribution. Let’s not put ourselves out to pasture just yet. Let’s see the value of all we have learned and leverage it for good. Elderlescence is that later stage in your life when you utilize your experience and your knowledge to help bring along the next generations.