This is a continuation of my previous post where I talked about the life questions one asks in their twenties and thirties as outlined in the book “A Resilient Life” by Gordon Macdonald. One of my most facinating reads in this stage of my own life’s journey.
Macdonald’s questions for the forties are ones that I have asked myself countless times over the last three years. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke said — “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.” Rilke must have been in midlife when he wrote “Letters To A Young Poet” because I find that I have been living MY questions over these last few years. Macdonald speaks of a sabbatical and of a reinvention of self - done those too. In the end, this life stage has taught me that everything I ever needed to be happy and peacefully was just right under my nose.
“There are new questions that pop up in one’s forties. The complexities of life further accelerate, and —and this is worrisome — we bDon’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.egin to recognize that we can no longer fob off our flaws and failures as youthfulness and inexperience. We are, as they say, grown-up. We are expected to handle the bumps and bruises of life with an unshakeable courage. Panic and fear are for younger (and older?) people. But in one’s forties, the expectation is that one is solid.
Still, there are questions. As I will illustrate in another part of this book, the question arises, who was I as a child, and what powers back then influence the kind of person I am today? We would have laughed at this question in our twenties, but now it becomes a rather serious one for more than a few.
Why do some people seem to be doing better than I? Why am I often disappointed in myself and others? Why are limitations beginning to outnumber options?
I believe the forties to be dangerous, unchartered waters for a lot of us. Lots of things begin to happen for which many of us are not prepared. Bodies change. Children become more independent, even begin to leave home. Marriages have to be readjusted to face new realities. Some of us begin to enjoy financial leverage; others of us begin to assume that we will never be materially secure. Some give up the fight to achieve lifelong goals and settle into a defensive posture of living. Others miss their youth and its seeming excitement so much that they try going back ward to retrieve earlier pleasures.
Forty-somethings may ask, why do I seem to face so many uncertainties? But others may begin plotting a second life, a second career. What can I do to make a greater contribution to my generation? Or, what would it take to to pick up a whole new calling in life and do the thing I’ve always wanted to do? If one listens carefully, he might hear the word trapped used in the questions that now arise.
A few wise forty-somethings may seek a ninety-day sabbatical . They will strip their lives down to bare metal and evaluate their life-journeys to this point. They’ll take a hard look at their spiritual journeys, their personal relationships, their convictions about money and possesions, how they contribute their energies and resources. And when the assesment is over, they will have plotted a whole new course for the secons half of life. A very exciting adventure for brave people.
Fifty-somethings would prefer not to think about it, but the fact is that they have moved across life’s middle. Now one finds himself or herself wondering how many years there are left. The news of friends dying, marriages dissolving, and people moving to places of retirement increases. It can be a time for sober thinking, John Dean of Watergate fame wrote: “My view of my life has been backward, not forward… and I have been dwelling on the trivial, on the insignificant too much. Time is running out and I must come to terms with my life. The days for fantasizing great achievements are gone. Ambitions and goals must be realistic if I want to avoid great disappointment at the end.”
So those in the fifties may ask, why is time moving so fast? Because it is moving so fast. It seems as if yesterday was Christmas, and tomorrow is Christmas. Go figure! We look at contemporaries and they suddenly look very old to us. Surely we have not aged that much!
Why is my body becoming unreliable? How do I deal with my failures and my successes? How can my spouse and I reinvigorate our relationship now that the children are gone? For those who haven’t yet reached these questions, may I say, “Get ready!” Each will come at you, often without warning. It is worth getting a headstart on them.
Who are these young people who want to replace me? It is a frightening moment when one discovers that younger people may know more than I, may be willing to work longer and harder than I am willing to work, and may be impatient for me to move over and give them the same chance to prove themselves that I once demanded.
What do I do with my doubts and fears? Will we have enough money for retirement years if there are health problems and economic downturns? These are questions loom in our fifties.”
If you are 40something, please hop over to my Multiply site and take my poll.
In the Philippines, the book is available at OMF Publishers on Pioneer Street in Mandaluyong or you can request Powerbooks to place an order for you.
