Rewiring and Rebalancing
From Midjourney
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Rewiring for a new future
Welcome back. To me. And to you.
It was a good break from writing this newsletter. As you can imagine, it can be taxing to try to come up with ideas every week, let alone find the time to articulate them in a way that is effective and efficient.
I used the new space in my schedule to partly do less but also to write more. I am trying to find my own voice in a way that can be helpful to this world of ours that seems so hopelessly stuck between a rock and a hard place. Hopefully, it will result in a book that, at best, can help us all understand that the future is actually a lot brighter than it seems. I know, many days that is certainly hard to believe.
This means that I will probably tweak my schedule for this newsletter. I will, for now, try to stick to weekly Sunday posts like before, but I will probably write shorter ones and sometimes perhaps just with a few links to content I find worth sharing. I might also "test" some bigger ideas and ask for your input. So, stay tuned.
Today, I want to turn to the fact that this human is soon turning 60. I know, it's just a number. And to some, a really low number, and to others a really high number. It just depends on your perspective, right?
Regardless, every milestone is an opportunity to reflect and adjust. This one is no different, even though it looms larger. The way I am approaching life right now is with a mindset of "rewiring" my priorities. Not retiring from them.
Given the advances in healthcare, life expectancy has gone up, and "retirement" age has a different meaning. We are getting older faster and staying younger longer.
Some people look forward to the end of the "work-life". We see commercials with people celebrating their financial savings and it's all about beaches, skiing, smiling, and wine (and a lot of drug-enabled lust!). There is nothing wrong with that notion. But it's not for me. And I suspect it's a bit of a false dream. A dream that for many turns into nightmares.
You see, I believe purpose is paramount. We all want to feel relevant. We all need problems to solve and feel that our days are worth something. Not just being. Certainly, as we get older (yes, I know I need to work on that) our tempo and perhaps the length of to-do lists and commitments should be reduced. More quality than quantity. Which, of course, isn't a bad idea for just about all people. My friend, Steve, always reminds me of QTR, quality time remaining. It's a good mantra.
But what is quality? Does it change over the years?
I believe some of the confusion and angst in this world can be traced to the fact that our populations are getting older and are losing their place in the world. They feel that what took them here won't necessarily take them there. Too many (politicians, this one is for you!) are hanging on for dear life to the only "job" they ever had. And they are overstaying their welcome.
Here is the main problem. We are again served a binary choice. We can work or we can retire. We can stay or we can go. But aren’t there more than two options?
Yes. There are! That's why I am thinking about my journey as one of rewiring and rebalancing. I am trying to create new room for new ways of contributing. I am putting myself on notice. By allowing others to gradually and subsequently take over and improve on what I have built, I can take what I have learned and contribute in other ways. Some are yet to be discovered. And that alone makes the process exciting—the mystery of diving into the unknown.
Simply extrapolating my past into the future feels incomplete to me. I want to experience the joy and exhilarating feeling of discovery and delight. Those feelings cannot be monopolized by youth alone. We all have the capability to renew ourselves. Yes, it gets harder—mathematically and spiritually—the older we get, but it is indeed possible. Change is the only constant.
It is encouraging that there are several programs popping up where universities are offering courses to people willing to make a transition to another phase in life. Harvard, Stanford, Notre Dame, and now the University of Chicago, amongst others, are offering cohorts of mid-life people curious and willing to explore what they should do next. Also, Chip Conley has started the Modern Elder Academy (MEA) and is committed to building a community of committed and inspired midlifers. You can subscribe to Chip's wonderful newsletter here.
David Brooks recently wrote an incredible piece about these programs in The Atlantic. In there, he says:
Modern life is oriented around the meritocracy, which implies certain values—that life is best seen as a climb toward the top, that achievement is the essence of a good life, that successful people are to be admired more than less successful people. But this overreliance on our work identities is unhinging us.
But how on earth did we end up with a society in which 65-year-olds have to take courses to figure out who they are, what they really want, and what they should do next? How did we wind up with a culture in which people’s veins pop out in their neck when they are forced to confront their inner lives?
The answer is that we live in a culture that has become wildly imbalanced, like a body builder who has pumped his right side up to excessive proportion while allowing his left side to shrivel away. To put it another way, a well-formed life is governed by two different logics.
The first is the straightforward, utilitarian logic that guides us through our careers: Input leads to output; effort leads to reward; pursue self-interest; respond to incentives; think strategically; climb the ladder; impress the world. This is the logic that business schools teach you.
But there is a second and deeper logic to life, gift logic, which guides us as we form important relationships, serve those around us, and cultivate our full humanity. This is a logic of contribution, not acquisition; surrender, not domination. It’s a moral logic, not an instrumental one, and it’s full of paradox: You have to give to receive. You have to lose yourself to find yourself. You have to surrender to something outside yourself to gain strength within yourself.
If career logic helps you conquer the world, gift logic helps you serve it. If career logic focuses on “how” questions—how to climb the career ladder, how to get things done efficiently—gift logic focuses on “why” questions, such as why are we here, and what good should we ultimately serve? If career logic is about building up the ego, gift logic is about relinquishing it and putting others first.
A well-lived life, at any stage, is lived within the tension between these two logics. The problem is that we have managed to build a world in which utilitarian logic massively eclipses moral logic. The brutal meritocracy has become such an all-embracing cosmos, many of us have trouble thinking outside of it. From an early age, the pressure is always on to win gold stars, to advance, optimize, impress.
I hope that resonated with you. I certainly did with me. So, it’s the act of rebalancing my priorities and rewiring and renewing my commitments that I am intently focused on right now. Not only for myself, but also for the teams I am part of leading. We live in an ever-changing and rapidly reshaping world. We need new narratives, new attitudes, and certainly new leaders that can help us gain the confidence and conviction necessary to resist the fear-based, identity-ridden, and self-obsessed politics that saturate the world around us. It truly is both depressing and exhausting and we can do better than this.
And it starts with us!
A few more links to great stuff from the past few weeks, as well as some other sources of inspiration on the topic of renewal entering the "encore" years!
Jane Fonda gave a great TEDx talk in 2011 on “Life's Third Act”
Of course, David Brook's superb book, "The Second Mountain," is a must-read
Brian Frazer wrote a great piece earlier this summer about his father and the process of renewal
Yes, I know. A lot of Brooks today, but I find his voice is so powerful around topics of self-reflection. He wrote another Atlantic article on why we are so mean to ourselves. Moral formation needs attention!
I thought Ross Douthat's piece on why Barbie needs Ken was a thoughtful installment in our ever-continuing effort to understand gender roles.
I will save some for future weeks.
Good luck with your own rewiring!
