Perhaps you’ve heard the term Encore Career, referring to what you do after you retire from your “real work”. Well, it doesn’t resonate with me. I don’t like the assumption that the big symphony has been played and now you get to do a little encore as icing on the cake. Nor do I like the image that your three act play has been performed and people would like to squeeze the toothpaste tube and get “just a little more” from you.
What If?
What if, in fact, your “real work” is what you do after
you’ve put bread on the table and raised a family? What if there’s something more inside you that has been
brewing for a long time and has only now reached fruition and is ready to be
expressed and harvested?
Maybe you’re familiar with the images of Maiden/Youth,
Mother/Parent, and Crone/Senior Citizen. First you’re young and beautiful so
you can attract a mate, then you’re middle aged and caring for others, and
finally you’re an old hag - a rag hung out to dry. That’s one version of the
three-act play.
What if life is not a three-act play with maybe a little bit
added on for good measure? What if there’s something
more than three acts or three stages of life? What if there are four or
five authentic stages of life that, with good health, you are blessed to live?
I once read an article in which the author claimed that creative aging involves continuing to take risks, even life-threatening risks, such as one took as an adolescent. Another characteristic is regular exercise – a health key at every stage of life. Another is continuous learning, opening your mind to fresh material so you don’t become stale and stink like aged cheese.
For a generation that came to adulthood during the depression, a generation that endured two world wars and for whom life expectancy was perhaps 60 or 70 years, retiring and having a few years of pleasure-seeking may have made a measure of sense. But for baby boomers and later, that scenario is a death knell to generative living.
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| LiDona Wagner July 2013 |
For a generation that came to adulthood during the depression, a generation that endured two world wars and for whom life expectancy was perhaps 60 or 70 years, retiring and having a few years of pleasure-seeking may have made a measure of sense. But for baby boomers and later, that scenario is a death knell to generative living.
What if scientists writing in the May issue of National Geographic are correct and some
babies born today will live to be 120 years old? Will they be young for 40
years, middle-aged for 40 years, and senior citizens for 40 years? Somehow I
don’t think so. There are ten-year cycles, fifteen-year projects, and even
thirty-year adventures but really, forty-year cycles? What if what we have to
teach the coming generation is the pattern of continuous regeneration? What if
our legacy to the 120-year-generation is wisdom about the process of ending
cycles and making fresh starts?
Embracing the Fullness of Being You
I choose to believe there is something more. I choose to regard life as a series of ventures, each with a beginning, middle, and end. When one venture is completed, a door opens on the beginning of a new one. This serial metamorphosis goes on for as long as you breathe and feel. That is, if you don’t lose your nerve and become frozen in old outdated roles.
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| LiDona Wagner July 2013 |
The series will be built around seven principles of creativity:
Vision, Gratitude, Decisiveness, Acceptance, Awareness, Beginner’s Mind, and Metamorphosis.
We will have fun! Participants, even those with no previous art experience, will
take home a product from each workshop. There will be personal and shared
reflection. There will be assigned readings and homework, both serious and
playful.
Something More will
be a pilgrimage to seven sacred sites within, places of generativity, sources
of creative living. On such a
journey persons may come and go, but must commit to a minimum of two sessions.
Price will vary depending upon the length of commitment. Let me know what you think of Something More.
