by Julia Moulden – Six Billion Reasons to Get Out of Bed Each Day
Moulden presents a new group of role models — ordinary men and women who have reinvented what they do for a living. They’re people who want their work to reflect their values, and help them make a difference in the world. She is an author, speaker, and columnist. Her widely read Huffington Post column appears Saturdays at the top of the LIVING page. Her new book, RIPE: Rich, Rewarding Work After 50, will be published in January 2011.
“Use it or lose it.”
We’ve heard that advice about our physical selves often enough that we’ve taken it to heart, and incorporate some kind of exercise in our daily lives. But now doctors are telling us that the same holds true for the brain: that if we want to be able to think, our minds need to stay active, too.
Researchers consistently find that retired people do less well on cognitive tests than those who continue to work. For instance, here’s a recent piece from The New York Times about a study done at Stanford University’s Center for Longevity.
It’s just another reason to retire retirement. To see the years after 50 as a new phase of our working lives. Which is the subject of my next book, RIPE.
Let me back up a step.
Society’s prevailing view seems to be that beyond a certain age men and women suddenly become uninteresting, unattractive, and basically useless. This perception is so widely held that most people don’t give it a second thought. Consider how often we hear jokes about “senior moments,” how seldom we see people over 50 in advertisements for anything other than retirement planning, or how frequently media reports on the aging population are punctuated by expressions such as “agequake” and “pension bomb.”
When I started noticing this disturbing litany of messages, I was (in addition to being offended) curious. They certainly weren’t describing me. At 53, I was enjoying a successful career. In fact, I felt as if I were only now really hitting my stride. I had accumulated a lifetime’s worth of knowledge, skills, and resources and would describe myself as being at the top of my game. Was I the only one feeling this way?
I did what I’ve always done when confronted by a problem or puzzle: I raised my antennae. I started passing my daily dose of media through a filter. Could I find examples of men and women who, like me, were continuing to work at midlife – or later? People who had broken away from this depressing groupthink?
I soon found lots of newsmakers who were on my wavelength. In just one week, I collected items on boomers such as Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep, and Al Franken; each of them could have chosen to retire but all were still hard at work. In the same week, golfer Tom Watson, 59, nearly won the British Open (Tiger Woods did by a mere 15 strokes). I also started to notice people older than me who were still in the game. Men and women in their sixties (Joseph Biden, Helen Mirren), seventies (Jane Goodall, Warren Buffett), eighties (Christopher Plummer, Betty White), and nineties (I.M. Pei, Irving Penn).
Clearly, I wasn’t alone. Encouraged, I began to talk to people in my circle – friends and family, clients and colleagues, even my hairdresser. It was soon abundantly clear that boomers were asking themselves a single question, “What’s next?” And that the answer for most of us would be “work.”
I’ll be blogging about a powerful shift that’s just beginning – and sharing stories about people like us who are ripening. Plus, look for thoughts on how this emerging trend affects people of all ages – older and younger than baby boomers like me!
For more information on Julia Moulden, please contact Speakers’ Spotlight.
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