I just finished reading Prime Time, Jane Fonda’s newest book.
While I’m not a big fan of Fonda, I think she has some interesting observations about how retirement-age adults, “baby boomers”, should prepare for their lives after their careers are over.
In her book, Fonda shares two viewpoints of a person’s life.
The first is a biological aspect which she illustrates as an arc, (think of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis) with life beginning at the bottom and progressing to the top of the curve which represents a person’s peak in life. This is the optimum period of health, productivity, intellectual prowess and wisdom. It happens in our mid to late forties.
Then the curve progressively declines toward the end of life, implying a gradual reduction of all that is positive and good in life. In my opinion, it’s a rather bleak view of life on the down-side of 50.
But there’s another viewpoint. This one is illustrated by a stairway that steadily ascends. And while there may be some difficult steps and some level landings as we go forward, it shows life as a continuous upward path.
To me this implies that, as life progresses, there may be some stops along the way and some periods of little progress. But it all leads to another step in the continuum. And the end of life is at a higher level than anything that has gone before.
To me, this is a happier, more fulfilling attitude to take toward life.
What do you think?
*** Bill Ronay is President of Third Wind, a retirement resource network that provides personalized, comprehensive information, guidance and resources to help people make a successful transition into retirement. Third Wind uses a holistic approach to help adults facing retirement discover new opportunities and purpose as they make the transition into the third phase of life; their Third Wind.
You can contact Bill at 502 895-3693 or go to mythirdwind.com for more information.
