My friend Kevin Henderson died of cancer last week in Seattle. He was only 70 years old. There was a time 70 was ancient. Not any more. In a world growing older, an active 90 seems increasingly normal and a death at 70 seems unspeakably premature. By 2050, 29.7% of our population is projected to be 85 and older. Choosing…
I really liked the article Next Avenue’s Rich Eisenberg recently wrote about finding purpose and meaning from your work. (Purpose is very outcome oriented and public; meaning is more process oriented, and can be very private.) Apparently, these are very Boomer kinds of concepts, and they’re having a big impact in organizations, where a new generation of leaders understands how…
One of the best things Boomer parents can do for their 20-something children—other than letting them live at home until they’re established enough to launch—is to encourage them to think long and hard about the kind of life they want when they’re 50. This might be a challenge for young adults whose concept of the future is measured in weeks…
I keep thinking about a recent article in the New York Times about the problems seniors are having finding (or keeping) affordable housing. The problem is especially acute for those on fixed incomes in cities like New York, San Francisco and Boston, where housing costs are stratospheric. Even people who’ve held professional jobs for their entire careers, who have saved…
Almost every day I read an article bemoaning the fact that kids today prefer video games and texting over in-person contact with friends and family members. I’ve observed this in my grandchildren and made a few bemoaning noises of my own. Then I considered a close relative (over 50; shall remain nameless here in deference to my extended health) and…
One of the many benefits of facebook is that your friends are a particularly good source of great reads. The affinities you have with the people in your circle—shared beliefs, experiences, family, workplaces, neighborhoods, whatever–is part of what makes them such good curators. So I’m happy to say that a friend’s post led me to a charming essay by the…
Central to the myth of the American Dream is this idea: Hard work will bring you success. Hard work could build railroads, land men on the moon and bring them back, discover the cure for everything from polio to cancer, and turn brilliant but underfunded entrepreneurs into instant millionaires. But what about people who aren’t successful? They’re told it’s their…
“This fake idea that 40 is the new 30, or 50 is the new 40, has come up to bite us on the behind,” author and comedienne Annabelle Gurwitch told writer Judith Newman, who profiled her in a recent New York Times book review of I See You Made An Effort: Compliments, Indignities, and Survival Stories from the Edge of…
Singer-songwriter Amanda Carr has a brilliant technique for managing life’s ups and downs: She redirects her energy towards positivity, even when faced with something tragic. Haunted by the Boston Marathon bombing, for example, she channeled her grief not by composing a requiem, but by penning a rousing, hopeful song, Boston Anthem. Amanda and I were both on Jordan Rich’s radio…
Last fall, social scientists at the University of Southern California and the RAND Corp. published a study that looked into the factors that influence older people to retire. Not surprisingly, they found that economic drivers were better predictors of who stayed employed in their 60s than personality characteristics. The simple fact is that most people—whether outgoing, introverted, confident or worriers,…
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