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There's something about the holiday time of year - Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, New Years - that prompts so many of us to look back on the year that's ending and make plans and resolutions for our lives in the coming new year. It's the season when we seek personal insight, inspiration, inner peace and continuing hope; a time of the year that invites us to re-examine our values and assess what really matters at this particular time of our lives. If you're in the time of your life referred to as 'mid-life', or if you've recently entered into the category labeled 'senior citizen' I hope you might consider the following. Somewhere during the mid-life years or those beyond, some of us have gotten a vague awareness that something besides our waistlines and hair color have changed. It's a shift in our perspective on life, a vague feeling that we're not exactly who we used to be. As my friend Mark Gerzon wrote in his book Listening to Midlife, "In the second half of life, our old compasses no longer work. The magnetic fields alter. The new compass that we need cannot be held in our hand, only in our heart. We read it not with our mind alone, but with our soul. Now we yearn for wholeness." We all wish to find contentment in a stress filled world. We hoped the life choices we made would take us there. We had our ambitions, goals, and dreams. Now, for so many of us, priorities are subtly shifting. A colleague of mine called the other day to tell me she's leaving the best job she ever had, to go back to school and take up a new interest. "Been there, done that as the kids would say", she told me. "Things look different from age 55, there's something else I want to do now with my life, I have something to give back!" You too may want to use this holiday season to re-assess current priorities, to examine how you're spending your time, where you're putting your energy, and what really matters at this particular time of your life. There's a gift of expanded perspective that reflection and introspection can unwrap. What's out there? New possibilities, opportunities to learn, creative adventures, charity and clarity, compassion, caring, and love. As mid-life and the years beyond present new challenges and unanticipated changes, we strive to live each day with gratitude and grace, to know the simplicity and honesty that make life worth living, and in so doing, affirm a new context for our lives that is truly meaningful. May your holiday season be blessed with new choices and abundant satisfactions. |