Creating Our Future

Imagine this: You’ve made it successfully into the second half of life!

You’ve gotten to a point in your life where your basic (and not-so-basic) needs are met. You have a place to live, food on the table, clothes to wear, reliable transportation. You can choose to do whatever work you want, or none at all. Basically, you are free to create your own future.

So what’s next?

The situation described above is, in essence, one option that some fortunate people in the second half of life are now facing. And the question is the one many are asking themselves.

If we have real freedom to choose, then what will we choose to do with the rest of our lives?

As a life coach, Richard hears, on an almost daily basis, from new elders who find themselves in the position of having real choices for the future. Many of those who contact him are people who are considering retirement or who have just retired and are now wondering what to do with their lives. Some want to travel; others to study something they’ve always wanted to; others desire nothing more than to relax; but a common theme that also emerges is a desire to make a difference, somehow, to stay engaged with the world in some way.

Often, when he first hears from people like this, Richard advises them to take a moratorium—about two years—before deciding how to spend the rest of their lives. He hands out his business card and says to get back in touch with him in about 24 months, after the person has traveled, relaxed, and explored how it feels to wake up to a blank calendar and to-do list.

Not surprisingly, it usually is just about two years when Richard hears from them again. And typically, those he hears from tell him that they’ve enjoyed their freedom and have gotten the full-time recreation or exploration bug out of their system for now.

After recreation, these people are now ready for re-creation. They’ve had fun and are now hungry for meaning. It’s at this point that Richard feels he can help provide some coaching direction.

And it’s at this point that those who come to him are ready to do the generative work of connecting, in more meaningful ways, to the world-at-large.

In thinking about how to do that, we turn again to Africa.

One of the best things about our walking safari in Tanzania is the element of the unexpected. It’s taken all of us a few days to get there— that is, here, back to the rhythm of allowing ourselves to be surprised by whatever reveals itself. But now, about a week into our trip, we’re all more or less willing to take things as they come, even if what’s coming isn’t what we expected. And as a result, we routinely enjoy experiences far richer and more authentic than any we could have planned for or predicted.

Today, for instance, our intention has been to walk from our campsite in the Nou Forest to an Iraqw—the local people, agriculturalists, who live by farming and the tending of goats and chickens—village about five miles away. There, our Land Rovers will meet us and whisk us off to our next campsite some five hours distant. The schedule, though somewhat flexible, is pretty packed; it’s not like we don’t have time, but it would be fair to say we don’t have time to waste.

But about an hour into our walk, an opportunity presents itself that is far too good to pass up. We come upon a collection of eight Iraqw elders, sitting under a tree in a field a quarter mile from the road upon which we are walking. Daudi talks to them for a bit, having a discussion with the senior member of the group, a bald-headed graybeard with piercing black eyes. He is one of the chief elders for this village. He and his fellow elders are about to hold an informal council meeting just at this moment. Daudi asks if we can sit with them for a while until the meeting gets going. The man, who is referred to as Kuhamusmo, which means something like “elder representative,” says we are welcome to join in, but just for a while. When the other members of the council arrive and the council gets down to business, we will be asked to depart.

And so, the rhythm of the day changes from action to reflection; instead of moving forward, we stop and sit down in the field with the assembled group of Iraqw men. There are eight of them: Kuhamusmo, who is 72 years old, five others who are around his age but somewhat younger, and then a couple of youths who have been invited to participate for two reasons: first, to witness how the elder councils operate and second, to run errands should the elders need someone or something fetched for them.

The pace of the council is very different than most of the meetings most of us have been to. In the first place, it’s not as if there is an exact starting time or a precise list of participants. People show up as and when needed. No one consults a watch to get the meeting going. Rather, the conversation has a general flow that seems to be building as we sit there, talking quietly among ourselves.

At length, Kuhamusmo stands and addresses our group. Daudi translates his kind words of greeting. The elder welcomes us to his village and asks what brings us to this part of the world. Daudi conveys to him our purpose: We have come, as older members of our industrialized communities, to learn from elders in more traditional societies. We hope to draw upon the wisdom of experience from African tribal leaders to bring back new (and old) ideas for creating meaningful societal roles for men and women in the later years of their lives. And in doing so, we aspire to help manifest better connections between the young and the old in our parts of the world.

Kuhamusmo takes this all in and then conveys his appreciation for what we are doing. “What you are doing is vital,” he says through our interpreter. “We, too, in our village strive to do the very thing you have come here to investigate. We, too, struggle to find ways to include our young people in the lives of our village and to train them for leadership roles of their own. So, we understand what you are seeking and commend you for your effort.”

He says that in the interest of time, we can ask him two questions. So first, we ask him to describe how the meeting that is about to take place works and how people are chosen to be members of the group that is assembled.

Kuhamusmo explains that what is about to happen is a typical elder council meeting. Elders get together as needed to discuss issues that affect the village—land and water rights, planting and harvest decisions, agreements with other villages—and to settle disputes among village members. Taking part in decision making as an elder involves having the requisite experience and, quite simply, in showing up to participate. Today’s meeting, for example, will begin when everyone who is involved in the outcome of the decision arrives.

The council is made up in his village of all men, but women are consulted when decisions will affect the entire village. In addition, women have their own leadership council to decide on issues that affect only the women in the community.

We ask Kuhamusmo to tell us about challenges his people face in maintaining a meaningful role for community elders and in preparing young people for their own roles in the ongoing life of the village. He surprises us by responding that, in his world, it is not so different than in our own. His people, too, face the difficulty of seeing that young people will carry on traditions and practices that have long defined the Iraqw. Outside influences, easy money, and the prospects of individual rather than collective success all tempt Iraqw youth away from their time-honored roles and responsibilities. Kuhamusmo admits that the elders in his community consistently bemoan the attitudes and behaviors of young men and women who are drawn away from what is traditionally expected of them.

This refrain is familiar, and we nod our heads sympathetically and talk among ourselves about this surprising similarity between our world and this one.

Kuhamusmo then turns the tables on us and asks us a question that leaves us all pretty much speechless. “Your people,” he says, “have made great advancements in the world of technology and accomplishment. I see airplanes flying overhead that come from your countries many thousands of miles away. I see the cars your people make and the machinery you build, all of which is very advanced. And so I ask you: How could you let it get away from you? How is it that a people who are so technologically advanced, who have figured out so many complex things, have not figured out how to create a meaningful role for older people like yourselves and ensure that younger people respect and carry on the important traditions you value the most?”

We’re stumped. We don’t, at that point, have an answer. We look around at each other and shrug our shoulders. We laugh nervously.

Kuhamusmo understands our response without translation. He smiles rather sweetly, apparently commiserating with us. Eventually, he too shrugs, as if to say “What can you do?” Quite frankly, we don’t know. If, in spite of our technological prowess, we have let the traditional role for older people in society get away from us, then what are we to do, individually, and as a society? That question lingers with us and inspires many more conversations and questions on our trip and afterward.

In retrospect, some answers have emerged. To begin with, it seems critical that we create space for elders in our society to come together and discuss issues that affect us all. We’d like, by the force of our combined characters, to have greater influence in the world of which we are a part. And we’d like to extend that influence to include not just people like us, but younger folks who are looking for (or even not looking for) direction and guidance for themselves.

The challenge of establishing meaningful and relevant ties to youth seems especially critical. And yet, we recall our own younger days: While some of us may have occasionally trusted someone over 30, it was rare that we were ever taken with what some old person had to say. Our attitudes were well articulated in a passage from Thoreau:

 

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were.

 

Nevertheless, there is a powerful need, both on the part of older folks and younger people for connections to each other. It requires a certain amount of boldness, confidence, and willingness to take risks on the part of those of us with the experience to take the first step. There is a need here just waiting to be met. And it is in identifying such needs and then finding ways to fill them, that something to live for in life is found.