Chip Conley

You know that feeling when someone offers you a sentence that takes your breath away? I vividly recall the moment when my friend Ben called me a “social alchemist,” an expert mixologist of people. It stopped me cold in my tracks, offering me a whole new perspective on one of my unique gifts.

MIT’s AgeLab’s Joe Coughlin wrote this interesting Forbes article about the idea that men tend to see retirement as the final chapter while women see it as a fresh start (this post will focus exclusively on heterosexual relationships since that was the focus of MIT’s study).

There’s a well-known fishing term called “catch and release.” You catch the fish and then release it back into the water, allowing it to live another day. The essence of fishing lies not in killing but in the act of catching. Some people apply the “catch and release” philosophy to their dating life, prioritizing the thrill of catching a hot date over committing to a long-term relationship.

At 26, the world was my oyster. To be explored with bluster and boister.

A friend of mine recently called me this term. She said that religion and spirituality are just a means of communication with the divine, and there are multiple languages for doing that. She told me that a “spiritual pluralist” believes that all of these languages are perfectly acceptable but that the commonality amongst all of them is “love.” Sounds a little like our MEA Baja shaman Saul, right?

First off, we’re proud that the Wall Street Journal featured MEA yesterday as the lead educational option for people who are exploring midlife pathways.

Rudyard Kipling's poem “If” is one of my favorites. I swoon when I arrive at the line, "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same."

I received the following email from an MEA alum the other day, and I asked him if I could share it with you.

“Write a letter to a child as if you knew you were going to die soon, passing along what you most wish for them to know. What is your deepest wisdom, your highest truth? The things that delight you, in which you’d like the child also to take delight? Secrets you are ready to reveal or heroes who have inspired you? Distill the essence of your legacy.” - Mirabai Starr, “Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics”

For centuries, many East Asian countries had a unique way of counting age, differing from the rest of the world. This practice originated from an ancient culture that believed the time spent in the womb should be included in one's age.