Chip Conley

On our final day of our 7-day MEA workshops, we offer two journaling exercises, one of them called “The Box of Unlived Life.” This exercise may be relevant to those of you who are moving into the last act of your play but feel somehow incomplete. Here’s how it goes:

Richard Rohr is an unconventional modern Christian mystic who has been influenced by Buddhism and Hinduism, Gandhi, Carl Jung, Spiral Dynamics, and Integral Theory. He’s written and spoken about the ancient personality typing tool, the Enneagram, and he has a following that may be more full of non-Christians than Christians.

Re·tire·ment /rəˈtī(ə)rmənt/ “withdrawal from one’s position or occupation or from active working life; to be in seclusion”

“When you are younger, you get blamed for crimes you never committed, and, when you’re older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.” I.F. Stone

A couple of years ago, I wrote a LinkedIn article on “The Advice I Wish I’d Been Given at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50.” Having just turned 60, and being an Abraham Maslow devotee, I wanted to organize my thinking on this subject around the hierarchy of needs for each decade of our lives.

"The developmental demands of this newly awakening self are enormous, but they are mostly overlooked in our culture. While the awakening of early adulthood, which are mostly about identity, are culturally supported with rituals and celebrations - weddings, graduations, ordinations, baptisms - the more subtle spiritual awakenings of the middle years are culturally invisible." Stephen Cope

Barbara Ehrenreich is a super-sober author. Her bestselling books include “Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream,” “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” “Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class,” and “The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed.”

You’ve probably read this or heard it from some sage on stage. It’s often a motivational speaker trying to convince you that you’ll be happier, better looking or more successful if you junk the losers in your life. Yes, there’s some research that supports this premise, but I’d like to expand this thinking beyond the surface-level point of happiness, beauty, and wealth. Let’s reframe the question:

David Whyte is one of my favorite poet/philosophers. In this practical ruminating essay, he outlines 10 questions that have no right to go away including “Do I know how to have a real conversation?” and “Am I too inflexible in my relationship to time?” But, my favorite is his question that defines today’s post and his juicy gems below.

I’m not sure if it’s the pandemic times we live in or the age that I’m inhabiting, but I’ve noticed each morning I’m consulting the Obituary section of the paper before the Sports page. Victor Hugo suggested, “40 is the old age of youth, and 50 is the young of old age.” So, what the heck is 60?