Purpose

I’m a professor of experience-based learning and career education at a large public university. AKA professional development. Most of my students have been shepherded through the K-12 experience.

Socrates, Pablo Picasso, William Shakespeare, and author David Viscott have all had virtually the same deep quote attributed to them: “The purpose of your life is to find your gift. The meaning of life is to give it away” or “The meaning of your life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”

"You’re a better father than I ever was….” Those were the words of my late father two weeks before he died of cancer many years ago.

This is the first sign we saw on Thursday when we arrived at our rustic Rocky Mountain retreat.

In the spring, I wrote about the "hermit-age," and this topic continues to be resonant for me, maybe because MEA might buy a former Catholic retreat center and chapel next to a Carmelite monastery in Santa Fe. Or perhaps because I recently visited Father Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation hermitage south of Albuquerque.

The Encore Physicians program matches retired doctors who want to continue practicing medicine part-time with community health centers in the San Francisco Bay Area. These "modern elders" are paid for providing direct patient care and mentoring less experienced clinicians for a few days per week over the course of a year.

Chip’s Note: Paul Hawken was my hero-from-afar when I started Joie de Vivre Hospitality in 1987, the year that his book “Growing a Business” was published (which was made into a PBS series). He was the mentor I never met till a couple decades later.

Loving my second wave career stage, I’m reflecting upon how I got here.

Definition: "the societal worship of success in a manner that is damaging to the well-being and dignity of many citizens; most modern elders wake up to the fact that neither consumerism nor successism will buy them happiness and it’s around midlife that they choose to rewrite their 'success script.'"

I once met a man on the Metro North train from Connecticut to New York who said he’s been heading to the same job on the same train for 35 years. At the time, I was young and that seemed mighty impressive.