I’ve been crying a lot the past week. I lost a mentor two decades older than me. My last episode of Mad Men, much of which takes place at the Esalen Institute - a place where I have a long history with my mentor - had me bawling my eyes out. I watched a mediocre film “50/50” with Joseph Gordon-Levitt who is dealing with a cancer diagnosis. I felt sick to my stomach while trying to be entertained by the big-C.

After pursuing a career in fashion design in my 20s and 30s, I had the good fortune to be able to return to study psychology and aging at university. Little did I know that I would soon stumble across the work of Becca Levy, a renowned Yale Professor and author of Breaking the Age Code (becca-levy.com/the-book/). I had the great honor of being mentored by Becca for part of my PhD project, visiting with her at Yale in 2012.

Two weeks before my father died, he called my mother over to him and asked her to bring a pen and paper. She later described his state at that time as being somewhere between this world and the next.

Back in 2020, when MEA's campus remained shut for over six months, and I found myself blessed with time on my hands, I began to consume alcohol every night. While I seldom indulged in excess in a single night, I can admit that for about a year, I was engaged in binge drinking.

A deeply religious friend used to tell me, "When the day of reckoning arrives, we'll have to face some uncomfortable truths." I had never associated this idea with midlife, a life stage Brené Brown says we need to “unravel.” (https://bit.ly/3roPjO8)

As I arrived at the hermitage on the hill overlooking 7,500 acres of Umbrian wilderness (a UNESCO nature reserve), Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack to “The Mission” was wafting to the heavens as I entered Eremito (www.eremito.com). Perfectly choreographed, the staff escorted me to the steam room and stone hot tub (full of the sounds of Gregorian chanting) to cleanse myself from my earthly sins that accompanied me from Venice. And, soon after that - I was lying on the ground in the cellar with six other guests and three staff, vibrating in a Tibetan bell sound healing session.

While in Europe, I eavesdropped on conversations about Joe Biden. In the course of an hour, I heard an Aussie say that Biden has been a successful President "in spite of" his age and a German saying he was successful "because of" his age.

Age 50 may not just be midlife; it also might be mid-career. In a world with a President in his 80s, you might have as many years of work ahead of you—at 50—as you do behind you. Here are 10 tips to navigate the world of work in the last half of your career:

On July 28th, in the pitch dark Amazon jungle I married myself.

The Atlantic’s recent article, The New Old Age (https://bit.ly/48fxLVd), marks a milestone for CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org), an indication of the uptake of ideas and language we’d been working to develop, implement and disseminate for more than a decade.