With credit to David Corbett who inspired me with a run-on sentence in his book “Portfolio Life,” here’s what the word “retire” conjures up for me. Tomorrow, I’ll repeat this exercise with the word “regenerate.”

One of our MEA alums, Liz Gebhardt, is in a class at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, which was started by MEA guest faculty member Dacher Keltner. Dacher describes an experiment he and his colleagues did:

How to Die Well Death is what makes life worth living. It’s true. Death gives life a deadline. It gives a timeframe to do what truly matters in life.

Inscribed over the University of Colorado Library entrance is this quote by Dr. George Norlin, former president of the University. It’s an etched-in-stone reminder that the power of cross-generational connection and collaboration could genuinely improve the world.

Jane Goodall went to Tanzania to study chimps the year I was born, 1960. During her six decades of championing chimps, she showed the world how much we have in common with these beautiful primates. Her compassion toward wildlife and nature has led her to be considered one of the world's leading futurists.

One difference between being 25 and 50 is that the older you are, the more life you've lived and the more patterns you've witnessed. Teasing out our life narrative from the disparate experiences we've encountered helps create some meaning in our lives. If we're listening and attentive, hopefully, that life wisdom will serve us in the future.

"Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely."

I recently brought together seventy family members and close friends for a Celebration of Life to remember my mom. We honored her with a decadent buffet, fun activities, a musical performance by Ron Bohmer and Sandra Joseph (dear friends and former stars of Phantom of the Opera), and many heart opening and funny tributes.

"In old traditions, those who acted as elders were considered to have one foot in daily life and the other foot in the otherworld. Elders acted as a bridge between the visible world and the unseen realms of spirit and soul. A person in touch with the otherworld stands out because something normally invisible can be seen through them…"

“We spend the first half of our lives defining ourselves by the sentences: I am what I do…I am what others say about me…or I am what I have." - Henri Nouwen