You can’t have the noun if you don’t do the verb. In modern times, purpose has almost become a possession. We’ve all heard people say, “I can’t find my purpose,” as if it’s a handbag they left in the bathroom of a roadside gas station. We feel a bit naked if we don’t have a purpose, as if we’re the only ones without the “big P.”

In 2018, I received a text message from a trusted friend that went something like, “Would you be interested in attending an academy for midlifers…in Baja?”

After growing up watching both of my parents get pushed out of their corporate jobs at 50, I realized there was a larger trend where offices were becoming younger and younger while workers 50+ were moving into self-employment and often working from home in silos. The world as I knew it was becoming increasingly age segregated.

I had the good fortune to travel to Konya, Turkey for the Mevlana Whirling Dervish Festival nearly a decade ago. This celebration of the poet/philosopher Rumi’s life had a profound impact on my appreciation for Sufism and the mentor relationship Rumi had with Shams, his wild-eyed muse.

I waved goodbye to my friends and headed off, in search of the villa. After only 5 minutes of navigating the medieval streets of Orvieto (Italy), things weren't going well. I stopped, took a deep breath, stared at my map, then turned both it and myself to face a new direction.

I’m 49 years old and my life pretty much sucks. Or at least it should, according to a study in the National Bureau of Economic Research (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2020) that found that our well-being and happiness generally follows a U-shaped trajectory over the course of our lives.

Those internet gods who know me better than I know myself served up a recent piece of content that seemed well-suited: a CNBC story on a retiree who loves Mexico because everything is so cheap.

Have you ever felt like a P.I.P. -- A Previously Important Person? It’s a common condition around old-school country clubs where people reminisce about their past glories.

I got to know my great-grandmother for a fraction of a second. My mom’s grandmother, Ethel, was a stately woman, a matriarch who believed that “children should be seen but not heard.” Honestly, I can’t say I remember a conversation with her. And then, poof, she was gone.

I loathed two verbs when I was younger: to be content and to be settled. Both of them felt like a compromise. They reminded me of something my radical 10th grade history class taught me: “Comfort breeds apathy.”