It was about five years ago I got a pang in my heart to do something different in my career, but stepping away from 20+ years of corporate life is easier said than done. I had spent decades building my reputation as a trusted hotel executive, holding almost every position imaginable in the industry from Front Desk Supervisor to Assistant Rooms Operations Manager to Housekeeping Supervisor.

I’ll never forget when I was interviewing the famous film and sports entrepreneur/investor Peter Guber on stage in LA and he told me of his excitement for meeting Senator Barack Obama for the first time, who was fifteen years younger than him. It made me realize that being a “fanboy” or “fangirl” keeps us humble and curious, no matter what our age.

I wrote the first book for a general audience about what we then called “the greenhouse effect,” way back in 1989, and so I’ve been involved with tackling the climate crisis pretty much from the start.

It was a normal enough moment. I was sitting at a Starbucks, coffee in hand, putting off some work for a few indulgent minutes of Facebook. I was robotically scrolling, partially engaged with the usual mix of animals, self-help quotes and messages from friends.

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head? For me, it’s usually a snappy tune with singable lyrics —a song that holds meaning in some way. But it gets stuck on repeat, and the more I try to shut it down, the more stubbornly it plays over and over, forcing me to listen.

I’m waiting for a feeling. I can’t start without it.

My friend Ken Dychtwald has been one of the leading thinkers on aging and retirement. His company AgeWave has published all kinds of insightful studies that are well worth your time.

Lately I’ve been wondering what it means to be at this stage of the pandemic? Are we in the middle, a bit past it, or leaving it behind? Or are we just coming to terms with the fact that Covid and its cousins are here to stay?

The deepening. Trust begat over time is one of my unexpected pleasures of aging. As we travel away from any starting point, the widening perspective allows us to view factors once invisible.

I recently made the pilgrimage to southern Albuquerque and, more specifically, to Christian mystic Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation. Richard has become a modern elder to me as he’s grown his movement for the past fifty years.