The glass really is half-full

PRIME – November 2014 What I learned about aging – and myself – at AARP’s Life Reimagined checkup By Debbie Gardner debbieg@thereminder.com Taking stock. Thinking ahead. Dreaming. Planning. Taking risks. Those may sound like the kinds of activities you saw your children – or grandchildren – engage in as they graduated from high school or college. But what about you? When was the last time you really thought about what you wanted from your future? Too old, you say? Think again. Earlier this year, AARP launched an exciting new way for individuals to think about the years from midlife to, well, old age. Called a Life Reimagined checkup, the program – half group life coaching, half personal journey of introspection – offers individuals a roadmap to rediscovering what they want out of life. And that ‘want” can be anything, according to the Life Reimagined website (www.LifeReimagined.org), from a new – or more satisfying – career to a rekindled love life with your partner to a fresh look at interests and passions that might take your life in unexpected directions. Taking the plunge My husband, John, and I were fortunate to be able to take part in one such Life Reimagined checkup hosted by the West Springfield Senior Center in mid-September. We joined a dozen men and women – another couple nearing retirement, two men coping with mid-life job changes, several women looking for more than volunteering to enrich their lives, a cancer survivor ready for the next challenge and one gentlemen who, at 94, was still thinking ahead – for two hours of poking and prodding our long-buried hopes and desires as we worked together to forge new directions for our lives. We were guided along this journey by Lisa Masters, a community outreach specialist for AARP Massachusetts, and Janet Pagiluca, a Life Reimagined Guide who had joined the program after her own personal “Aha” moment at AARP’s “Life at 50+” convention in Boston in May. “We take our cars for checkups, we take our cats for checkups, we take our money for checkups – it’s time to take our journey for a checkup,” Masters said as she asked us to open the lavender “Life Reimagined” guidebooks placed at each seat. Then, readily admitting, “We don’t have all the answers,” the two women invited us to begin our own journeys. I’ll admit to being a bit nervous as the session began. Like a good reporter, I’d scanned the “Life Reimagined” website, trying to get an inkling of what we might be doing for two hours. I’d seen – and tried – several click-through activities designed to help me navigate a life reboot – and been invited to sign up for more information – but didn’t come away with a clear picture of what to expect. As instructed, I opened the booklet before me. The phrase “Your life is full of possibilities” on the first page struck me immediately. As a busy midlife mom with an active teenage son, I’ve had little time of late to think about anything beyond team practice schedules, getting dinner and homework and lunches done, making sure I’m on time for all the deadlines at work, and wrangling mountains of laundry. My husband, too, has been consumed with work deadlines, home repair chores, helping with homework and shuttling our son wherever he needs to go. (Like most parents, we sometimes forget we are entitled to have a life while we’re busy with the details of making life work.) As midlifers, we are also keenly aware of how easy it is to feel as though you’ve missed those opportunities that come with youth; that your possibilities are behind you. Shepherding a child though high school brings that kind of thing sharply into focus, and both my husband and I have admitted twinges of envy at all the paths open before our son Evan today. My husband, I think, feels it more than I do. His dreams of completing a college degree were thwarted by financial circumstances that today would not be an obstacle. I know part of his interest in attending the workshop was to find a way to start that dream over. The question on both of our minds … is it worth reimagining things at this point? “It ain’t over, till it’s over” My apologies to Yogi Berra, but his most famous one-liner was what came to mind when Masters invited us to “mark where you are today” on the timeline located on page 2 of our workbook. The “timeline” exercise also asked us to list the year we were born – and how long we were going to live. The second number, we all knew, was a guess at best – anyone could get hit by a bus crossing the street – as one of my former bosses used to remind me as I left for lunch each day (he also wanted to know where my work was, just in case). However, with grandmothers who lived until their late 80s and mid 90s, I optimistically listed 100. The result was amazing – even with my generous lifespan over-estimation; there was a lot of space left on that line. More than I had anticipated. “It looks longer than I thought,” I wrote on the page that asked for my reaction to the exercise. When Masters asked the group for our observations, responses from other attendees illustrated I was not alone in that observation. You know how to get there Sometimes, we all forget that we’ve got what it takes, and part of the Life Reimagined exercises Masters led us through reminded us that we’ve gotten through “big transitions” before. First we were asked to list any recent events that might have triggered feelings of transition, or even limbo in our lives. Like everyone in the group, both John and I had plenty to list here – from our son’s entry into high school – and all the schedule upsets accompanying that change – to unexpected health issues in both our immediate families, to changes in our workplaces. Called a “Look Back,’ we were then asked to briefly list how we had moved forward from a similar situation in the past. Additional questions made us look at what factors in life – family, career, love, financial comfort, etc. – had always been important to us, and what strengths and talents we’d always been able to count on. I thought about adopting our son, Evan, and all the work we went through to get him, including living for nearly a month in a foreign country where we could barely read or speak the language. It was the toughest, scariest, most stressful, most exhilarating thing I had ever done. I realized if I could be up for that challenge, I could find the strength to handle other things. Masters once again asked the group for comments, and attendees who had survived other types of life-changing events – from widowhood to cancer to job downsizing – seemed to have similar “Aha” moments about their inner strengths. In a chat after the workshop, Masters told me the “Aha” reaction was a common one among attendees she had worked with at previous “checkup” workshops. Taking the first step “Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.” That quote by Alan Cohen, respected motivational speaker and author of 24 inspirational books, was the first thing I read on the next page of our workshop journey. It struck me hard. I realized my life limbo was self-imposed. I’d been waiting for the “right” time – when my son needed me less, when college expenses weren’t a worry, when life seemed to be more settled – to think about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It was time, I realized, to seriously begin to consider my “ideas, dreams and what-ifs,” as the booklet advised. John too, had been waiting for the right time – and right advice – to relaunch his college career. His concern had been what to major in. He was in limbo because he didn’t know where to start. When he voiced this concern, one of the women at our checkup told him she’d been in the same boat a few years back. “Just sign up for a course at a community college,” she advised, adding that in would probably take “four or five years” to fulfill his core requirements going to school part time and, “By then you will have figured out what you want to major in.” A GPS for your life These questions pondered, Masters introduced us all to the Life Reimagined approach to making “your next move” – a set of six succinct actions and mindsets designed by “leading coaches, doctors, entrepreneurs and other experts” to prompt and guide checkup attendees through their life reboot. Masters explained the approach was based on concepts from the book “Life Reimagined: Your New Life Possibilities” by Richard Leider and Alan Webber, and showed us a diagram with six different colored circles arranged in a wheel-spoke fashion. Inside each circle was a single word: Reflect; Connect; Explore; Choose; Repack; Act. We were asked to choose where in the circle we thought we were at that moment in our Lifer Reimagined journey, read the information about that particular action, and then move through the circle in whatever direction seemed to work for us. It was a heady decision. I was, and still am, torn between “Reflect” – seeing my present situation as an opportunity, and “Explore” – approaching the future with openness and curiosity. I’m leaning more toward “Explore,” but haven’t really done enough work to move on to the next step. John, on the other hand, has already moved to “Act” on his new path, calling about college classes and planning an appointment to meet with an admissions counselor. A final reflection Would I take the “life Reimagined” checkup again, knowing what I now know about it? Yes. Would I expect more from it? Maybe. Did it answer all my questions about what to do next with my life? Absolutely not. “There are no answers in this program,” Masters reminded me when we chatted at the end of the workshop. Did I learn something about myself? Yes. Plenty. For one thing, I need to make more connections in my life. When we were asked to write down the names of six people we could use as our “sounding board” to help us though the challenges of making new choice, I, sadly, could barely fill four spots. I need more friends. And, I need to begin to think about what I want to do, before life makes that choice or me. “Nobody likes to be put in a position where they have to change,” Masters reminded me. Perhaps it is better to do the reimagining for yourself. For more information about AARP’s Life Reimagined program, and to check out the self-guided Life Programs – including relationships reboot and a career search guide – online, visit www.LifeReimagined.org.