Monday, March 31, 2008
Living the Dream Deferred: What is next for the Boomers?
LIVING THE DREAM DEFERRED
WHAT IS NEXT FOR THE BOOMERS?
2008 is the new 1968. Baby boomers are fast approaching retirement with unprecedented health and wealth. We have lived for excess our whole lives and now as we move into senior years we face an exciting new beginning. And we are staring at the void of the last phase of life. It is a time traditionally reserved for reflection and relaxing. Write a memoir and play a lot of golf. But the boomer generation is not aging ‘gracefully.’ They demand a new old age. Retirement is a dirty word. It conjures a passivity this group has never known. The discussion of what will ‘retirement’ look like has spawned a spate of articles and books on the ‘new mid-life.’ What is next for the ‘mature’ baby boomer?
We find a clue looking back at the ideal of 1968. That year was the pinnacle of the ideals of the youth movement. Young people marching in the streets single handedly convinced a sitting president to quit. That inspired a scion of political royalty to jump into the presidential race. The civil rights movement as embodied in Martin Luther King joined with the anti-war movement to demand change. The ‘hippies’ in the summer of love initiated a new life style based on peace, love and self-expression. As Bob Dylan said, ‘your old order is rapidly changing. You better get out of the way because the times they are a-changing.’ Then in rapid succession youth movements were crushed around the world from the Prague Spring in the Soviet bloc to the worker-student rebellion in France to the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King to the hundreds of students slaughtered at the Mexico City Olympics. The word got out. Don’t think you are really going to change the system.
The euphoria quickly degenerated into the miasma of a police riot at the Democratic Convention and law and order prevailed. The political idealists gave way to the militant radicals such as the Black Panthers and Weatherman. The cultural movement that spawned the summer of love slide into drug excess and overdose. One after another of the musical heroes self-imploded; Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Mama Cass, Brian Jones and many others. As John Lennon summarized it, ‘the dream is over.’ The Stones called it ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ The generation got the message, peace and love were not possible so we might as well get to work making money and consuming products and looking good.
Oh sure. There was enough flex in the system for incremental progress on non-threatening progress in women’s liberation, gay liberation, affirmative action, an organic food industry, and a token gesture toward the environment. But by and large the generation hunkered down to being docile, pragmatic citizens of United States of Materialism. Now, as we emerge from this 40 year side trip to ‘reasonable and responsible life,’ a new vision is possible. A vision based on the ideal born in youth and nurtured in those formative years. A vision that was crushed by the killing of our leaders and the weakness of our heroes. A second chance is here to make that contribution based hope and ideals. The wisdom garnered in the many years of careers in administration, entertainment, education, business, health, art can now be applied to a new idealism. Idealism based on experience of what works and how to build bridges. Not destroy them.
The baby boomer generation is idealistic and wants to make a difference and not go quietly off to the golf course. I have seen among many friends the tendency to stay at the old careers when the financial necessity is gone. Continuing to work at what they have done for 30 years because they don’t know what else to do. What is needed is reviving the dream that we gave up on as hopeless many years ago. A dream that got distracted by larger cars and houses to fill up the inner void. Stuff has only a temporary satisfaction for individuals who were raised on the possibility of joyful and life affirming world that sustains the freedom of the individual expression and the harmony of the whole.
Nostalgia is big business. Rock bands performing the songs of their youth who are now in their mid-Sixties sell out huge stadiums. Teenagers go to pop shows with their parents and grandparents. The glance back that halcyon day points to the yearning for a life of purpose and expression. Inside the 58 year old gray beard driving a Lexus SUV to Whole Foods is an 18 year old kid in a VW van picking up hitch hikers and looking for a love-in and a demonstration.
Reviving that dream not Leisure World is the next phase. The boomers have a second chance to make the world better. They are already healthier, greener and more spiritual than their parents and now it is time to wake up and live the dream that has been so long deferred.
Politically we are looking at another watershed election while a divisive foreign war. A new young, visionary political leader has emerged who promises hope and bringing us together. Presidents don’t make the times, the times make the president and as the generation and culture considers the audacity of hope they are also considering the new life that mid-life brings.
It is that new life that beckons the soul to live freer, to live beyond the ‘toys’ and to live from the heart. It is creative freedom that is stirring and that we have one more chance to grab the ring of meaningful life. One writer calls it ‘authentic happiness.’ Living from our center and expressing that self that is forever young. But this time with the wisdom that years bring. We have the wisdom of how to navigate distractions and the System. Making and giving our unique contributions to a better world is what will fuel this generation in the next phase of life. Those that take the mission will be rewarded by life satisfaction. The Satisfaction that comes from a deeply felt sense of living a maximum life, a life of purpose and meaning.
WHAT IS NEXT FOR THE BOOMERS?
2008 is the new 1968. Baby boomers are fast approaching retirement with unprecedented health and wealth. We have lived for excess our whole lives and now as we move into senior years we face an exciting new beginning. And we are staring at the void of the last phase of life. It is a time traditionally reserved for reflection and relaxing. Write a memoir and play a lot of golf. But the boomer generation is not aging ‘gracefully.’ They demand a new old age. Retirement is a dirty word. It conjures a passivity this group has never known. The discussion of what will ‘retirement’ look like has spawned a spate of articles and books on the ‘new mid-life.’ What is next for the ‘mature’ baby boomer?
We find a clue looking back at the ideal of 1968. That year was the pinnacle of the ideals of the youth movement. Young people marching in the streets single handedly convinced a sitting president to quit. That inspired a scion of political royalty to jump into the presidential race. The civil rights movement as embodied in Martin Luther King joined with the anti-war movement to demand change. The ‘hippies’ in the summer of love initiated a new life style based on peace, love and self-expression. As Bob Dylan said, ‘your old order is rapidly changing. You better get out of the way because the times they are a-changing.’ Then in rapid succession youth movements were crushed around the world from the Prague Spring in the Soviet bloc to the worker-student rebellion in France to the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King to the hundreds of students slaughtered at the Mexico City Olympics. The word got out. Don’t think you are really going to change the system.
The euphoria quickly degenerated into the miasma of a police riot at the Democratic Convention and law and order prevailed. The political idealists gave way to the militant radicals such as the Black Panthers and Weatherman. The cultural movement that spawned the summer of love slide into drug excess and overdose. One after another of the musical heroes self-imploded; Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Mama Cass, Brian Jones and many others. As John Lennon summarized it, ‘the dream is over.’ The Stones called it ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ The generation got the message, peace and love were not possible so we might as well get to work making money and consuming products and looking good.
Oh sure. There was enough flex in the system for incremental progress on non-threatening progress in women’s liberation, gay liberation, affirmative action, an organic food industry, and a token gesture toward the environment. But by and large the generation hunkered down to being docile, pragmatic citizens of United States of Materialism. Now, as we emerge from this 40 year side trip to ‘reasonable and responsible life,’ a new vision is possible. A vision based on the ideal born in youth and nurtured in those formative years. A vision that was crushed by the killing of our leaders and the weakness of our heroes. A second chance is here to make that contribution based hope and ideals. The wisdom garnered in the many years of careers in administration, entertainment, education, business, health, art can now be applied to a new idealism. Idealism based on experience of what works and how to build bridges. Not destroy them.
The baby boomer generation is idealistic and wants to make a difference and not go quietly off to the golf course. I have seen among many friends the tendency to stay at the old careers when the financial necessity is gone. Continuing to work at what they have done for 30 years because they don’t know what else to do. What is needed is reviving the dream that we gave up on as hopeless many years ago. A dream that got distracted by larger cars and houses to fill up the inner void. Stuff has only a temporary satisfaction for individuals who were raised on the possibility of joyful and life affirming world that sustains the freedom of the individual expression and the harmony of the whole.
Nostalgia is big business. Rock bands performing the songs of their youth who are now in their mid-Sixties sell out huge stadiums. Teenagers go to pop shows with their parents and grandparents. The glance back that halcyon day points to the yearning for a life of purpose and expression. Inside the 58 year old gray beard driving a Lexus SUV to Whole Foods is an 18 year old kid in a VW van picking up hitch hikers and looking for a love-in and a demonstration.
Reviving that dream not Leisure World is the next phase. The boomers have a second chance to make the world better. They are already healthier, greener and more spiritual than their parents and now it is time to wake up and live the dream that has been so long deferred.
Politically we are looking at another watershed election while a divisive foreign war. A new young, visionary political leader has emerged who promises hope and bringing us together. Presidents don’t make the times, the times make the president and as the generation and culture considers the audacity of hope they are also considering the new life that mid-life brings.
It is that new life that beckons the soul to live freer, to live beyond the ‘toys’ and to live from the heart. It is creative freedom that is stirring and that we have one more chance to grab the ring of meaningful life. One writer calls it ‘authentic happiness.’ Living from our center and expressing that self that is forever young. But this time with the wisdom that years bring. We have the wisdom of how to navigate distractions and the System. Making and giving our unique contributions to a better world is what will fuel this generation in the next phase of life. Those that take the mission will be rewarded by life satisfaction. The Satisfaction that comes from a deeply felt sense of living a maximum life, a life of purpose and meaning.
Labels: Living the Dream: Life After Work
Monday, March 17, 2008
Former School Administrator
Going into the past without a prop is like a wash without soap. Everything feels better but it is still the same.
My journey to a long ago love was this kind of a journey. Fortunately, I brought the soap. In this case it was an artifact from back in the day. I dropped it and washed it out.
I am free.
Labels: Ransta in OP Art was Trash
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
