Shortly after I wrote about To Age Well last weekend, as if heaven showed me my way forward into the new year, I learned about aging and being free and powerful.
In The Atlantic’s The New Old Age, David Brooks looked into a new bread of year-long academic programs “for adults, mostly in their 50s and 60s, who are retiring from their main career and trying to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives.”
“We don’t yet have a good name for this life stage. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, a notable scholar in this area, calls it the “Third Chapter.” Some call it “Adulthood II” or, the name I prefer, the “Encore Years.”” - David Brooks
In America, we are used to workism where a professional career is an important part of our identity as an adult. If one throws away her resume, who does she become?
With the help and at the end of these programs, people felt their mind was opened in new ways. You find the answer to the question: Who am I? What’s my purpose? What do I really want? Do I matter? What do I want to do today? People discovered they were happy to paint, bake, or play the piano. The Encore type learned to slow down and not obsessed with optimizing time or productivity.
I’m happy that I’ve already spent so much time thinking about what I want to do when I don’t work. My weekends are slow and minimal living. I’m already making plans to be in the Encore camp.
A girlfriend shared with me The Guardian’s I’ve spent a decade studying gender and I can tell you: as a woman, ageing sets you free.
Is it possible for gender roles to fade when we age? In this article, Angela Saini wrote that a 9,000-year-old statue suggested that age, not gender, made a difference in how people lived.
“Wouldn’t we all appreciate not having to bear the weight of what society expects of us? So, despite the message I get from the firms trying to sell me anti-ageing cream that I risk losing what makes me most valuable – my youthful femininity – I find myself unexpectedly thrilled to be entering this next stage of my life. The older I get, the less relevant my gender feels. I finally have licence to just be myself, the way I did as a child.” -Angela Saini
As I finish menopause (or is it in it), the female role a woman is expected to fulfill, being attractive to the opposite sex, being a wife and a mother, is no longer necessary (though they were never that much in my mind).
I feel grateful for being content charting my own path that has worked for me all these years.
As we prepare for a new year, perhaps the word for my 2024 is free.