In most cases, our aging parents passed on when we well on our way in middle age. With each loss, our world became more sober as the reality of being “next” in line collided with the world of sixty-something. But a new emotional tipping point in the drama of being older occurred with the unexpected death of the first cousin.

It’s not that we hadn’t experienced the loss of peers in childhood or as young adults. And then after fifty, the news of friends, friends of friends, and people we simply knew about being suddenly gone began occurring with a prophetic regularity. While it was disorienting and disturbing, it initially spared our family network of adult children. But when the first cousin of the surviving herd died at sixty-something, all that changed.

While it was a single loss, we knew it was a cautionary tale about our generational position and predicament. Despite the density of our modern lives, we could no longer afford to ignore this new vulnerability, a realization that haunted our awareness. We knew we were never going to reclaim the frequency or closeness of childhood. That was another life that had served us well, but was gone. We also know that the meaning and import of our early years now took on legacy proportions with the threatened loss of its primary players. We felt compelled to undertake a “cousin audit” of the history that defined so much of our early family life.

We spoke out loud about what meant the most to us and why. We disagreed about chronology but respected personal importance. We confessed our bias, preferences, blind spots, selective memory and the out and out rewriting of history. But most of all we saw, from the end of middle age, how complicated life was for our parents, like it or not. We didn’t gloss over the unsavory and pathological events we would have gladly avoided, but the easy assessments of “they could have done better” lost its steam. Life turned out to be hard for everyone, including us.

What would be helpful at this juncture is a simple way for boomers to assess personal stability, a tool that could provide them with:

1. An overview of the status of key personal resources
2. Feedback about strengths and deficiencies
3. Insights to set realistic expectations and goals

I have created a new self-inventory questionnaire that does this called “The Stability Survey?.”

The Stability Survey? is a yes-no questionnaire that provides a snapshot of boomer transition assets. There are no right or wrong answers or scoring, just a “holding its own” (stable) or “not doing so well” (unstable) assessment of six broad sectors that impact both quality of life and optimal aging.

Here are the six survey questions:

How is your health?
How is your family?
How are your friends?
How is your career?
How are your dreams?
How are your finances?

Here are some of the implications of the answers for each sector:

Health Status
Stable health usually means no medical issues or medical issues that are under control. Unstable health usually means emerging medical issues or existing medical issues that are either drifting or officially out of control.

Family Status
Stable family usually means normal or abnormal family issues that are under control. Unstable family usually means normal or abnormal family issues that are either drifting or officially out of control

Friends Status
Stable friends usually means close friends who provide comfort and support. Unstable friends usually means issues with close friends that are undermining comfort and support

Career Status
Stable career usually means implementation of a personal retirement plan including post-retirement work. Unstable career usually means unresolved work issues or unsatisfactory retirement planning.

Dream Status
Stable dreams usually means the emergence and pursuit of longstanding or new passions, interests, callings, or pursuits. Unstable dreams usually means the loss of deeply personal dreams or the belief they are attainable.

Financial Status
Stable finances usually means implementation of a pre or post personal financial plan Unstable finances usually means unresolved financial issues or unsatisfactory financial planning.

The Stability Survey? is both a look back at where boomers have been and a look forward to the mission that lay ahead. In developmental terms, it shows which transition assets are in alignment with the tasks of the final phase of life: control and legacy. Conversely, it quickly highlights which of the six resources could potentially undermine them. This “big picture” view at the gateway to the next twenty and possibly thirty years could prove invaluable to boomers who are searching for clarity and direction to help them preserve quality of life as well as promote optimal aging.

Blame it on the parents of boomers who wanted their post-war children to have a better future. Their good intentions ushered in the first child-centric society in US history. But what seemed magical on the parenting drawing board wound up replacing the group-centric ethos of the “greatest generation” with a new, self-centric ethos, a societal sea change that only intensified as it cascaded into succeeding generations.

This unprecedented magnification of self is proving difficult to shed in the passage through middle age fraught with financial setbacks, chronic health problems, and an overall generational distaste for being old. The boomer version of generativity is turning out to be a movement from “me” to “more me.” What does this mean?

Sadly, self-magnification rarely self-corrects. The societal narcissism introduced by boomers has become a full epidemic of self-magnification in succeeding generations, a perfect co-dependency between new technologies and child-devoted parenting. It is a shift in societal DNA that bodes poorly for boomers on a number of fronts:

1. Personal Health Over focus on self is a form of magical thinking. It assumes “just in time” interventions from the outside to save the day, which has been true for most of the boomer’s generational trek. Schools were built, jobs appeared, and opportunity flowed freely decade after decade. But health ultimately is the product of internal accountability, lifestyle, “health habits” that prove to be destiny. In this regard, boomers are self-centric consumers waiting for the illusive intervention of modern medicine to save them from unhealthy habits. Yet all the tests, procedures, and medications offered by the US healthcare system cannot override poor lifestyle choices, and they haven’t. The only rescue from poor health and its symbiotic twin bankruptcy is self-rescue. Ironically, medicine has known this for decades but has taken a different path. It seems doubtful that the boomers will recognize or accept this inner truth about accountability before time runs out.

2. Generational Mentoring Over focus on self sees old age as the worst of all possible outcomes. Not surprising, magical thinking is once again the boomer storyline as they bet the farm on anti-aging products and procedures to delay the dreaded “looking old,” a slight of hand trick that allows sixty-five to be declared the new forty-five. In this model that sees aging as disease, elders fade from society’s vernacular, and with it the loss of a historically stabilizing force in families and society. The traditional elder role of compassion, patience, and big picture wisdom is replaced by anxious sixty-something adults whose attempts to fend off being old only become more and more exaggerated.

3. Philanthropic Empathy Over focus on self trumps empathy for others leaving “someone else” to take care society’s problems. The sheer complexity of being middle age, up to your neck in debt, poorly positioned for an expensive longevity, and slipping into declining health leaves little emotional bandwidth for society’s “greater” needs that seem to be everywhere. Ironically, the largest generation of fifty year olds in the history of the world may wind up being the most costly in terms of social burden while being the least philanthropic.

Shakespeare noted that “past is prologue” but not all boomers are stuck in this self-magnified approach to the second half of life. They have taken the lifestyle path less traveled, high on accountability with careful attention to health habits. But the majority of boomers are at risk. Certainly late-onset course corrections are possible even against the stiff currents of self-magnification. But minus the support of a group-centric ethos, sustainable changes require a rare epiphany and determination to accept what needs to be done and then find a way to “just do it.”

Seniority appears to be the rule of thumb. While adult child in their late sixties are beginning the battle for control and the search for legacy, these developmental needs are usually “put on hold” for the sake of the aging parent. Practicality dictates that both parties cannot be insisting on control as well as the airtime for life review, but the seniority accommodation is not as simple as it sounds.

Developmental needs are first and foremost embedded marching orders, which are involuntary, unconscious, and consumptive. They are background software for life-long human developmental and exert a pressing influence on perception, cognition, and behavior. When two generations share the same developmental zone, a new type of power struggle emerges over whose needs deserve priority. As with all generational conflicts, a middle ground is hard to find and hold.

The best course for adult children caught in this developmental simulcast is to make a selective course correction while their aging parents are still alive. This involves mapping out “control sustaining” strategies for their personal life (i.e. where to live, how to pay for it, how to manage health, how to foster community, etc.) while supporting their aging parent’s need to control their own destiny. It can awkward, confusing, and unsatisfying, but it defuses the unwinnable argument of entitlement. While everyone is entitled to address their developmental needs, in the context of families, this may require delay, compromise, and compassion for those who are going ahead.

Chapter One: Hidden Currents

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

-Andre Gide

Linda had her doubts and fears about the future. At fifty she could feel her life being pulled off course by currents beyond her control. She first thought the problem was chronic fatigue from being perpetually overbooked and behind. She found herself in middle age with an overwhelming “to do” list. Most of the time she felt defeated by a network of obligations that left her no time to recover and regroup. But her concerns about the future were coming from deeper currents that were conspiring to keep her off balance despite heroic efforts to keep “everything together.” Clearly, everything was not together. Take her husband Dan.

Dan was fifty-five and trying to stay afloat with his own issues. The acquisition of his company by a long time competitor forced him to decide the fate of people who had been both his friends and associates for most of his career. The pressure of this responsibility led to another issue: Dan’s late night trip to the ER with chest pain and a racing heart.

Fortunately, he did not have a heart attack. But Dan was diagnosed with an arrhythmia that would require medication including blood thinners to prevent a stroke. Dan was just getting use to his diagnosis when he was confronted with another complication. His father fell and broke his hip.

The fall wasn’t a total surprise; his father had been unsteady on his feet for the last year. While the fracture was not complicated, Dan’s brother Tom nearly provoked a family meltdown. Although single and having the luxury of a flexible work schedule, Tom resisted any attempt to get him involved in his father’s recovery. Attempts to get him to “do his part in helping of dad” quickly escalated into shouting, accusations and bitter feelings.

Linda’s brother’s situation wasn’t any better. At forty-eight, Brain had recently had a “cardiac event” that required emergency angioplasty to open up blocked arteries in his heart. Despite this close call, he stubbornly refused to modify his risk factors. He still smoked and rejected suggestions that he change his diet or start exercising. In the back of Linda’s mind was her lethal family history of premature heart disease. After having his first heart attack at forty-five, her father had died in his mid-sixties from a second one. Brain appeared destined to suffer the same fate.

Her mother was a dilemma in slow motion. After years of good health, an active social life, and independence, she had steadily grown more needy and indecisive over the last year. It had reached the point where she needed Linda’s help for everything. Soon her mother’s living alone was not going to be an option; but where would her mother live now that Lori had moved back home?

Her daughter had been in her final year of college with good grades and bright future when seemingly out of nowhere Lori began to slip into depression. At first it looked like the university health care system could manage it. But three months ago things got worse and Lori stopped going to most of her classes. Linda flew out to assess the situation and wound up packing up her daughter and bringing her home. Lori seemed to be doing better, but it was going to take time, medication, and the support of her family before she could resume her education.

Lastly, there were Linda’s own health issues that started to surface in her late forties. Hypertension was quickly followed by pre-diabetes. Despite dietary changes and attempts at regular exercise, she was on two medications to stave off full-blown diabetes. The hot flashes of menopause only added to her health concerns. Above all there was a persistent anxiety that haunted her about losing the two important men in her life to premature heart disease like she had lost her father. She feared winding up alone like so many middle aged women.

Seventy six million boomers are making the middle crossing, the volatile journey between forty something and sixty something. It is a pilgrimage from the last vestige of youth into a world of mature adulthood, a passage from the first half of life into the second and most daunting phase. They all share similar concerns with Linda about where this journey will take them. First and foremost they worry about their quality of life. How do they successfully navigate the unfamiliar and threatening waters of middle age? What are the obvious and not so obvious dangers they will face during the crossing? Is there any way to prepare for them? What do they do when things fall apart? What strategies give them the best chance of arriving at old age in good shape? None of these are easy questions and highlight the fact that boomers, despite being awash in information, need better information about the journey between their late forties to their early sixties. Although they have become the poster child of “The Aging of America” story, they remain unclear about the purpose and meaning of what they are experiencing.

Boomers have been told many things about their generation in the popular media. It has become part of the shared myth about who they are and their journey through aging. The predominant focus of this attention has been on cohort issues, themes and symbols that define the unique experiences of the baby boomer generation. Not surprisingly, much of this marketing attention has been paid to the hopes and dreams of a generation who set out to change society. Now in middle age, boomers are being touted as the generation that will “rewrite the book on aging.” But is this cohort focus really an unhealthy distraction from the real business of being middle age? Will the boomers discover a work around to a critical passage that is a prelude to a successful old age or will they come up short as they enter their seventies and the final phase of their lives? While cohort material is valuable for telling the boomer’s story, it is not that useful to middle age adults like Linda who are struggling with the “riptide” of middle age. Linda is not interested in rewriting the book on aging so much as she is in trying to understand the forces that are changing her world and, more important, what needs to change to make it better.

She is not alone. All boomers are at risk for missing the developmental mission of middle age, a setback that could dramatically undermine both the quality and length of their lives. The developmental currents of this age group are potentially lethal, leaving unprepared travelers confused, exhausted, and having to face a long string of poor outcomes. On the other hand, knowing the real purpose of the middle aging can arm boomers with a more useful perspective and the critical tools to successfully complete this phase of the journey. It will also prepare boomers for what is to follow. But what is it that boomers need to know that the popular media has failed to mention?

Boomers need to adopt realistic expectations about becoming older. They will not reinvent the aging process. The process is mandatory for the human personality and structured to unfold in definitive segments in the lifecycle. They may rewrite their response to the “mission” of being middle age, but they will not be excused from the task. The best example of how the uniqueness of any generation can only modify but not negate the developmental process is teenagers. Each generation of teenagers responds to the complex task of seeking independence from their parents while at the same time preserving familial ties. The music, fashion, and technology change, but the mission of being a teenager does not. And so it is with boomers. All of the education, experience, success, and social advantage will help shape their response to middle age, but the mission of being middle age will still prevail. But what is this mission?

The main focus of my work has been on the developmental agenda of the last phase of life of older adults, the need for control and legacy. But what about the developmental agenda of a life cut short from its normal longevity? Does a terminal illness in younger adults usurp their normal developmental stage by superimposing the final agenda of older adults? I didn’t know, and that’s what I told the friend of the family.

I also told the friend of the family that under the circumstances, I thought it was worth considering. If I was right, the need for control and legacy had taken center stage in the older sister’s life. As with older adults, I suggested that the younger sister initially reframe her conversations and energies around control issues. Specifically, how could she help her older sister preserve control in a world where all control was being lost to such a devastating illness? This could give the sisters a common cause that might be the basis of a more effective partnership. The friend of the family shared this idea with the younger sister. “At this point, ” the younger sister said, “I am willing to try anything.”

“Anything” began to open a door. The older sister’s burden of fighting for control in the face of a terminal illness was in desperate need of reinforcements. Instead of being rejected, the younger sister’s overture to assist her older sister with “control management” was accepted. Their differences became less important and a new, more effective dialogue began to emerge. “Now what?” the friend of the family asked me Add legacy I told her. The door swung open.

The same legacy questions that opened up heart felt conversations between adult children and their aging parents offered the sisters a new, deeply personal way to communicate. Not surprising, the older sister’s life review took center stage, and with it came powerful remembrances, joy, regret, sadness, healing, and legacy. They were able to cover critical emotional terrain before the older sister passed away, being there for each other until the end.

I now believe that the last mission of life can come either on time when we are old or it can come “too soon” when are not old. Either way, it brings with it the overpowering need for control and legacy. Either way, it offers a way for all of us to partner with those who need understanding, care, and comfort at the end of their journey.

Both couples had satisfactory lives in their mid-50s. They had success and hope for the future. But their future was actually in the midst of a profound transition, one in which there would be little room for error, few if any second chances. It is hard to believe in our mid-50s that such an intense and unforgiving storm is just around the bend. But it is. Linda and Ted saw it one way. Heather and Jack saw it another. Both couples made choices and set out to live their choices. 20 years later those choices point out two crucial elements about quality of life beyond 50-something:

1. The individual has immense power to reinvent their future.
2. Modern medicine is has limited power to reinvent a poorly structured future.

Quality of life is not based on cosmetic surgery, new drugs or the latest medical procedures. The clinic cannot save us from bad choices or poor game plans. It all starts with us, but we need a plan. That is where many of us get stuck. When we look for a plan, the choices are overwhelming. Do I eat organic food and meditate? Should I sign up for a marathon? What are the good “carbs?” Should I take St. John’s Wort to handle stress? Did I need a body scan? Just finding a plan proves more complicated than just doing what we have always done. Surely not all of the thing we have been told to do for our health, our quality of life, can be right? How do we know what is right? What’s the plan?

We have asked ourselves this question for many years, both for ourselves, for family members, for friends and for patients. What plan is simple, easy to work with, offers realistic baby steps and, most importantly, actually works? By works, we mean a plan that has been around long enough to validate its effectiveness, meaning real people have used it with great success. For a long time we used a variety of approaches, a mix and match approach to our own health and the advice we gave others. And then by chance we discovered a plan by the most successful group of people we had ever encountered. We discovered the centenarians.

The centenarians are people who have lived to 100 and beyond. Who better than those who have actually lived the journey with good health and great engagement to provide us with insights and strategies to obtain both quality of life and the potential for longevity? We were intrigued, but we wanted to know more. Here is what we found.

Currently in the US, we have 58,000 individuals who are at least 100 years old, a number that will increase to 1,000,000 by 2050. Some of the centenarians are fortunate enough to have longevity genes (evidenced by a family history of “long lives”), but up to one third have achieved long and high quality lives by a healthy lifestyle, even in the face of major medical problems. How did they do this?

The how is what this book is about. Not about the “how” to live to 100, but rather the “how” of their game plan that took them through the passage from their mid-50s through their 70s and 80s. This is the most likely passage for the majority of baby boomers. Some of us will get to 100, but most will get to between 70 and 90. This is our focus. How we can get to 70-something with the best quality of life.

Our research on the centenarians demonstrated that as a group they share common traits that impact the quality and length of their lives. Despite their diverse backgrounds and experiences, their lifestyles follow a common path, a common set of habits that offer a plan, a road map that is both profound and yet surprising simple in design. We call their common traits the “centenarian markers,” the unique building blocks that account for their impressive quality of life. Taken as a group the centenarian markers offer up a game plan that is both an assessment tool and a coaching tool. It can tell you what’s working and what can benefit from an upgrade. It offers the global view we need to see the big picture as well as the practical coaching tips we need to make changes. It addresses life, as we know it.

It is easy to forget with the avalanche of health messages we get from the popular media that we are more than blood pressure readings or cholesterol levels. Our lives are embedded into a complex landscape that has children, grandchildren, older parents, challenging jobs, marriages, and uneven health. Any road map that does not give us the tools to manage the whole process, life as we really live it, can’t help us. We don’t need a diet as much as we need a clear view of how the physical and psychological issues of our lives either work for us or against us. This is the value of what the centenarians have to teach us.

The goal is to upgrade the quality of our lives. Knowing the whole plan makes upgrading the parts so much easier. Why? Because we see how they are connected together in ways that makes sense to us. Because we see how even a small step in one area yields huge results in the other areas. Because we see that one part of the plan does not replace or overshadow the other. Because we finally see that no doctor, no diet book, no fitness program can provide us with the invaluable perspective from the end of the journey, the advantage of looking back at what worked and why. This is the centenarian’s gift to us, the plan they lived and now pass on to us to help us invent our future.

We wrote this book to provide you with a clear understanding why the centenarian markers are so crucial to quality of life and how they provide a clear road map that anyone can adopt at any age to upgrade the quality of their life. Knowing the centenarian markers is one thing; putting them into practice is another. The value of the book lies in its common sense approach to incorporating, most of the time in baby steps, this wisdom into our lives. It is not the big decisions that influence our lives so much as it is the small, determined decisions that yield profound influence over what we become. We are big on baby steps.

So as millions of baby boomers turn 50, they are entering a critical period of time that will determine their future, the last major 20-year segment they have to invent a different outcome to their health story. For a larger portion of baby boomer population, this is a wake up call, like it or not. Which brings us to another important aspect of this book. It offers a plan that allows anyone to upgrade the quality of their life, on their own time schedule, in the order that suits them best, and in the manner that reflects who they are. Like we said, we are big on baby steps. Just choosing one new habit, one new goal from the nine markers we outline in the book can have a dramatic impact on the individual and those around him or her. This is what happened to Alan.

Alan heard us give a presentation on the centenarian markers. He can up afterwards to discuss a number of issues. Alan was looking for an upgrade in many areas of his life. Where to begin? What is the one step you can take in the next 90 days we asked him? Maybe a health check up he suggested. He was 55 and was long overdue for a physical. He decided to take that baby step and get a check up, colonoscopy and all. To his relief, everything was normal. He was relived and inspired. He opted for another small step. He began to test ways to get better connected in his community. Baby steps, piece by piece, building an upgraded future, on his own terms, piggy backing off of one goal after another, using the centenarian road map for keeping on course, remembering how the whole game was meant to be played.

While this book incorporates the wisdom of those who have lived to a 100 and beyond, it is not about longevity. Life is not a contest to see who last the longest. This book is about quality, about a balanced life that is more meaningful and satisfying. We won’t promise you that following the wisdom of centenarian markers will get you to 100, but wouldn’t it be wonderful as you approach 80 years of age and beyond to be like Jack and Heather? That is the purpose of this book, to provide you with a set of tools and strategies to minimize the development of future disease and to preserve good health, to upgrade your life to the highest quality you can have, for yourself and for those who are connected to you.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Alan Kay

It’s 2028. The future is here, 20 year later. We are taking a sneak peak into the lives of two baby boomer couples that are now well into their late seventies. Both couples live in Southern California. Both couples have worked hard and saved diligently for retirement. Despite the similarities of location and financial dedication, decisions each couple made in their mid- 50s have created very different futures they are now living 20 years later.

Couple number one, Linda and Ted, live in retirement community north of Los Angeles that offers many levels of care. They have lived their lives using the “coping” approach, which meant adjusting to health problems as they arise but not venturing far from a lifestyle they chose 20 years ago. Linda and Ted stuck to what they knew and how they wanted to live their lives.

Ted has been in the assisted living unit for a couple years and would like to see Linda more frequently. Sometimes he gets depressed and cries. Ted has been overweight for over 30 years; 20 years ago he developed diabetes. Now he’s suffering from multiple complications of diabetes including advanced heart disease, poor circulation in his feet and lower legs, and poor vision. He is being transported to the hospital today for amputation of his left foot below the knee due to gangrene of three toes. Although the staff did their best to monitor his health, his lack of feeling in his feet due to his diabetes and limited ambulation due to his sedentary lifestyle allowed the gangrene to take hold of him. His vision problems caused by his poorly controlled diabetes resulted in him losing his drivers license many years ago. The demands of his poor health take almost 100% of his coping mode just to get through each day. Each day is a struggle for him depending on others for the most basic daily living activities. It takes almost 2 and half home care providers 7 days a week to assist him with his daily activities of living (ambulation, bathing, food preparation and eating, and visits to the doctor). His prognosis is poor and he is unlikely to survive another year.

In another part of the same retirement community, Linda and their kids are sorting through the couple’s belongings as they prepare for Linda to join Ted in the high level assisted living center. Linda had been a smoker all her life and after the development of emphysema stopped smoking 10 years ago. Unfortunately 80 pack years of smoking (40 years of smoking 2 packs a day) took its toll on her lungs. She has a constant hacking cough and audible wheezes with each respiration. Her face is covered in deep wrinkles especially surrounding her mouth accompanied by her raspy voice as she gasps for air in her tiny apartment. Her emphysema necessitates both a portable oxygen unit for day trips with her kids and a larger unit at her bedside. Between the emphysema and heart problems, she has to sleep with her oxygen on in a sitting up position or she experiences a worsening cough and heart palpitations. She curses those “damn cigarettes” daily. Her daily regimen includes taking seven medications and frequents visits to her cardiologist, pulmologist, and internist. She can no longer cook or take a bath unassisted. She is just too tired and out of breath all the time. Sally will follow Ted within 12 months of his death. Although good savers all their life, their health problems bankrupted both their quality of life and bank accounts.

Couple number two, Heather and Jack, live in the same house they have called home for over 40 years. They have lived their lives using the “upgraded” approach, which meant in their mid-50s they added good health as a goal for the rest of their lives. To reach that goal, they had to change their lifestyle, acquire a new set of habits.

Jack just celebrated his 79th birthday. Jack loves life. He is a deacon at their church, leads a men’s group on Wednesday mornings at the local coffee shop and walks three miles daily with his wife Heather. Heather and Jack cherish their 50 plus years together. Each morning as they walk, they catch up on their plans for the day, discuss the grandchildren and talk about various projects they are working on. Heather reminds Jack they need to decide if they are returning to the same small village in Mexico for their volunteer vacation next year. Heather has already talked to their granddaughter about house and pet sitting while out of the country. After their walk, Heather, who just turned 75 years old takes care of the dog, two cats and the household parrot. Later today, they are scheduled for visiting pet nursing home rounds at a retirement home with Winston the parrot and Carmella, their fat orange tabby cat. The staff and residents look forward to their biweekly visits. Jack and Heather bring a sparkly presence and a new story or two about the animal mischief in their household each visit.

Jack has a little arthritis in his back and hips but otherwise is in good health for an “old guy”. He continues his annual birthday health screening visits with his physician. Together the couple enjoys a high vegetable, fruit, and whole grain diet with small servings of animal protein. Both Jack and Heather maintain normal weights and blood pressures.

When Heather was age 60 during her annual health screening an early breast cancer tumor was found in her right breast without lymph node involvement. A lumpectomy and short round of chemotherapy put her into remission now in its 15th year. Heather’s biggest current health problem is her diminishing hearing. She just visited the audiologist as part of her annual check up and is excited about a new hearing aid that is almost invisible but will provide near normal hearing.

Does this example sound too extreme? Are we overstating the poor outcome of Linda and Ted? We wish that were the case. The fact is that these stories reflect what really happens in the journey from 50-something to 70-something. They portray the uncomfortable and painful truth about quality of life: you either define it or it defines you. That’s what happened to these two couples. Over 20 years ago they set off on very different paths as they invented their future in their mid-50s. Linda and Ted opted for the coping approach to embrace their senior years because they did not want to change the way they lived. Although they worked hard and planned for retirement, long term planning to preserve health and minimize disease was, in most cases, left to chance. Jack and Heather chose the upgraded approach as part of their planning for the second 50 years of life. It required change. It required dedication to a new direction in the utilization of health care, diet, physical activity and exercise, community activities, their spiritual life, and their attitude towards the stress of everyday life. These changes did not happen overnight. They were the end product of a series of “baby steps,” small but ultimately profound changes in key areas of their lives that paid huge dividends in the quality of their life today. Nor was it all smooth sailing. Despite a few detours along the way, it is clear they are experiencing a better quality of life than 20 years ago. And that is the payoff, the key to even considering upgrading or reinventing our futures.

Sixty year olds represent an “in between generation,” meaning not quite middle age and not quite old. Developmentally, “in between” is an appropriate characterization of a transition period marked by “agenda crossover.” What do I mean?

Middle age and old age have markedly different developmental agendas. The transition between these age groups is not sudden. It is a crossover process where one agenda ramps off while the other ramps on. From a psychological perspective, knowing where you are coming from is interesting; knowing where you are going is essential. Here is where elders are coming from.

Middle age is dominated by two primary developmental tasks, the “mission” of being fifty-something:

1. Preserve stability in world of increasing personal volatility.

2. Reinvent purpose and direction for the second half of life.

The instability of middle age is well known. It is an involuntary passage into life changing currents that include death in the family, unsettled children, chronic illness, career upheavals, aging parents, and changing partnerships. It is a complex and sobering period that requires super-human effort just to “keep things together.” Truth be told, most of us don’t keep things together, but we do get better at coming to terms with the “physics” of how life operates, negotiating a fragile peace with a vast list of items that remain outside of our control.

The other task of middle age is reinvention in an environment essentially devoid of public goals. This is in sharp contrast to the clear marching orders of the first half of life, a period in which society offer young adults concrete guidelines for their life’s journey. Getting an education, landing a good job, finding the right partner, starting a family, and becoming successful are themes that inundate conversations in the first half of life. As such, they are a public refrain that define and reinforce social goals. And then, almost overnight, this social broadcasting mysteriously ceases. In middle age, public goals give way to private goals, a navigational shift in which life’s purpose and direction becomes like a 401K, self-directed with the increased burden of trying to sort through a long list of confusing and at times conflicting choices.

Despite the demands of the middle age, by sixty most adults have successfully adopted to the tasks. They have found their version of personal stability and made significant headway in defining what they want and where they are going in the second half of life. But beneath this success is a new set of developmental currents that are beginning to surface as middle age recedes. Their arrival over the next ten years will usher in what is arguably the most difficult and magnanimous mission in life. As Bette Davis remarked, “Old age is no place for sissies.”

In my next blog, I will discuss the final mission, what it is, how it surfaces by age seventy, and its profound impact on elders and their families.