45 to 65 years: The Crucial Crossroads
So you’re moving into your ‘older years’, a pivotal time of life for you.
And you’re not alone. I too am paddling in that very same pond, maybe a bit ahead of, or a little behind you… And, of course, there's another million-and-one other Boomers and/or GenX's doggie-paddling around you, holding on for dear life.
Because, you know (and I know), it's about that time, when folks begin 'holding on', ‘just surviving’.
Grudgingly moving down that slope. Surviving. Instead of thriving.
Now, do tell me: Do you consider yourself to be adventurous: like, do you love, “doing things?
I know, I definitely do. I just can’t sit still. All day long, I’m fixing things, uprooting the garden (!), moving things around, working on a sculpture or fiddling with machinery: I’ve always got to be doing… “stuff”.
So perhaps you, like me, will agree that Disability Sucks*:
Waiting for others to do things for you.
To bring you a snack or a drink, to give you a shower, to roll you out in the morning “to catch some sun”, and roll you back into bed at sundown.
(And that's me, painting a really kind, kind picture of a sad sad time.)
Disability truly is the pits.
Note, though: Disability is not the automatic result of “Getting Older”. For the most part, and shockingly to many of us, disability in the older years is a choice each one of us makes.
You may have noticed too:
The older years can be the most dis-empowering years of our lives, hands down: Ill health, disability, isolation, loneliness, depression, all combined with a low inner drive.
Too often, a loss of our value to society, as we slide down to a dark place where we truly lose respect for ourselves.
While we continue to cling on to dear life.
Look: On average, you’ve got 30, 40, maybe 50 years ahead of you… but the important question is: How do you want to spend those 40, 50 years?
Sitting in a motorized chair, watching reruns of Days of our Lives?
Or do you want to be bursting with life, wallowing in the stuff you absolutely love doing?
At the cost of sounding boring, let me repeat:
Disability is not the automatic result of “Getting Older”. Disability in the older years is a choice each one of us makes.
Right now, want it or hate it, you’re at a fork in the road. You are making a choice:
A. To grow, to evolve, to be a powerful, fun-filled version of yourself: to move yourself up to a higher, much better version of you.
Or
B. to be disabled, incapable, dependent, to shrink down to a far inferior version of the You that you are today.
You are doing the choosing about the Quality of the years, the decades ahead of you, like it, or not.
You can choose to grow wiser, to become more aware of the pitfalls of the road ahead, and you can gear up, become an Empowered, uplifted Version 2 of you. (That’s the smart road, BTW).
Or
you can choose to ignore the changes that you can already see taking a hold of you.
You can choose to ignore the perils of the road ahead, choose not to gear up for the journey, and therefore, choose to suffer the consequences, possibly for decades.
It’s a choice, a decision you need to make:
Whether you want to continue to live life at this level down here, where you continue to slide further down that slippery slope of disability & dis-empowerment, or do you want to empower yourself, moving closer to that very best version of you.
Though it’s a challenge, it’s your opportunity, too, because the tools are available to help you.
The greased glass slope
Importantly, you need to understand that “staying where you are” is impossible: You cannot just ‘hang on’ there. That is a dangerous delusion.
Life, especially during these later years, is a greased glass slope: you can’t cling to any one spot.
It’s either downward or upward.
And the older you are, the harder it gets to lift your game.
And as you age "by default", in that default- "do-nothing that 90% of my demographic are not doing" way, it gets harder to lift your game (to the "opportunity" area).
(Because you are heading for - or already crossing - that Disability Threshold.)
That means, you can’t wait for tomorrow.
You shouldn’t wait for tomorrow.
Time waits for nobody
Tomorrow you’re going to be older — the time to lift yourself is now.
It’s going to be harder to begin tomorrow. And even harder the day after, the month after that, and a year after: so much much harder, (and I hate to say this) edging on the impossible as more time passes.
But that’s why you have been placed here in this Universe: To find the power that’s hidden, somewhere inside you. The power you know that exists within you, that every one of us human beings has inside.
Find that ember within you.
It’s a little ember that’s waiting for you to blow on it, gently at first, until it bursts into flame, then (as you continue to feed it,) grows into a raging furnace that warms the hearts and minds of everyone who ventures near.
That’s You, even as you grow older.
You: An inspiring, powerful human being, continually becoming more: an unstoppable you, that all those around look up to, admire, and talk about in hushed whispers. An incredible, amazing you.
At groeVolve.com, our very raison d’etre is about helping the late 40s - late 60s become that Version2 of themselves. Before it gets put into the “too hard” bucket.
Through our custom-built tools, education and community we put you on the road to a dynamic, empowered You.
Of course, you can choose to do nothing: to keep doing the things you are doing.
It's a choice that you make, whether you deliberately “choose to”, or not. Or if you decide to delude yourself that you can ‘hang in there’.
So, choose wisely, my friend. Choose wisely.
*Excusez mon Français!
Do you want to go to the next level?
Sign up for my (sometimes) free QuickStart: get the MindSet, Systems and Tools that will lift you from where you are, up to better.
Want to know where you’re at right now? If you’re “good enough” for the coming 02, 30, 40 years ahead? (After all, forewarned is forearmed). Find out here at the 7moves.
Mel Drego is the founder and creator of groeVolve.com, dedicated to helping you grow, to evolve upwards, to reclaim your Power in the second half of your life, and ‘become. unstoppable.’ through appropriate education, tools & systems and importantly, the support of community. Join the Tribe today.
Images courtesy of Pexels.com : Fork in the Road photo a composite of photos by James Wheeler and Athena from Pexels, Snapwire from Pexels, and -Johannes-Plenio (also from Pexels)
