The New Retirementality, Fifth Edition

CHAPTER 2Removing Artificial Finish Lines

While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot feel old, no matter what his years may be.

—Amos Alcott

Mapmakers in medieval times faced a problem. They were given the job of charting the continent but were not exactly well-traveled themselves. So when they came to a border they had not crossed, they drew fire-breathing dragons facing their own country's boundaries. These maps, when viewed by the common masses, caused people to believe that if they crossed the border, they would be consumed by these infernal beasts. Needless to say, this limited travel and adventure. Many people, when challenged to try new things, to go to new places, or to try doing things in a different way, simply refuse. When asked, “Why?” they simply respond, “I'm too old”—it's as though they've been looking at aging maps with dragons.

Lydia Bronte wrote The Longevity Factor over 25 years ago (HarperCollins, 1993), but her conclusions sound prophetic and eerily familiar, considering what we are witnessing even more frequently today. In her observations of a long careers study, she wrote:

What emerges from their life stories is a view of the long life- time different from what we might expect: an affirmation of the increasing richness of experience over time, of a deeper sense of identity, of a greater self-confidence and creative potential that can grow rather than diminish with maturity. It is obvious that seen through the eyes of the study participants, ...