One of the books that I picked up on this interesting topic of Midlife is Susan Crandell's "Thinking about Tomorrow: Reinventing Yourself at Midlife."Reinventing?
Interesting terminology. She also uses remaking. It's a little hard for me to move beyond those words. I'm not interested in reinventing myself. Are you? What I want is to accept and love and value all of who I am. I want to clean off all the old paint and varnish so I can feel and see the beautiful surface underneath. I am tired of inventing and reinventing myself as the roles and tasks demand. That smacks of playacting to me and I am done with that stage in my life.
Well, I want to be done with it - and therein lies my own struggle.
I know her intentions are good - supporting the journey, celebrating midlife. It is as a wonderful age to find clear vision and value what is truly meaningful to each of us. And yet, for me, Crandell's language is directed towards helping professionals who have perhaps been a little to self identified with their careers find a bridge to some other life-sustaining entrepreneurial work. "We are the CEO's of our own lives, the architects of our futures."
And this is the whole premise on which she wrote her book. Okay.
Courage to make life changes comes in all sorts of packages and examples. What I do agree with is this: being happy is worth aspiring to. As far as goals go, of course, finding happiness, or living a meaningful life as we define it, is extremely complicated. I think midlife is just one of those benchmarks that reminds us we don't have forever in front of us to figure out what that means.
Yeah, what is up with "reinvention"? I hear the term all the time and wonder what that really means. "Where ever you go, there you are" is a better one for me. Learning to love the self you have and taking charge of your own journey seem like deeper more worthwhile goals.
ReplyDeleteI think you should write the book :)
ReplyDelete