Longings II

A shadow, or even a vivid memory, of that youthful ambition travels with us down our years, but it often is obscured, forgotten, denied or delayed for a multitude of good reasons. In the best of cases we want to take the youthful ambition and channel it through some kind of training or experience so that it can "carry" us through life--through a career. So, if a person wants to become a cop, he or she goes through school and the police academy, learns the "ropes," and then becomes a sworn officer. It is usually much more complicated than that--but that is the nature of a career "path."

But much more often other things obtrude. Relationships are one culprit. In the best of worlds a good husband or wife becomes the conduit through which one's ambitions are stoked, refined and realized, but I would say that upwards of 75% of intimate relationships don't have this. A good half of intimate relationships or marriages end in divorce, and I would say that in half of the remaining relationships (i.e., those that "stick"), the partnership between two people doesn't really bring out the best in both. Then, there are issues with finances, which means that people have to focus long hours just on getting enough to make sure that there is food to eat and mone for the rent. When children come along, one has other focuses--delightful as they are--but they often don't relate much to that original vision or ambition that fueled the youth's heart. Thus, by the time one is 35, much of that earlier vision is lost or so obscured by life that it is as good as being lost.

Yet this is certainly not the case for everyone. Many people, as mentioned (10% is my estimate), seem to be able to integrate the various changes in life in a rather seamless pattern so that every new challenge or change in life is received somewhat as a gift, as a force that shapes one towards one's destiny. I think, however, that it is much more common to have the cares of life swallow up a person's original ambition. If that ambition was weak to begin with, the middle-aged person becomes confused and muddled. If the ambition was moderately-strong, the person is probably energetically pursuing life and looking for ways to make connections between ambition and life. But if that ambition burned very brightly as a young person, the cares of middle age can often drive one to depression, substance abuse, unpredictable living and even suicide. These follow because the person feels so alienated from the core of his/her being and so unable to restore or reach or even explore what that core is, that life appears as a cruel story or oppressive force. Cicero may have talked about the "steady purpose of middle age," and that may have worked for him and others, but far more frequent are the examples of people who gradually feel that they are losing themselves in the vast expanses of the middle years.

Stage Three: Rekindling the Ambition

By the time many people reach 50, their life is all but over. They have punished their bodies, abused or not cultivated their minds, not been fulfilled in work, broken relationships, have few friends in life, have limited experience or knowledge of the world and, in fact, are ready to call it quits. They may not admit this despair to their friends or family members, but many feel this. Even among those who have been rather successful in navigating the early-middle days of life, crises of meaning and which direction to head in the future are frequent. Dante may have said, paraphrasing words from Isaiah, that "in the middle of my days I approach the gates of hell" (he was referring to himself at age 35), but with our longevity today many people feel this emptiness or fear in their 50s. Increasingly, too, I am running into people who made poor financial decisions in life when things were a bit rosier in the national economy and now find themselves without resources, with declining energy and growing cycnicism about the world.

The only consolation I can give is that this time, after 50, after many years of losing the vision of one's youth, is the time to recapture and love the youth that you were 30 or more years ago. I don't mean that guys should go out and buy a Porsche, though this is what many want to do. I mean that the time after your "soldier" time or even after your "judge" time, to quote Shakespeare, is precisely the time when life can open with some of its richest flowers. You will realize that the lessons learned in the intervening years (20-50, in general) will help you focus your rather inchoate ambition as a youth so that you, finally, will have time and a direction for the remainder of your days. Just as physicians and researchers tell us that the bodily system, in general, can be regenerated if you stop smoking, begin to exercise and care for your nutrition, so I am telling you that your early ambition can not only be re-kindled, but also focused and realized if you take special care to its cultivation in your after 50 days. Thus, in my way of looking at things, the time "after 50" can be the time of deepest discovery, most meaningful human connection, richest insight, most satisfying understanding and most fruitful living.

Conclusion-- A Personal Word

Ever since I left my last formal "job" at the end of 2006, I have been "on my own." This means that I still need to earn money, and so I have managed to find a few clients to pay me to do some work for them. But I left my work/job in an office environment because I felt deeply that the "Bill" of 1970, give or take a few years, needed rediscovering and cultivating. When I began to rediscover myself and my loves, and combined it with 35 intervening years of fighting battles, raising children, exploring careers and learning about the world, I began to see how a new focus developed in life. My early ambition, to have something to do with "truth," now was supplemented by a quest to track down all knowledge, explain it clearly, and devise a system of the next generation of learning so that we can become a "learning-oriented" culture. Of course there is always party time, and I, for one, don't want to miss those! But now it is knowledge, and identifying, organizing, learning, storing, recalling, using, "humorfying," and using it to build bridges between people, understand the world, forge deeper relationships, expose fraudulent people and dealings, teach younger and more inexperienced people, and in general, feel more comfortable with both understanding and explaining the world around us. Now my quest is clear--in the third stage of my life. I am so grateful for it, and for the ability and time to claim that youthful ambition now with focus and energy and time.

I hope this, or something similar to this, will be your experience.

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