How do you measure success?

I was thinking about my grandson and the twins and the joy they experience when they first succeed at something, anything.  We were in the park and one of the twins who are three, was trying to climb up the slide, it was steep for him and he slipped back at least a dozen times, but he kept trying. Each time he almost made it to the top, slipped back, laughed and looked around. No one was watching except me, and he continued, after about the 20th attempt, he made it to the top. Turned around, looked at me, laughed and gave me a thumbs up and then slid down and then climbed back up again. This time with no failure. He had mastered the climb. It was much more exciting and faster than walking around to the stairs.

Young children don't measure success the same as some adults. Watch young children, your own or your grandkids or their friends as they try something new. They work very hard at trying to get it right, and when they do, big smiles appear, and/or high fives are given and/or applause and praise by peers given.

Watching little ones is a reminder that sometimes success is better measured in smiles received, giggles heard, and hands held than in dollars earned, deadlines met, and kilos shed.

And I must say, I've done well for myself and you can do, if you embrace the idealism of youth. 

Life of your dreams

I understand that you must wonder, sometimes to the point of bewilderment, at what you're truly capable of doing. Yet, therein lies the "problem," because living the life of your dreams is far more about what your capable of doing.

Wake up!

Wake up! Remember what excites you! Think of these things, those friends, and the adventures that can be yours! Think of the old friends who travel life’s road with you, think of the new friends you will encounter when you start the next adventure. Retirement is not meant to be a time of doing nothing. It is 30 to 40 years of new adventures, new opportunities, that only you can imagine.

Focus. As you moved through the two previous boxes of life, school, and work the boundaries of the boxes were created for you by others (unless you were a very innovative entrepreneur). The third box of life retirement allows you to create the boundaries of your own making, if only you focus on the big picture.

Care. Passion is something that all of us had at one point in our lives, we had a passion for our friends, our loves, our hobbies, or our jobs. We cared deeply about life and issues. When we retire, we need to dig deep to find that same caring and passion that we had when we were young. Age and experience can make a person jaded, so as you approach retirement, it is time to cast your mind back to when you really cared and capture that feeling again, so you can embrace life.

Fantasize. Imagine. It's all so near. Speak as if you're ready. Paste new pictures in your scrapbook, on your vision board, and around your home and office.

Physically prepare for the changes that you wish to experience in your life. Enjoy the last box of life and continue to break away from the pack. You've done this before. You know it works. You're due for an encore. It's time to amaze. That's why you're here

We Are the Sandwich Generation

My generation born between 1946 and 1970 has often been called The Baby Boomer Generation.  There have been some variations on that title including The Me Generation, The Vietnam Generation and even for the sake of a certain comedian, The Al Frankin Generation.  But the title that is most appropriate to where we are now, as we become caregivers for our children, as well as our aging parents, is “The Sandwich Generation”.

This is a painfully appropriate term because those of us in our late 40s to early 60s find ourselves with responsibilities to the two generations before and after us, both of which can be quite needy.  The result is a fair amount of stress on us as moms and dads with all the demands that raising children, teenagers or maybe the children of our children can put on adults in this new century.

At the same time, caring for aging parents can be even more stressful and hard on the Sandwich Generation from an emotional stress point of view.  The stress we realize when our parents begin to age is a new thing for us.  Making ourselves aware of the needs of newborn babies is not hard to get our arms around at all.  When everybody in the generation is having babies, there is plenty of support and help for those who are learning the quirks of what babies need.  

In addition to the great support and “parents training” classes and books, the arrival of a new baby in the house is a source of joy.  There is great hope at the arrival of a new child and taking care of our children carries with it that creative element of doing something for the future.  We see in our children our legacy so seeing them succeed and helping them overcome the difficulty is exciting as we do all we can to “launch” the next generation of our family.

But caring for aging parents carries less support and far less optimism.  While there is some joy in knowing that helping your parents live a happy and productive senior life keeps grandma and grandpa around for the children, the senior years are ones that will have only one outcome.  And as much as we do what we can to make things easy and give our aging parents the comforts and joys of the golden years, all the sugar coating in the world wont cover up the fact that at some point the end will come and we, the Sandwich Generation will have to be there every step of the way to guide them through the end in the same way we guided our new children through babyhood.

The similarities between old age and infancy have been well documented.  But it’s very hard on caregivers to go from being the ones these parents were always strong for who always took care of us to seeing that dynamic completely reverse.  To see daddy who was always the smart one, the strong one and the one you could run to get weak and old and lose his mental sharpness is hard to watch.  Now is the time when he has to turn to you.

It takes mature adults to be the sandwich generation.  But we can take joy in knowing that, in a way, we are giving back to those strong parents who never spared any expense or time for us when we were growing up.  Now when it's you that they need, they deserve no less devotion and dedication to doing all we can for them that they gave to us when we were youngsters.