Life after 80?

I recently realized that I have been retired for almost 20 years. I retired at 60 and am now approaching my 80^th year. I plan to be around for at least another few years. 

I am not in the minority. In modern society, people are still acting like life wraps up at 60 or 70 yet we're now living well into our 90s and beyond. This disconnect between how we live and how we think about aging is one of the most significant societal misalignments of our time. Retirement, healthcare, employment, and even personal identity are still being structured around outdated assumptions rooted in the 20th century. This mental model assumes a brief window between retirement and death, but today, that “retirement phase” can span 25 to 35 years ,  nearly a third of a person’s life.

If society fails to adjust to this new reality, retirees may face isolation, inadequate income, and identity crises. Businesses might lose valuable workers prematurely. Health care systems may be strained by avoidable chronic illnesses. Pension systems may become unsustainable. And workers in their 40s and 50s ,  who are likely to live to 90+ ,  may be preparing for a retirement based on faulty timelines and expectations.

We need a new narrative: one that views aging not as a decline but as an evolving stage of life with value, productivity, creativity, and continued contribution. Thus, my writing to help people think about a new narrative. Over the next two weeks I will be exploring the idea that many of us are planning for a life that no longer exits. Have fun with me as I explore rethinking life after 60 in fourteen posts.

This I have learned

This I have learned over the years; a central “Principle of Awareness” within the human experience is this quiet truth: you will never have all you want. Not because you're ungrateful or lacking, but because you are designed for expansion. You dream beyond the horizon.

As one longing is fulfilled, another forms, sometimes before you’ve even celebrated the first. Desire is not a flaw in the system; it is the system. It's how we grow, evolve, and reach toward the next shimmering thread in the fabric of our becoming. Wanting more is not greed, it’s how hope speaks.

As we age, the trick is not to numb your wanting or pretend you're done yearning. The trick is to find joy anyway,to recognize the miracle of wanting and still dance in the not-yet.

In these turbulent times we need to find and defend joy. The first and most brilliant Principle of Joy is can you smile while becoming?

To defend joy, then, is a kind of sacred rebellion. You must defend it not because it is weak, but because it is priceless.

Defend joy as a certainty, not as a fleeting reward.
Defend it from corruption, from the slow corrosion of waiting too long.
From smut, from the vulgar exploitation of feelings.
From the famous patina of time, that tells you wonder only belongs to the young.
From dew, from the illusion that joy is too delicate for a weathered heart.
From pimps of laughter, who sell spectacle but never deliver soul.

Defend joy as a right.
Not the right to always feel happy, but the right to feel whole.
To seek light even when the world spins in shadow.
To greet the morning with cracked hands and say, Still, I rise joyful.

And when you truly claim joy, not as outcome but as origin,
You won’t have to explain it.
People will see it in the way you move,
The way you listen,
The way you keep choosing to love this unfinished life.

Defining Joy

Joy is not the end of wanting,
But the breath you take in between.
Not the trophy on the mountain,
But the hush behind the dream.

It wears no armor, but it holds,
Through soot, time, and wear.
Joy sings in rain, it hums in cracks,
It thrives on tender care.

So, nail it to your soul,
Let no one take its spark
And walk as though your very steps
Are lighting up the dark.

Reflection: The Power of Hunches, Instincts, and Intuition

In a world that often prizes careful analysis, strategic planning, and long-term forecasting, we sometimes undervalue our hunches, those quiet nudges, inner whispers, and gut feelings that seem to rise up out of nowhere. As seniors we need to value our hunches and act on them.

But here's the truth: hunches, instincts, and intuition are priceless because they do something remarkable, they get us moving.

They may not come with full clarity. They might not always be “right” in the logical sense. But they stir us. They disrupt inertia. They light the match when our plans are still soaking in hesitation.

While reason tells us to wait, intuition dares us to leap.

And it’s often in the act of following that hunch, taking that uncertain first step, that the path begins to reveal itself.

The Quiet Corner Table

Maya had always played it safe. A reliable job, a tidy apartment, and weekends that rarely strayed from her routine. Life was calm, predictable, and, though she hated to admit it, just a little too quiet.

One Thursday afternoon, on her way home from work, she passed a tiny café tucked between a dry cleaner and a dentist’s office. It wasn’t new, but she’d never noticed it before. There was nothing remarkable about the sign. No big crowd. Just a soft glow from the window and a chalkboard out front that read, “Good ideas brew here.”

She almost walked past.

But something made her stop. A flicker of curiosity. A hunch. A feeling that had no logic behind it, just an inexplicable pull.

“Why not?” she thought, and stepped inside.

The café was small and warm, with mismatched chairs and the smell of cinnamon and ink in the air. In the back corner sat a man with a typewriter, a typewriter, of all things, typing and tearing off pages and pinning them to a board that said, “Stories Left Behind.”

Maya ordered tea and took a seat near the board. One page caught her eye. It was a short piece about a girl who dreamt of becoming a storyteller but never found the courage to begin. The last line read: “She always had the words. She just didn’t know they were already waiting inside her.”

Maya blinked. She had notebooks at home, full of ideas she never pursued. She’d told herself for years she wasn’t “creative enough” to write. But now something stirred, something bold, irrational, and alive.

The man with the typewriter noticed her staring. “You write?”

“I used to,” she said. “Kind of.”

He smiled and nodded toward an empty page. “Want to leave a story behind?”

She sat down, heart pounding, and began to write, not because she had a plan, but because something deep inside whispered, Now. Her hand moved faster than her thoughts. She wrote a few lines, then a paragraph. She smiled. It wasn’t brilliant, but it was hers. And for the first time in years, she felt a spark.

She returned to that café every week after that, filling pages, finding her rhythm. Months later, she submitted a short story to a local magazine. They published it. That small yes turned into a dozen more.

And to think, it all began because she listened to a hunch and walked into a café she almost missed.

Final Thought

Hunches don’t always explain themselves. They rarely arrive with a full roadmap. But they have an urgency that logic often lacks they push us toward action.

And action, even small, uncertain action, is how we find the places we’re meant to be, the people we’re meant to meet, and the parts of ourselves we didn’t know were waiting to be awakened.

So next time your heart tugs you toward something that doesn’t make sense, but somehow feels right, go. That hunch may be the first step toward something extraordinary.

 

Reflection: The Bridge Between Dreams and Deeds

Dreams are boundless. I often sit under the stars and imagine soaring through them. At one point I dreamed of changing the world, of writing a masterpiece, of building something timeless, of making a difference. Our capacity to dream is truly infinite, it is, in many ways, the most divine thing about us.

But dreams alone don’t build bridges, save lives, raise children, or mend broken systems. What does? Repetition. Humble effort. Boring routine. The not-so-glamorous work of showing up every day and doing the small, often invisible, often unglamorous things.

What makes the dream real is the accumulation of daily effort, often dressed in the drudgery of ordinary tasks, returning calls, rewriting a paragraph, showing up to the meeting, washing the paintbrush, restocking the shelf, setting the alarm for another early morning.

The tragedy is that some people stop dreaming. But the other tragedy is that others dream and wait for something grand enough to match the dream before they act.

The truth is, great things are built on small, finite steps, and often, they look nothing like the dream until much later.

The Sculptor and the Clay

There once was a man named Elias who dreamed of carving the most beautiful sculpture his village had ever seen. As a child, he visited the town square every day and admired the statue of the founder, weathered and noble. He promised himself that one day, he too would leave behind something that would inspire generations.

Elias trained with master sculptors. He studied anatomy, light, form, and shadow. He filled sketchbooks with grand designs, figures with wings, mythic beasts, heroes holding up the sky. But every time he stood before a blank block of stone, chisel in hand, he froze.

“This piece is too small,” he’d say. “This isn’t the one. My great work needs the perfect block, the perfect space, the right inspiration.”

And so, he waited.

He grew older. His hands became stronger, his sketches more detailed, but still, he waited for something worthy of his dream.

One day, while walking past the village workshop, he noticed an old woman hunched over a slab of clay. She pressed and shaped, pressed and shaped. It was nothing special, a simple clay bird. A child’s toy, perhaps.

He asked, “Why spend your time on something so small, so… unimportant?”

She smiled. “Because every great thing I’ve ever made started small. And every small thing I made taught me how to shape something greater.”

Years passed. Elias, now grey-bearded and still waiting for “the one,” finally sat down before a block of stone, a rough piece left behind by another artist. It was chipped. Uneven. Imperfect. He sighed, picked up his chisel, and began to carve.

It was hard. Clumsy. Frustrating. He doubted himself with every stroke. But he kept going. Day after day. He chipped away, sometimes feeling foolish.

Months later, the townspeople gathered in the square, marveling at a new sculpture, not heroic or mythic, but deeply human. A small child reaching upward toward the sky, eyes full of wonder.

They called it The Dreamer.

And Elias, now weary and content, whispered to no one in particular, “It was never about the stone. It was about the chisel. And the days I finally picked it up.”

The dream gives us vision. But the small, silly, mortal tasks, those are the roots. The quiet, messy, humble work is what lifts the dream off the ground. If we are willing to do what feels too small, too repetitive, or too mundane, we might just end up creating something truly great.

Even the stars had to start as dust.