Chalk this up to my “shoulder season”. I am on a learning journey to discover how to be a modern elder and understand what I am called to do in this ACT III of my life. After all, there are more years behind me than in front.
Are you there too? I will NOT go “quietly into the good night”. I’m reading books, attending classes, writing, journaling and storyboarding. In due time, I’ll craft a conversation for those of you who wish to join. We’ll be a cohort of companions—being both teachers and students for each other. Chip Conley, author of Wisdom@Work gave us a word” “mentern”. We will be both mentors and interns.
Consider the words of Martin Buber: “Elders become advocates for the young but they’re rewarded in return. The teacher helps the disciples find themselves and in hours of desolation, the disciples help their teacher find himself again.”
As I discover more, I will share more. Right now, my task is to turn fear into curiosity. I challenge myself to do AT LEAST one thing I have never done before each month. And there is so much: from doing a Neighbor-to-Neighbor outreach for the elections to singing two of my song parodies before an audience.
Consider the words of William Maxwell in his book, “The Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner”
“I found one remedy and that is to undertake something difficult, something new to re-root myself in my own true faculties… for in such moments, life is not just a thing one wears, it is a thing that one does and is.”
If you are interested in joining me in the Act III conversations e-mail me at eileen@eileenmcdargh.com.