…that the “Game of Life” was a one-tank journey—we fuel up with one tank of gas in our “learn” period and burn most of our old school fuel in the “earn” period.
But today, in an age when we’re going to live longer, power is moving younger, and the world is changing faster, many of us are running on fumes. Longer, younger, faster: it’s part of why we’re confused and bewildered at how to approach life. We’re in desperate need of a midlife pit-stop, like the kind we’re offering at the Modern Elder Academy, one in which we can figure out how to re-charge and re-purpose (I believe life is at least a two-tank journey, although your mileage may vary).
750 years ago, the Sufi poet Rumi wrote, “My life may be summed up in three phases. I was raw. I became cooked. Then I burned.” Digital life has accelerated our cooking time. Maybe it’s now, “Raw, cooked, burned…Repeat!”
How can you create a pit-stop that can turn you from “bewilder” to “Be-Wilder!”? What will make you “raw” again? Perhaps you could take a radical sabbatical, a gap year, or even just a weekend purely dedicated to renewing yourself and imagining, as poet Mary Oliver asked, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”