The Watershed Years: Lillian’s Blessing in Disguise

“So often creativity involves a marriage between the old and the new that it takes a special talent to recognize a new synthesis taking shape, a pattern whose time has come….”
Mary Catherine Bateson
Lillian called, panicked. She had just been informed she was being let go from the large corporate insurance company where, for 19 years, she had enjoyed her work as Chief Financial Officer. She was being offered a “Golden Parachute” of salary for one year. So, still rageful about the inhuman way she was fired, Lillian decided to see if she could turn this watershed moment in her life to best advantage. She decided it was time for a big life change.
Lillian loved her women’s psychotherapy group, where she discussed the tricky balancing act of marriage, children and her demanding career. The major earner in the family, she funded their summer beach house rental, private school, and a luxurious vacation with her husband. The necessity to drive 90 minutes to work each day left her kids to care for themselves and Leila, a high school senior, had become angry and distant from Lillian, who worried that the CFO duties had permanently damaged her treasured relationship with her daughter.
By the time her group met, Lillian had begun to plan ending her corporate era and creating the balanced and relaxed life she needed. Worried about weight that had reached near obesity levels, she decided that an opportunity was cloaked in the bad news of being fired. Between 12 months of a financial safety margin and the golden parachute, she could even work for the masters in creative nonfiction writing that she had longed to do. A new business idea began to develop based on her years as a corporate financial officer: Lillian knew how many young adults entered their lives unprepared for budgeting and investing, and wanted to develop low cost programs to enable young adults to develop sound financial habits. Lacking formal writing training, she knew that Rutgers University had a low residency requirement for their creative non-fiction writing program, allowing her to be at home more. A budget update with her husband the next weekend rearranged priorities to fund her writing degree, as well as funds for a personal trainer to help regain her fitness. And, although Lillian knew she would miss the money earned in her corporate career, she knew it was more important to take her daughter on a spring vacation to reestablish bonds.
In retrospect, Lillian decided that being fired was a life-altering watershed moment in which life balance could outweigh financial goals. Her group began to agree, talking about their own watershed moments around nasty life surprises. Others had also turned them to advantage, and members began to conceptualize new beginnings around age 45 as a gift rather than a burden.
Mary Catherine Bateson, like her mentor, Erik Erikson, thinks of life as a series of stages, each bringing its own developmental challenge. She suggests that a new life stage has developed in the 20th century, based on the ability of medical science to extend longevity by three decades in industrialized nations. By increasing our vibrant life time, we have created a period of health, relative stamina and mobility before the development of chronic illness and significant slowing down. This gives us a new stage of “active wisdom”, an era of life competency in adulthood which impacts all of us in some way.
Entrance into “active wisdom” or second adulthood can be via a life watershed moment like Lillian’s. After a successful routine of child rising or a corporate career, a life moment occurs where we can, may even need to, and do decide to make a new start. Far from tired and worn down, we are vibrant and in good health, and we shift life priorities, forging a new life path between 45 and 75.
Medical science has recently enabled extension of good health into later years, extending vibrant adulthood by decades. Being 57 years old has shifted in meaning in our world. The landscape of the years between 45 and 80 has changed, necessitating that we all shed outmoded stereotypes and reconsider our assumptions about getting older. Lilian can enjoy many healthy years with the MFA she will get at age 60, thanks in part to the most rapid social change around longevity that the human species has ever gone through. Lillian and her age mates will remain healthy, active and wise, directing not only their own future, but that of their world. Will you be among them?
To consider: Can you imagine a watershed event that could catapult you into a new era? Could you embrace a new future as Lillian has? Would you want to try?
To Read: Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing A Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom. 2010. New York: Knopf.
Judith Coche, PhD works with Active Wisdom at The Coche Center, LLC, and a Practice in Clinical Psychology. Find her at www.cochecenter.com