The Final Third

My mum used to talk about life being in quarters. Twenty-five-year chunks. 

The first 25 years are, essentially, childhood. Then raising a family. Then the empty nest and personal growth. And then slowing down. This is all based on the optimistic idea of a 100-year-ish life.

To be fair, my mum's model wasn't all decline.

That third quarter was meant to be a good one. More freedom. More time. A chance to focus on yourself again after decades of looking after everyone else.

But there was still an assumption underneath it all: eventually there comes a point where the important work is done. A time when the future gets smaller, and the past gets bigger; where possibility gives way to nostalgia. You're officially winding down.

Making it to 75 in one piece was good. The last 25 were a bonus, so the goals and ambition slowed down a bit. “The best is behind me now. Now I’ll just live off of memories and nostalgia” sort of thinking takes over for the final stretch.

My mum’s 87 now. Her body is fine, but her mind is going. She’s 100% living on nostalgia. The memory seems strongest for the first 25-year-chunk. Fond memories of Sundays at the beach with her brother and parents. A bit shakier when it comes to recalling the Sunday night pizza ritual of my entire childhood. She recently asked me if I ever visited her family on a Sunday night. Yikes.

I sometimes wonder whether the way we think about aging changes how we experience it.

What if we thought of life in thirds, not quarters? Maybe this thinking is a function of the expectation of a longer life and the reality of kids not leaving home and getting on with their own lives until a bit later than they used to. 

The first third is becoming. Learning who you are before life starts making demands.

The second third is building. Careers. Families. Businesses. Responsibilities. A life.

And the final third — The children leave. The career winds down. The calendar starts looking different.

Let's call this reimagining.

It might involve having more money freedom than you’ve ever had. Or it might involve being in a small panic about how you’re going to manage financially until the end of your days. 

Some people are counting down the days to get here. Some people are dreading them. And some people just arrive without much fanfare.

However you arrive here, it's hard not to start taking stock. It's a time for reflection.

It's funny. When we're 30, the next 30 years feels endless and full of possibility.

We can do anything. Build the career. Chase the dream. Start over if we need to. Oodles of time.

We're not even thinking of time. We're thinking only of possibilities.

But at 60?

The same 30 years feel so very different. Our awareness of the clock is different.

We think about the things we haven't done. The risks we didn't take. The opportunities we missed. The years that disappeared. Poof. Gone.

Thirty years starts to feel less like possibility and more like limitation. Or panic.

I had a dream recently where I just kept yelling, "There's not enough time. There's not enough time."

I woke up convinced it was true. And I couldn't stop thinking about it.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I might be wrong.

There may be less time than I'd like. Yes, a thousand percent true!

But there's still plenty of time. There is enough time.

Time to learn something new.

Time to build something.

Time to change direction.

Time to revisit old dreams.

Time to remember who I was before life got busy.

Time to reconnect to the parts of myself that were put on pause during that second third.

Time to explore who I might become next.

There's time.

That's true at 30.

And it's true at 60.

Thirty years feels very different depending on whether you're looking forward or looking back.

If this article has you thinking about your own next chapter, the free Who Am I Snapshot is five questions to help you pause, reflect, and see where you are before deciding where you want to go. Download it here.