James Smith’s Info Serv

Author: krishankant

Go against the grain!

When you arrive at 50, those around you will expect you to slow down and retire. They will ask what you are planning to do when you stop working. The marketing messages you see are pushing youth and beauty and the pursuit of material goods. You suddenly realize you don’t have an answer or a plan for what you will do. So instead you work harder, but it’s the same career you’ve been working in for many years—and you never really enjoyed it in the first place.

This is when you realize that you don’t have the energy or passion for THIS work any longer!

What can you do?

This is the hard part. Your friends and family have come to expect nothing different from you. You have defined yourself by your work. This is the image you project to others. Your work has paid the bills over the years, provided for a few fun material goods, and your family never complained.

But inside you, something—suddenly—is seriously wrong. You know and you feel it.

I am going to die soon if I continue this work…

At least that’s how it feels. You feel trapped, bored, and worse—empty of purpose or passion. You read stories about—and admire—others at 50 who have given up their banking and teaching jobs to suddenly move to an outpost in South America, or open an orphanage in Africa.
You wish you had the courage to follow your own passion, or at least figure out what it is.
Crises all around you
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How do you define your work?

Do you look to your work to define meaning and joy or just to collect a paycheck? Each carries a different result. Those who seek meaning and joy in their work tend to choose carefully what they do; they know what they do helps determine who they are. For others who work just for the money, there is little expectation of meaning or joyjust as long as the paycheck rolls in.

Career vs. vocational passion

In my work, I am often asked, What is the difference between Career and Vocational Passion?
Jobs are just an exchange of services for money.
Careers are the same but with a better title.

Sadly, for many people, jobs=careers=retirement=death.

Can you avoid death?
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by: Barbara Morris, R.Ph.

I recently asked my newsletter subscribers “What kind of help do you need but are not finding in your quest to put old on hold”. One respondent replied, “How to stay young forever.”

Facetious answer? Doesn’t matter. Let’s be honest. Every woman (and probably every man) would like to stay young forever. While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, most would agree that a dry, wrinkled, debilitated face and body is not appealing.

Women want to avoid becoming invisible. Men don’t look at an old or older woman, they look beyond her for something more visually appealing. Older women miss being looked at; that’s why they work so hard to stay attractive.

But not to worry — you can stay young forever.
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I often hear people make remarks such as, “My mind isn’t what it used to be.” It sounds harmless, but if you make remarks like that often enough you will come to believe them.

Two analogies are applicable. First, our minds are like muscles-use them and they grow strong; don’t exercise them and they wither. Second, our minds are like computers. As we age we develop a rich collection of programs (software), which we hopefully update with experience and new information. We acquire a rich repertoire of data. And alas our processing speed (megahertz) becomes a little slower. A computer with excellent software does things better and faster than a computer with mediocre software. For example, an older, skilled bridge player runs circles around someone who has only been playing for a few years.

If you are inclined to make a remark like “I just can’t remember things very well anymore,” be kind to yourself and remember that you have much larger, richer data files to search than a younger person has. So it may take a little longer. Part of the difficulty in remembering something might be that you now have a lot more information to search. Often if you trust and instruct your mind to continue searching for the information, it comes to you later in the day. That is a good indication that your mind is still sharp. Ask yourself, would I really want to trade a computer with a wealth of programs and data for a computer that had a faster speed but few programs and little data?
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I recently asked my newsletter subscribers “What kind of help do you need but are not finding in your quest to put old on hold”. One respondent replied, “How to stay young forever.”

Facetious answer? Doesn’t matter. Let’s be honest. Every woman (and probably every man) would like to stay young forever. While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, most would agree that a dry, wrinkled, debilitated face and body is not appealing.

Women want to avoid becoming invisible. Men don’t look at an old or older woman, they look beyond her for something more visually appealing. Older women miss being looked at; that’s why they work so hard to stay attractive.
Read the rest of this entry »