One of my favorite authors, Richard Leider, is coming out with a new book, Something to Live For:  Finding Your Way in the Second Half of Life, and I wanted to give everyone a heads up.  As a coach, I've been influenced a lot by Richard's thinking on purposeful living, and his books are featured prominently in the "recommended reading" section of my blog, Project Creative Vision. Needless to say, I'm eagerly anticipating the new book as well.

At a recent conference call about the book launch, Richard talked about how this book is taking his ideas about life purpose to a whole new, more spiritual level. 

The book is addressed specifically to the baby-boomer generation - those who are now facing the prospect of having another 30 productive years of life but no roadmap for how to live these years happily and productively.

Knowing Richard's other books, though, I'm sure that there'll be plenty of useful and thought-provoking material for everyone.   After all, don't we all want to be ahead of the aging curve?  In this society we talk a lot about the financial aspects of retiring and how we need to start preparing  for it early.  An entire industry has grown up around helping us save for retirement.  But what about the psychological and spiritual dimensions?  Much as with money, the earlier we begin to prepare for that transition in that regard, the higher the chances that it will be a smooth and positive one.

Richard's book is about challenging the society's concept of aging and starting a more positive, more hopeful conversation about growing older.  And the timing of it couldn't be better.  Our current cultural conversation about aging is one of fear and loss.  We view aging as a time of loss - loss of attractiveness, loss of health, loss of strength, loss of relevance.   

So how can we get rid of these beliefs that no longer serve us and make this a conversation about gain?  Because there are plenty of things we gain with age - including wisdom, insight, perspective.  The reason we forget this is that in this society we are accustomed to segregating our old into retirement communities and nursing homes.  Without older people's presence in our immediate lives, we don't get the benefit of all those things and deprive the older person from the opportunity to express these all-important qualities.  We also forget just how much we all need that.

I was reminded of it a week ago, when I visited my Russian family in Brooklyn.  We were celebrating my aunt's 50th birthday, and I was sitting next to the mother of my aunt's husband's.  (I don't even know what that relationship is called in English.)  As I sat there listening to her soothing voice, feeling her soft warm hand touch my arm, and taking in her kind words, I was reminded of how long it's been since I've had an older person in my life.  My own grandparents have now passed on, and even before their deaths it had been years since I'd seen them.  (When we'd moved to the U.S., they stayed behind in Russia.)  Listening to grandma Musya, I realized how much I missed the kindness and the wisdom of that older person's presence in my life. 

In his previous books, Richard talked about a new paradigm of aging - one where the older person claims her or his place by the fire as the respected elder of yesteryear.  I really welcome this model.

Much of Richard's thinking about positive aging centers around the question of purpose.  During the call he talked about the 3Ms of aging:  Money, Medicine, and Meaning.  These are the three key issues that someone growing older faces, and the third M is no less important that the first and second.  Because once we have enough money and enough health, we need a reason to live, and this is particularly pronounced in an older age.  People who have a reason to wake up in the morning - who have a strong sense of purpose - live longer and happier lives than those who don't, which is why Richard calls purpose a medicine of its own.

If you'd like to get a taste for Richard's writings, take a look at his latest On Purpose Journal.  It's free, and it will give you an idea as to whether or not you'd like to get any of his books.

Richard will also be teaching a workshop, Heeding Your Call in Midlife and Beyond, this week at the Crossroads Center in Chicago. I will be attending it and hope that those of you living in Chicago might be able to join as well. He will be teaching the workshop with Richard Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute?, which, to me, is a massive icing on the cake.

If you can't attend though, stay tuned: I'll be reporting on the workshop both in this space and over at Project Creative Vision.

What are your thoughts on the importance of creating a purposeful life in retirement? Please chime in.