Your Third Trimester and The Encore program – Who am I? What’s my purpose? What do I really want? Do I matter?….“I should have done this earlier”

We shouldn’t have to wait until we’re 65 to learn how to transform our lives.

How on earth did we end up with a society in which 65-year-olds have to take courses to figure out who they are, what they really want, and what they should do next? How did we wind up with a culture in which people’s veins pop out in their neck when they are forced to confront their inner lives?

Since the dawn of the modern age, people have been complaining about the hollowness of the rat race, but nobody ever does anything about it. If these post-professional programs can help older people figure out what a fulfilling life looks like when work and career are no longer in the center, then maybe they’ll have some lessons for the rest of us. The emergence of a cohort of people who are still vital and energetic but who are living by a different set of values, creating a different conception of the good life, might help the broader culture achieve a values reset.

Most revolutions come from the young. Is it possible that the one we need now will be driven by the old?

David Brooks

The Encore Program at Stanford