Maybe We're All In This Together
What is our role as the "inflection" generation?
Today, I’d like to bounce something off you… get your opinion. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. What happens, in a larger, societal sense as we all live the life of the Rockin’ Third Act? If we want jobs and opportunities to continue to learn, where do those come from? Not everyone is going to do what we are with diet and exercise, so where does all of the additional healthcare come from? How does an extra 10 or more years more than our parents had and 30 more years than the designers of social security had get funded? In short, how do we continue to live the Rockin’ Life when nobody has done that before? We’re the first generation to think about this stuff.
They’re on to something
Here’s a nice thought: our kids help us. But not in the way you think. I’m not saying they open their homes and pocketbooks. No, no. None of that. I’m saying they are on to something with the whole “I don’t want to work 80 hours a week and never see my family” thing. They want a more even keel, balanced life and they’re starting to find it through gig jobs, piloting 4 day workweeks, valuing diversified resumes and continuous learning and even taking “sabbaticals” or time off when they are moving between jobs and stuff like that. We (the “wiser” generation) had a tendency to think of it as lazy or unfocused when I was still working, but now I think it’s kind of genius. The older generation can start to take advantage of that infrastructure they’ve started and we can expand it for us. The work just gets spread out. Instead of 60 hours a week for 30 years and zero hours for 30, how about 30 hours a week for 60 years (or a more even ramp down)? And, instead of learning one thing really well and getting burned out after doing it for decades, you can continuously learn and evolve your career - grabbing a gig here and then one over there. And you can take time off when you need time off instead of holding all of those dream vacations until you’re too old to enjoy them. Instead of disdain for these kids and their slower “lazier” lives, the way I see it we should be helping them as they are, as it turns out, helping us.
Some are sitting up and taking notice
Why have I chosen to write about this now? Like I said, I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Well, I read a neat article and I hesitate to say, maybe Stanford is starting to think this way, too. In the article in Prevention Magazine, a longevity expert had this to say: “A 100-year-long life may soon be common, but our society isn’t set up for it. The social institutions, economic policies, and social norms that evolved when people lived for half as long are no longer up to the task. The resulting narrative around an ‘aging society’ seems to convey only a crisis, ignoring obvious opportunities to redesign those institutions, practices, and norms and bring them into sync with the health, social, and financial needs of 100-year lives.” Yep. That’s what I’m sayin.’ She then introduced me to the “New Map of Life” that the Stanford Center on Longevity published. In it, they talk about the need for new ways of thinking about work and learning and earning that are needed (and that don’t yet exist) if the population is going to be living nearly twice as long as it did when most of the institutions to support aging were set up. They even talk about setting up communities differently. (The Blue Zones talks about that, too, and there are some experimental communities out there that are giving this a try. Communities like Seaside Florida that are specifically designed to bring the community together, built around commons where you can mostly walk everywhere. Sacramento even got federal funding to help make it a ‘walkable’ city.)
Let’s row together
I’m glad we’re talking about this more as a society. Stanford is certainly a big voice, which will help. What I think they are still missing is that our kids want the same thing and they’re starting to make it happen. Not the community thing, yet, but the work and learning piece of it. If all these generations want the same thing, we should be able to make the institutions work for everybody. But we need to get lines of communication open so we all know we all want the same thing. The whole “lazy generation” and “OK, Boomer” is NOT helping. I think we’re all in the same boat and we should all start to figure out how to row together.
All of this could be completely wrong
That’s my take, but it isn’t a very well researched or reported field, yet. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe it never will be. I’m interested to understand what your opinion on this. I truly am! Am I on the right track? Am I smoking something? Are our kids just being selfish and am I making an excuse for them? Is it truly our right to sit and let the next generation take the reigns? Maybe we don’t want to be this “inflection” generation that helps set up new institutions and new infrastructure - after all, we were the generation that just worked 60+ hours a week and raised a family and brought everyone into the digital age at the same time (whew!) and it’s a LOT of work to rejigger a society. Maybe that’s not our job.
What do you think? Tell me in the comments or reply to this email.