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Second Acts that Change Lives
Making a Difference in the World
Chapter 1: Wake Up! Life's Half Over!
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What do I need to do to make a difference?
Have you forgotten to ask yourself the one big question: What should I do with my life? For most people, it’s a very difficult one to answer. But, now, here you are, at midlife, and suddenly you realize that you have never fully answered this question. You’re not living the life of your dreams. In fact, you are desperately seeking inspiration to pursue your dreams and the impact you are meant to have on the world!
All of a sudden, you realize that you have spent the first half of your life concentrating on what you do, instead of focusing on what kind of person you want to be, what kind of person you can be, and how the kind of person you are will change the world, or at least will make a difference in your own life and the lives of others.
Here are some clues that it is time to make a change. Does the thought of spending the next twenty years living the way you are now make you want to crawl back under the covers? Maybe your life is stable, secure, relatively successful,
but when people ask you how you are doing, you answer, “I’m not unhappy.” Hearing yourself, you discover that not unhappy is becoming increasingly unacceptable.
Or, maybe you’ve come to the point where your children are getting more independent, and you realize that having them and raising them to this point was an athletic endeavor in itself. At forty-five, you have lost touch with your inner jock. After all the years of being a patient, giving parent, it’s time to hop on a bicycle, be aggressive, and get your grrr back.
Is there something you’ve always wanted to do but never dreamed it was possible? Compete in an Ironman? Open a bakery? Write a book? Surf? Climb mountains? Volunteer at an animal rescue shelter? Launch a foundation? Be a hospice volunteer?
Do friends tell you, “Wow, you’re really funny; you should be a stand-up comic,” or “You’re awesome at fundraising”? But, you’ve never fully come to realize what those skills could mean — to yourself and to the world. Maybe it’s time to think like an elite athlete, or at least start testing yourself in a singles tennis league. Or a hang a shingle over your door and start baking pies for business. Take a comedy writing class at Second City. Bake a tray of lasagna for the local soup kitchen. Raise your hand to plan the 5K fund-raiser for your local cancer society.
Are you starting to question, What’s it all about? Your 9-to-5 is stale, seems meaningless in the larger scheme of things, and you don’t want to keel over at your desk one day and call it a life. Do you find yourself pondering the deeper
questions: What do I really want out of my life? Maybe your heart just isn’t in your work. It takes passion and courage to find a profession that you love. You’ve been so busy racking up titles, hours, and paychecks that you’ve never had the chance to spend the time to discover what you could do that would make a difference in your life.
Maybe you walk around every day wondering how your life is making a difference in the lives of others, in the world. You want to find a way to take your passions and give back, not just get a paycheck and engrave an impressive job title on your tombstone.
Are you finding yourself increasingly obsessed with dreams of Oh, someday I’d love to . . . ? It’s time to shed the same old, same old.
Somewhere out there is the thing you were born for, and it’s not too late. Second Acts That Change Lives: Making a Difference in the World is here to help you get started. The good news: The power to transform your life is much closer than you realize. In these pages, I’ve brought together a community of people — women and men — who are proving that it’s never too late to take a life leap, whether it’s starting a new business, leaving the corporate scene to teach high school, turning that great idea into a novel, rock climbing, or adopting a child at fifty-two. The stories are a little bold, a little edgy, and meant to inspire us to tap into the power inside . . . so that we can inspire others, including our children, to tap into their energy and power as well.
In this book, you will meet some brave people who traded successful, safe career paths for the chance to find
their true purpose in life. In finding themselves, they were able to find the parts of themselves that can make the world a better place.
Are you looking for your calling, and not just another career? If you are, you know it. You feel it. Your heart is tugging at you to make a difference, to find the place in you where your passions lie; the place in you that really matters, that can make a difference.
Now, it’s time to make your next move. There will always be sound reasons and collective voices convincing you to freeze in your tracks: your teachers told you (they told Jane Austen the same thing) that you can’t make a living with your pen. How many people have cautioned you, “You’ve got two kids in college”; “The timing isn’t right”; and a million other reasons not to step out now? Family, friends, the local barista, your own inner critic, are all too happy to supply the con lists.
“At your age?”
“You’re having a midlife crisis.”
“What about health insurance?”
“Well, good luck, but I know I couldn’t run even a mile at ‘our’ age. You know, there’s a water aerobics class.”
“When do you have time to write a book?”
“Just give it up; menopause is going to make you fat. There’s nothing you can do.”
I know all about this. I’ve heard them all. I’ve learned to smile, nod, and realize people mean well. But, I recognize I’ve spent fifty-plus years on this planet listening to all the “You can’ts,” “I can’ts,” “You shoulds,” “You shouldn’ts.”
I’m the master of hanging back, often because I was too embarrassed to be out there, acting like a determined athlete, pursuing career goals and passions, or making time to squeeze my own life into my daily routine. I feel lucky to have discovered some new and some renewed passions halfway through life. This book is meant to prompt you, as author Grace Paley says, “Hey you, begin again? Again, again, you’ll see it’s easy, begin again.”
Second Acts That Change Lives: Making a Difference in the World is a collection of honest and inspiring stories that delve into the lives of a community of trailblazers — second act reinventors — who have paid attention to the stirrings to change, pondered their next move, and turned their “Oh, someday I’d love to” dreams into an adventure, an adventure that is making a profound difference in the world. What I have learned, and these stories underscore, is that, when you ask yourself, So how do I know where to go? the answer is, “Follow your heart.” Risk and reward are a package. But, you have to make the first move. And when you do, you will be surprised at how the universe moves to guide you. You will be surprised at how wanting more out of life opens the door for you to give more to life. When we surface the best parts of ourselves, somehow we make the world brighter too.
It’s not easy. This book is a wake-up call, an intervention of sorts to help prod you. The thread that weaves all of these stories together is the inspiration provided by others who have done it — now you can too!
Meet Marianne, 56, a librarian from Detroit, who lost her husband and soul mate and discovered solace in the
unexpected. At age fifty-two, she went to an orphanage in Siberia to meet two children, brother and sister, ages three and five. She brought them home, learned Russian, and today is a single mom of two tweens. See what’s gotten into Mary, who at forty-five took a volunteer job with at-risk teenagers and two years later created a pilot curriculum for them, left her six-figure income, conventional marketing career path, and committed herself to these teens as her life’s work. Read about Bob, who at sixty-five rode his bike across the country to raise money for ALS, cancer, and hospice, all because he read Tuesdays with Morrie and realized he needed to make a mark with his life.
The personal stories in this book are affecting, thought provoking, and inspirational. They’re a powerful resource for anyone who’s really grappling with life direction issues and wants to make a difference with the second half of their lives. For readers who have realized that the time has come to put their great idea into action, but are asking, But now what? the book outlines a process for moving from concept to reality. We look to the individuals featured in the stories for inspiration in starting over and identifying the myths and action steps for deciding and putting into place the next moves.
The stories are meant to inspire, to prompt you to realize that it’s never too late to create your second act and become a reinventor, no matter how many “I can’ts” you’ve told yourself. You can kick butt at any age, and in the process restore hope in yourself and those around you. When we reach inside ourselves to discover who we really are and what we are meant to do, we walk back into the world a little taller, s
miling a little more, and experiencing life in ways we never imagined possible. My hope is that you will discover your second act, connect with your passion, and get out there and go after life with all you’ve got. Can you imagine what will happen as you grab at life, seize the possibilities, and make them yours? It’s coming. Watch out world!
Mary Beth’s Story
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.— Eleanor Roosevelt
“Wake up. Life’s half over.”
Those are the words, delivered in a passionate coaching-military drill sergeant way each Friday morning at 6 a.m. by my spin teacher Andrew.
For the past year, I have plunged into this whole exercise/fitness/wellness lifestyle. Why? Because as I approached fifty, I realized I was carrying many things: sadness from a shattered marriage; the sudden loss of two close friends and my cousin, just a year younger than me; the stress of trying to raise three teens on my own; and the frightening possibility that I would be just that — alone — forever.
I was scared and confused and didn’t know where to turn. So, I decided that what I could do was get out of bed every day and haul myself to a gym. I hoped that maybe by pumping some life into the fibromyalgia syndrome TV commercials insisted was right around the corner, I could refocus
my energy and reclaim my old self. I wanted to revitalize the verve lost in the trampling of many dreams. I didn’t know what else to do. I had forgotten what my dreams even were.
As slowly as my life had spun itself out of control, I was beginning to develop a new cadence on a stationary spin bicycle. Andrew’s orders — “Wake up, life’s half over”—became my catalyst. I paid serious attention to his words. I wasn’t so much getting into the exercise groove and sweating profusely just to make my legs spin faster and harder on the bike, but to make sure that every day I am alive, I am living, striving faster and harder. The more I sweat, the faster my heart rate registered, the more I knew I was getting in touch with all I had lost.
Those words — “Wake up, life’s half over”— kept taking on a deeper and deeper meaning. I was stepping outside of my comfort zone, and there was no better time than the present — turning fifty — to try to accomplish some things in my life I never imagined possible.
From my friends’ and my cousin’s shortened lives, I was learning that despite everything, their spirits live on in my life and the lives of my children. In honor of them, I was trying to put determination and guts into every day of my own living.
Competing in a triathlon — swimming, bicycling, and running in one event — became my fiftieth birthday goal.
To some it may seem trivial, but running in a triathlon, then months later in my first half-marathon, became my way of pushing myself to show that as a human being I could exceed far beyond what others — or I myself — thought was
possible. Swimming in the event — which terrified me — was symbolic of all of demons that had me breaking out in cold sweats in the middle of the night: The fact that my job security was suddenly in question following the sale of the company I worked for and the idea of reentering the dating arena after a twenty-five year hiatus proved to me that I needed to find a new direction that would help me do something to help others make a difference. I am learning to embrace going it alone surrounded by a community of friends and family I am blessed to have.
In addition to lighting my fire with the “wake up” warning, Andrew, who pulled me aside after class the day before the big event, said something I will not forget. “You can do it, in memory of those who can’t. . . . You can honor their spirit and their courage to keep living to the very end.”
So, that is what I did. I dove into the water, pedaled, and ran my heart across the finish line. My friends’ spirits and divine energy carried me.
These days, I’ve lost a lot of titles — wife, “young” mom, vice president of a company. But I wear a couple new ones: triathlete, half-marathoner, and career and personal life adventurer. I’m trying all kinds of things: I’ve swung on a trapeze; taken up beach volleyball, traveling, knitting lessons (I’m cranking out scarves like crazy), running my own business, yoga, going to weddings alone, gardening, surfing; and I have an endless list of “to-explores.” And, I’m going back to graduate school to get a degree in spiritual direction. I have spent a lifetime gathering people’s stories; now I want to help them make meaning out of them.
The athletic front gave me my first push, because it is brand-new. Until this year I had an athletic résumé that looked something like this: “Cheerleader, Junior High School (freckles, smile, and energy as driving forces); Volleyball team, eighth grade; and Pandas swim team (small Catholic school, every one made every team).” Until last year, I had never run a mile. I swam two laps and was breathless. I liked to cycle, but that was with a Burley, going a 5-miles-per-hour pace and stopping every half-mile to serve up a Sippy Cup to one of my kids.
I walked a mean double stroller and occasionally swam at the YMCA . . . as many laps as I could (breaststroke so as not to get my hair wet) before the volunteers raced into the pool to tell me one of my kids was crying hysterically in the nursery and it was time for this aspiring get-the-baby-fat- off mom-athlete to pack her bag and go home. On the day of the triathlon, just two weeks after my fiftieth birthday, I crossed the finish line knowing it was a day of triumph.
The day really was about facing fears of illness, grief, and carrying on when I wanted to give up out of exhaustion, stress, and the uncertainty of what lies ahead. The finish line for all of us is never clearly in sight, but we keep pushing to get there, up the steep hills and through the murky waters. You know you can’t give up. And you don’t.
A few days before the event, I found a card. It was a picture of a swimmer — bathing cap and all — about to dive in.
Be not the slave of your own past — plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall
come back with self-respect with new power. With an advanced experience, that shall explain and overlook the old.
Crossing the finish line, I stopped a moment to give thanks to my friends who had died, Vince, Cara, and my cousin Patrick; to my friends and my children who came to the event to cheer us on; to the ones who got me in the race. I learned that even out of the deepest losses . . . you can get into the race again. You can cross a new finish line . . . but you can never do it alone.
One of my favorite books as a teen was Brian Piccolo: A Short Season, about the Chicago Bears football player who faced cancer with such courage. I gave it to my son, Thomas, because I want him to find heroes in life like Brian Piccolo, who show courage every single day.
I take the swimmer card with me now each day, along with the memory of my two friends and my cousin. My hope is that overcoming my own fears is a way to honor the gift they have given me — the appreciation of every minute of living. And, I hold on to these words from Brian Piccolo in all my struggles: “You can’t quit. It’s a league rule.”
We all have the power to change our worlds, and the power to help others do that. The triathlon was just the beginning for me. I’m now exploring all kinds of opportunities to use my gifts and talents to make the world a better place, to let go of a 9-to-5 job that keeps me from doing so, to venture into the unknown. I can’t wait to explore, to grab on to what lies ahead.
This book is meant to be a message of hope, an inspiration, for all of you (and for me too) who feel stuck. I love these stories, because as a mom, I want my daughters, Caitlin and Emily, and my son, Thomas, to live and breathe in the belief of their own power.
One thing I’ve learned through my own experience is that it is entirely your own call what you can do. In collecting the stories for this book, I’ve been privileged to talk to many women and men who are reinventing themselves into bigger and better jobs or becoming globe-trotting volunteers. Some are kicking back from high-powered careers to pursue their passion for painting or landscaping, others are newly minted marathoners or yoga instructors. Most have somehow, through their second acts, found a way to inject meaning and purpose into their own lives and the impact they have on others, whether it is orchestrating a mega-fund-raiser for children’s cancer or demonstrating that an out-of-shape, approaching-fifty guy who smokes can cross the finish line of a marathon if he sets his mind and body to the task. What also strikes me is how happy they all are with the choices they have made to step out of their comfort zones and go after their dreams.
But, don’t suppose for one minute it was easy. I signed up for a swimming workshop so that I could return to my friends and proclaim, “Oh, well . . . I wanted to, but this swim instructor told me I am not a good enough swimmer to do a triathlon. Done.” Instead, he told me to “Shut up and get in the water. We’re all afraid.” I was busted.
And that’s the true meaning of this whole book. We all need someone to push us into the water, when we’re afraid to put our heads under, even if the “water” is a new career, a new relationship, leaving an unhealthy one, signing up for an exercise class, or volunteering our time to make a huge difference in someone else’s life. We’re all terrified to leave the comfortable. None of us is especially confident in our own creativity, and most of us care too much what others think of us and their opinions of how and who we should be.
The great thing about midlife is that somehow, suddenly, this default position of doing for everyone else has shifted to “Stand back, this is my time.” Or at least there are glimmers of moments throughout the day when you can seize control and make it about you.
Now is your time. Join me and all of the second act reinventors in these pages as we revel in a freedom most of us never expected to have in midlife. By reading about other’s feats and firsts, my hope is it will prompt you to stretch yourself beyond your own safety net and open yourself to new possibilities. I’m looking forward to them, and who knows, I may meet some of you climbing a mountain some day. I thank Andrew, my spin instructor, for challenging me to “Wake up, life’s half over.” How about you? What first do you need to make happen, not someday, but today?
I don’t know where my triathlon and running adventures will lead me. I do know they have pointed me in many directions toward roads less traveled. Recently, I quit my full-time job and am reimagining my career at fifty. I’ve
always dreamed big. When I was six and learned to read, I announced I was going to grow up to be a book writer. It took me twenty years paying my overhead and dues as a journalist to land my first book on the shelves of a major bookstore. I wanted to be a mom . . . and I have three beautiful children who are the wellspring of my living.
Yes, a lot of the things I had envisioned are no longer, but I refuse to go into middle age without a fight, without new dreams.
I am grateful to the people in this book who shared their yearnings, disappointments, and fears and are turning the deep questions into powerful calls to action. Please join me as I follow the path of their courage in reinventing what lies ahead.
Here are their stories and some of the lessons I wish I had known before I plunged into the water, unplugged from my corporate title, and swam toward a new shore. Let them cheer you on too, and be gift and guide.