Non-Linear Life

I had a great conversation with my brother-in-law this weekend (of course, while fishing) about how we are in similar stages of life. Both enjoying our "main job" but both looking toward a future of reducing time and energy spent on that and increasing time and energy spent on doing what we feel more passionate about... perhaps more of what we feel we were made to do. We are both doing different types of jobs now and we have different passions we want to pursue, but the point is that I am sure we are only a couple of the many people our age who want to pursue interests beyond the everyday routine of full-time work.

Some of my corporate life has involved creating financial solutions for people in or approaching retirement. The background research includes how people have traditionally approached retirement and how new paradigms are emerging. The new paradigms include people that no longer are looking to live the linear life: student, school or learning a trade, work 40 years for same company, then fully retire. Instead, people are transitioning from full-time to part-time and back again; they are creating flexible work schedules; they might leave the work-force for a period of time only to rejoin it years later; they might only semi-retire. The idea here is that we are entering a more non-linear human experience (which, by the way, aligns with a transition into post-modernism - see earlier postings).

I am excited that so many people are asking themselves the questions: "What makes me come alive" (kudos to John Eldridge) or "what makes me tick" or "what gives me that feeling that I was made to do this or that." I continue asking myself these questions (and anyone who lets me ask them). The intentional process of self-discovery leads to truths about self; these truths ideally lead to actions that align our lives with what makes us come alive: which is where, I believe, we are supposed to live.