I was just over at Ms. Meta’s where she continues to be frustrated about whether we women really have made headway politically in terms of sexual bias. Have we women in midlife really made any progress, she wonders.

She posts some troubling stats from The Daily Beast that indicate we still have a ways to go:

• By an overwhelming 61% to 19% margin, women believe there is a gender bias in the media.
• 4 in 10 men freely admit sexist attitudes towards a female president. 39% of men say that a male is “naturally more suited” to carrying out the duties of the office
• 48% of women thought Hillary Clinton received fair media treatment and only 29% believed Sarah Palin was treated fairly. In contrast, nearly 8 in 10 voters thought the press gave fair treatment to Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
• More than two-thirds of women said they were being treated unfairly in the workplace (68%)

I am an eternal optimist, Ms. Meta, I’m putting that right out there. So perhaps I take an overly sunny view, but I do think it’s changing. My background is in human systems (code: groups of human beings and how they interact) and I’ve always been fascinated about change and how they change, or don’t.

I know that anything so culturally embedded as sexual bias takes a very long time to change. The fact that some of it is rooted in some biological hard wiring makes it even more difficult to change.

Having said that, the fact that Hillary Clinton was out there at all (and she’s really a great representative of what women can be in terms of being seriously up to any job, anywhere) says a whole lot. I don’t think she didn’t make it because she was a woman. I think there were a multitude of other factors, a perfect storm of factors in fact, that had more to do with her loss, past baggage from the sense of her and Bill coming as a package deal for one.

So, I see reason to hope. I’m curious as to what those stats would have indicated say 10 years ago, or 20 years ago. I think you have to look at them over time rather than as static numbers to really know whether things are changing. Do we have a ways to go? Beyond a doubt. Have we come a long way? Without a doubt.

I also think we midlife women have to believe ourselves that we are serious contenders in anything we choose to do. We can hardly expect others to believe about us what we can’t believe about ourselves. I wonder sometimes whether we as a group really believe in ourselves as much as we could.

A couple of guy friends of mine and I were talking about this the other day. Their observations were that midlife women still have a foot in their mother’s camp but a whole set of cultural expectations that came out of the feminist movement. So we were brought up by our mothers who were still homemakers, but we created an expectation of great things for ourselves, while not having accumulated the skills and cultural imprinting that would allow most of us to excel unfettered. We are a kind of transitional generation in some way.

That made some sense to me, at least personally it resonated with me. I feel I struggle with that every day. Still struggle, dang it!

So, I think we should be gentle with ourselves…and keep pushing. Keep educating our daughters and our granddaughters so they can continue pushing the envelope. Hillary almost made it, I think that kicked down a lot of outdated beliefs.

So let’s work to believe in ourselves, and keep pushing to show others what we can do.

How do you see this issue?

Posted on November 19th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Job, Midlife and Society, Older and Wiser, Politics, Workplace Relevance | 5 Comments »

Last week I interviewed Dr. Mary Steinhardt who is a professor in the College of Education at the University of Texas.  She has done some fascinating work in the area of stress, coping, and resilience which she defines as the ability to bounce back from adversity and fully recover from its ill effects.

She takes the unusual view that adversity and challenge can be a positive force.  Learning to cope and weather adversity contributes to our personal growth.  Just as stressing our physical muscles through exercise helps our muscles grow stronger, emotional growth happens by grappling with and overcoming tough life situations.

Regarding adversity in that light requires a shift in the way we think, Dr. Steinhardt says, since most of us tend to think of stress and adversity as things to be avoided.  But stress and adversity can stretch us past our comfort zone and leave us more supple in the face of life’s challenges and the downright bad stuff life can throw at us.  And, we are that much stronger the next time life throws us a curve ball.  Thinking of it in this way is an empowering approach rather than a disabling one.

Some of the questions Dr. Steinhardt answers in this 30 minute interview are:

• What is resilience?

• Why is it important?

• How do self-esteem and resilience relate to each other?

• Do you see any indicators of whether someone is likely to be resilient or not?  Is it a nature or nurture question?

• How does one develop it?

• What is the biggest obstacle for people developing it?  Do certain personality types have a harder time?

Dr. Steinhardt also covers a number of practices and tools that help develop resiliency and self-esteem.

The holiday season is a perfect time to begin cultivating your resiliency. There is plenty of stress to go around at this time of year and there is no time like the present to begin!

Posted on November 17th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Holidays, Inspiration, Interviews, Personal Growth, Spirituality | 2 Comments »

How long has it been since you got in touch with what is uniquely fabulous about you?? Well. That’s too long.

Are you a 40, 50 or 60 something woman who’s feeling restless and unfulfilled but isn’t quite sure why? Is the woman you were somehow not a comfortable fit anymore? Do you know the woman you are becoming?

If these questions resonate, we have a workshop for you! Listen:

On November 22, 2008, WomenBloom and Gigi Sage will present The Fabulous Factor: Renew and Bloom In Midlife!

To learn more and to register, click Renew And Bloom In Midlife!

Hope to see you there!

Posted on November 14th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Learning to manage intergenerational diversity in the workplace is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses in the coming years.  Boomers, Gen Xers, Gen Yers, Millennials…that makes for a lot of differing motivations, viewpoints, and values co-mingling!  We tend to think of diversity as race-based, but age diversity is a real biggie.

There has been some interesting speculation out there about whether Obama is or isn’t ‘of’ the Baby Boomers. And, whether his election means that Boomers and their concerns will move out of the limelight because of it to make way for the younger generations and their concerns.

Technically, Obama is at the tail end of the boomers (1946 to 1964), but I’ve come to learn that he is actually part of Generation Jones which refers to those who are roughly 42 to 54 year olds.  I guess I am in that group since I am 50.

The thinking is the Joneses were too young to be as influenced by the 60s as older boomers.  That Reagan had a stronger influence on us than did JFK since we were still young children and early teens in the 60s.  Makes sense to me…I remember JFK primarily through my parents eyes since I was only 7 or 8 at the time, but I remember Reagan far more vividly.

If you look at the voting statistics, those of us in the 45 to 64 category were split almost in half between Obama and McCain.  As voters got older they leaned more heavily towards McCain and likewise as you go down the age ranges, Obama got more and more votes.

I decided to take a look at a couple of our WomenBloom articles that outline the differences between Gen Xers (the next youngest age group) and Boomers just to see what I could see since Obama is there on the cusp.

In terms of personality, Boomers tend to believe in personal growth and expansion sometimes at great cost.  Hmm, I guess that’s why we are sometimes called the Me Generation.  The Gen Xers are more self-reliant and casual about authority, and their focus is more on the family, the collective.

Well.  Obama’s language of ‘we’ and less about ‘I’ would certainly seem to give him some Gen Xer overtones.  I remember a speaker at SXSW Interactive this spring saying that Hillary used the language of ‘I’ a lot, as in ‘I will do this for you…’.  He pointed out that Obama talked about ‘we’ making change, ‘we’ being the change.  He proposed that as resonating strongly among younger voters.  That is an interesting and subtle example of how much difference a few years can make in terms of the generational values people tend to hold.

It’s interesting that while Boomers’ core values tend to be personal gratification and personal growth, Gen Xers value diversity and balance.  Hmmmm, that last does sound like Obama.  I’ve read a number of things about his deliberations on issues that indicate he likes to explore them thoroughly before coming to a decision.

Gen Xers tend to see work as a difficult challenge and a contract rather than the more Boomer view of it being an exciting adventure.  Hmmm, that first sounds like Obama, he seems more serious about it all than considering it an adventure. Of course the seriousness of our state of affairs could have something to do with that.  It looks to be an adventure alright, but not in the positive sense of the word.

The way we were shaped by events and life situations has a profound impact on how we see the world.  And, it follows, those attitudes and perceptions are what inform our choices and decisions.  A collective worldview is likely to lead to much different actions than a more individualistic one.

I don’t know what any of this means really.

It’s hard to believe that 78 million Boomers and their concerns will fade into the background.  And maybe it’s less about that anyway.  The bottom line is, wherever Obama falls in the generational spectrum, I expect he will face the challenges of managing generational diversity as squarely as any organization trying to make sense of it.

Knitting it all together rather than having it become a wedge is the real challenge.  How do you see it?

Posted on November 13th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Job, Midlife and Society, Politics, Workplace Relevance | 2 Comments »

I don’t want to get in a rut by spending too much time on midlife singlehood.  There are so many other issues I could talk about concerning my midlife chronicles after all.  But, you see, it’s an endlessly fascinating topic to those of us who are single and ‘seasoned’.  Mostly because there is so much about it that leaves us scratching our heads in dismay, puzzlement or simply aggravation.  I’ll do my best to move on, already…after this one little teensy post.

Actually, I think you marrieds will also have something to say on this one….

Kat Wilder’s post on Career or Marriage:  There Isn’t Always A Choice was a follow up response to a Forbes opinion piece by editor Michael Noer entitled:  Don’t Marry Career Women, saying the research showed that marriages where the woman is educated, works more than 35 hours outside the home and makes more than $30,000/yr aren’t that great (from the man’s point of view it seems to me).  He chronicles a host of reasons out of the social sciences journals telling us why, concluding that “the more successful she is, the more likely she is to grow dissatisfied with you.”

Oh reeeally.

Apparently, Noer’s post caused a firestorm and a rebuttal opinion from Elizabeth Corcoran, their Silicon Valley bureau chief, called Don’t Marry A Lazy Man.  She advised women to ask romantic prospects when was the last time they had learned something new.  “If the last new skill your guy learned was how to tie his shoes in the second grade, dump him. If he can pick up new ideas faster than your puppy, you’ve got a winner.”

Hahahaha!  I thought that was funny. I have to tell you, my doggie is pretty darned quick on the uptake, guys!

What wasn’t as funny, and was actually a little close to home, were these excerpts from a woman who responded to Kat’s original post and prompted her second post above:

“Solitude and unmarried status is not what most of us would ever aspire to!! But if that option is not offered, what are we to do? Well, we have to work and pay our bills, and try to get homes on our own if we can..In the meantime, you develop your career because you want to, yes, but also because you HAVE to — no-one else is there partnering with you…I have heard from men in general, about how older women are “too into their careers” — are unmarried women supposed to be on welfare? I have a Master’s Degree and no husband… What am I supposed to do?”

There is more, you can check out the comments for some even more interesting stuff, but you get the gist, Peeps.  I swear, it does seem as if we women are damned if we do and damned if we don’t in so many ways (see post on Men and Pretty Faces).

Yes, what ARE we supposed to do?  I want to say, “Men, welcome to the club of people whose spouses are so into work that they aren’t that fun to be married to.  HellOOAAA!  Do ya think it’s necessarily a bed of roses raising a bunch of kiddos, running the house, basically holding down the fort—oh and maybe working too–with very little help or engagement from you??  And then being asked for a divorce in my late 40s because you want someone younger/more interesting/thinner?”

Now, that is not my personal experience but it has been the experience of a number of women I know.  And, my own anecdotal experience is that many very intelligent and successful career women I know are often, you guessed it, single!  Myself included.  That is one of the puzzlements that makes this topic so engrossing to some of us.

A friend of my late husband’s once told me, in a whiny tone it must be said, that men marry the woman they want and the last thing they want is for her to change.  Women marry men and actually expect them to change.  I mean, The NERVE of us women!!  Expecting our mate to grow and evolve!  What witches!

Could it be that Mr. Noer isn’t liking it so much when the shoe is on the other foot and women have choices?

In an effort to be fair minded, I have to admit that I have also observed that many of the successful etc women find it challenging to be softer in their personal lives.  Myself included.  They’re successful because they have learned to function quite well in the business world which means ‘soft’ is not rewarded, oh no unh unh.  It’s easy to forget how to be soft when you’re in the corporate jungle.

But honestly, it’s insidious actually if you’re single for long, it’s a double bind.  You are used to having to be strong on your own behalf, make your own way professionally and personally, just figure out your life on your own.  You forget how to let your hair down and just be scared or tired or helpless.  You have to just figure out how to grill on your own, diagnose what’s wrong with the car, find a reputable roofer.  All good things, but am I the only one who ever wishes I could just be a helpless woman for 30 minutes in a guy’s arms and let go of being Ms. Successful (supposedly) Together (perception is everything) Confidant (HA!) Super Woman for a little while??

And, to echo Kat’s reader’s lament, if no guy is on the scene, what else am I supposed to do?  It isn’t  a choice to be Ms. Successful etc who doesn’t need a man.

It’s a necessity.  What do y’all make of this?

Posted on November 10th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Love, Midlife and Society, Money, Relationships, Retirement, Sex | No Comments »

The other night I was asked to do a short radio interview on a local Austin station, KAMX 94.7.  Kim Iverson has a regular show about various women’s topics and she wanted to chat about midlife dating.  Anyone who knows me knows I have an awful lot to say on THAT subject.  Anyone who knows me also knows I’m an overachiever.  So, even though Kim’s show is pretty light and fun, I thought I should have a few statistics at hand since I’m supposed to be, ahem, an expert on the subject of all things women and midlife.

Ha Ha!  AARP (ouch, it hurts me every time I have to let that acronym into my consciousness) had done a study a few years back on Midlife Singles and it had some pretty amusing and thought provoking things to say that I just have to share.  For the record, they are referring to midlife singles as those 40 to 69.

I want to have my cake and eat it too. We singles apparently prize our independence and freedom, but we get vewwy lonely and that sucks.  Being Boomers of course we want it all, at the same time and preferably right now.

Hi, my name is Marv, would you like to have sex?? It may not surprise you to learn that 20% of men think sex on the first date is acceptable.  And, that only 2% of women agree.  Second date, still only 2% of women think that’s cool, but 12% of men, apparently ever the optimists, are good to go.  It isn’t until they’ve known someone over an extended period that 45% of women think it’s acceptable.  Wow, women are from Venus and men are from Mars I guess.

But they all have baggage! The number one frustration for those who are actively dating is, drum roll please, dating people with a lot of baggage.  Roughly half think that’s a drag.  Second most frustrating thing is a close race between people pushing too quickly to get into a serious relationship and people who, dang them, become difficult after the initial dates.

This is a drag. It’s about equal between men and women at 40%ish who say the biggest trouble with being single is not having anyone to do stuff with.  It’s what comes after that’s interesting.  32% of women say it’s being on their own and not having enough money.  24% of men say it’s not being in a sexual relationship.  Hmmm, that could explain some things.

Hey Baby, heh heh, would you like to come up and see my etchings? 21% of men have current or recent dating partners who are 5 to 9 years younger.  14% have babes 15+ years younger and 16% 10 – 14 years younger.  As you might imagine, those categories for women are way low.

These little nuggets pretty much fit with my personal experience.  Hey, I’m right there on that first one.  I like my independence mucho and it’s dern lonely sometimes even with lots of friends.  There isn’t a substitute for a special someone.

That second one was a little off putting although thinking sex on the first date would be an awful lot of fun and actually suggesting it are two completely different things.  To their credit, I’ve never had a man ask me to hop in the sack on a first date.  Good thing too.

It cracked me up that we’re frustrated that people have baggage and lots get difficult after you’ve known them for a bit.  I would bet a dime to a doughnut hole that if asked, most respondents would deny that THEY had more than a teensy bit of baggage or were ever difficult.  Unh hunh…  That must be why so many of us have been on Match.com for so long, eh?

I found it poignant that so many women apparently find singlehood difficult because of their financial situation.  In fact, I’m not sure what to make of that one.  Women’s pay still lags behind men’s, I know that.  And, women just aren’t as socialized as men in general to focus on making money, we’re supposed to be ‘nice’, and ‘nice’ and ‘rich’ apparently don’t go together in our minds.  Anyone got some thoughts on this one?

And then, don’t get me started on that last.  On Match.com, after I turned 50 I had a distinctly different experience.  And that was men my age asking for women 10 to 15 years younger than themselves.  The interesting point in this survey was that both men AND women wanted to date those younger than themselves.  It’s just that the women are much less successful.  This gives me a slow burn but I guess I should be asking what’s interesting about a man who thinks a woman 15 years his junior is an equal match?  Oops, sorry, who said anything about EQUAL??

How does this match with your experience?  And seriously on that women and finances question…how do you see that?

Posted on November 6th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Humor, Love, Midlife and Society, Relationships, Sex | 6 Comments »

Well here we are on the other side of Election Day.  Thank goodness.  It has been a long and bruising time and I cannot tell you how majorly relieved I am that we can now, hopefully, turn our attention to more important things than Sarah’s wardrobe budget and Barack’s past associations with washed up radicals from the 60s.

The tone of the campaign was just an outward and visible sign of deep and different fears on either side of the political center.  Everyone is afraid and depending on what they are most afraid of, that is where they fall politically.  People who let their fear get the better of them do ugly things.

We have got to stop letting our fears drive us to vilifying our neighbors and fellow citizens if they believe differently than us.  We have got to settle the bad blood.

I was gratified and gladdened by John McCain’s concession speech last night.  I appreciated that he shushed the crowd when they began booing and that he pledged his own support in bringing us together.  I respected him for that. THAT is the kind of leadership we desperately need now from our elected representatives, not tacit encouragement of bad behavior by ignoring the outrageous things that have been asserted on either side of the political aisle.  The magnitude of the problems we face dictates that we put aside our differences and roll up our sleeves for some very hard work.

As Obama has said, the size of our problems has far outgrown the smallness of our politics.  My support all along for Obama has been largely based on my belief that Americans want to be asked to step up and be bigger than we are.  That we are willing to hear that some sacrifices are going to be required of us.  We don’t want to be the kind of people who, when the country is facing tough times, go shopping.  We can be so much bigger than that, but no one has asked us to be so.  I hope Obama can live into the kind of leader who asks and inspires us to be all we can be.

And so, I hope we can unite and put the rancor and fear aside.  And that we can replace it with some hope and mending of fences.  The picture won’t be pretty if we can’t.

Heck, the terrorists of the world won’t have to perpetrate any more despicable acts of terrorism to bring us down if we can’t pull ourselves together  They’ll be able to take a permanent vacation.  We have some serious work to do and “A house divided against itself cannot stand’, we all know that.

So, I pray that we can reach deep, get a grip on our fears, and focus on the important business of fixing what ails us.  I’d like to encourage us all to pray that Obama with McCain’s help can glue us back together and that our new President has a successful term.

We need him to be successful. We need to help him succeed. The stakes are as high as they can be.

Posted on November 5th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Politics, Relationships | 4 Comments »

I have to agree with Ms. Meta.  I had hoped to check out of the political fray.  I voted a week and a half ago thinking I would simply stick my fingers in my ears and LALALALALALA….   I’m like, so over it.

But then comes an Associated Press article about a new study out of Northwestern University’s psychology department concluding that:

“Women running for top offices need to appear competent and attractive, according to a new study. For male candidates, seeming competent may be enough.”

Morgan Felchner’s blog post quoted a line from the release on the study that

“While gender bias related to a female candidate’s attractiveness was consistent across both male and female voters, good looks was almost all that mattered in predicting men’s votes for female candidates.”

My first reaction??  “Onh Good God, give me a break!!  Have we gotten nowhere in the last 40 or 50 years????  My second, much more cynical, reaction would be, “Well, that’s about par for the course.”

Really, are we that surprised that most men would want their female candidates to be good lookin’?  It could explain a whole lot about how a pretty woman with limited experience on the national scene could currently be a vice-presidential candidate.  It’s worried me that McCain and Company’s choice of a running mate might actually reflect their views of what a woman running for VP should be.  I can’t tell you how reassuring it is to know that they are no different than most guys out there.  Whew!

But really Ladies, as much as we love ‘em, can we be shocked that most men may still be susceptible to giving a woman more credit for competence based on her face and figure than may be exactly justified by her performance or accomplishments?  Let’s just call it giving her the benefit of a doubt, they would probably say.

For the men in my life whom I care about, let me clarify that I give them enough credit to think they would definitely look at her competence and intelligence….after checking her out thoroughly.  Middle-aged though they may be, they aren’t over the hill by any means.

On a serious note though, it is distressing to think this bias might still be widespread.  Obviously, old perceptions never die, they just change outfits.  There is one point of possible good news, or bad news. depending on how you look at it.  The participants in the study were college students.  Going back to my earlier point, most men I know, who have reached maturity and the prime of their faculties of course :), have gotten past a pretty face being the only measure of a woman’s competence.  Our kids however, raised as they have been in a celebrity/pretty people obsessed culture, may not be so lucky and may, in fact, NOT be a great indicator of how all men would make a decision.

And, remember yourself at twenty??  As above average as I was at 20 <guffaw>, still…I wouldn’t have read much into any opinion I had at that time of my life.  I think the jury is still out on this one.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Posted on November 4th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Body Image, Humor, Midlife and Society, Older and Wiser, Politics, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Last year, Suzanne LaFetra, a writer living in Berkeley, was kind enough to share with WomenBloom her essay about her Day of the Dead altar.  It is an affecting, poignant essay about loss, the difficult process of letting go things and people that have been an important part of our lives.

I’m thrilled to have it on WomenBloom and it’s so wonderful, I’m republishing it and spreading the word.

For those of you in parts of the country who may not know about this holiday, Dia de los Muertos is the day Mexicans honor and celebrate their dead loved ones.  It roughly coincides with All Souls’ Day and of course Halloween.  Although filled with grinning skeletons and other macabre death motifs, it’s actually a joyous time when the souls of loved ones become present with loved ones to celebrate with food, drink, candles and extended family.

Day of the Dead altars contain pictures or mementos of loved ones, marigolds traditionally, but also other flowers, favorite foods and other meaningful objects that are meant to bring the loved ones back into our lives for a day.   It has spread and gained popularity until many of us Anglos in Texas especially celebrate it too.

What makes Suzanne’s essay so moving is that it isn’t just about her dead relatives.  She has extended her altar to include her wedding ring as a symbol of her finalized divorce, the collar of her beloved dog, prayers and candles for the soldiers in Iraq and their mothers, and baby’s breath for her friend’s young 3 year old son who died of leukemia.  I tear up every time I read this thing.  At its core it’s about the fleeting nature of our lives and our blessings.

The idea of building an altar to honor these things is such a lovely way to stop for a moment in the midst of our overactive and stressful lives and acknowledge the importance these people and events have played in our lives.  I’m the worst about getting so focused on doing doing doing that I can so easily forget to stand still for a moment to celebrate accomplishments, acknowledge with gratitude the people, events and presences in my life, and grieve my losses.  I lose sense of how far I’ve come…lose sight of the fragility of life and the acceptance that change and loss are constants not rare occurrences…lose my ‘presence’ with and gratitude for the sweet and the bittersweet of my life.

Suzanne’s thoughtful words got me thinking about what I would have on my altar…

Certainly my wedding ring and a picture of my husband, Lee, dead and gone now for 14 years, but still a huge influence in my life.   Maybe I would include a little glass of Scotch for him since he was a great Scotch lover.  The ashes of my dog, Cosmo, whom I had to put to sleep a few years ago and a doggie treat.  An image of the American flag to symbolize my anxiety, prayers, and concern about the difficult times we face in our country.  Maybe an image of the Phoenix rising from the ashes to symbolize my hope that we can transform ourselves from the ugly hyper-politicized people we seem to have become so we can heal our country.  A knick knack or two to remind me of all the stale and tired possessions I joyfully rid myself of last year.  That for a start….

After reading Suzanne’s essay, you can’t help but ask yourself:  What belongs on my altar?

Posted on October 31st, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Death And Dying, Holidays, Older and Wiser, Relationships | 4 Comments »

Well, it’s probably absolutely NO news to you that what with the economic meltdown (which seems by the way to go ON and ON until I feel like I’m dangling at the end of a perverse and evil bungee cord), us Boomers are watching our 401Ks shrink by the minute and our retirement days slip further and further into the future.  I guess if you’re on the early end of midlife, say in your early to late 40s, you still have time to recoup but for those in their late 50s and beyond, uh oh.

It’s a darned good thing given that we Boomers are doing a retirement makeover.  Apparently, we are inventing a whole new life stage and the idea of sitting on our patookies watching the world go by is not our idea of how to spend our golden years.  Amen to that I say although I don’t know about you…I’d sure rather VOLUNTARILY make the choice to keep working or at least alternate periods of work and leisure than HAVE to because any savings I managed to put by have shrunk to almost nothing.

It is ugly out there.

This article offers some advice on how to cope with falling house prices, contracting retirement accounts and decreasing job prospects.  It seems we are in the perfect storm of forces conspiring to keep us ‘active’, very active, in retirement.  So, I’m just saying, I’m not ignoring the realities, but on the other hand…

I wonder what profound changes we’re going to see as a result of this. Can we continue living the lifestyles we have enjoyed?  I’m doubting it.  But, I don’t know if that’s all bad.  Maybe we can gain richer social interaction and support by giving up some of the material things a fat 401K tempts us with and focusing on family and friends.  There are any number of studies that show we live longer and are healthier when we have plenty of social interaction.

I was at a wonderful happy hour the other day that a friend organized just because she knew so many cool midlife women she thought needed to know each other.   And, wouldn’t you know it, once more I heard several women in their 50s wistfully describe living in a kind of women’s colony when they get ready to retire. How fun it would be to have your women friends close by, be able to cook together, play games if you wanted, do home projects together and basically look after each other.  It’s something we women do anyway, but it’s so much easier if you’re living within a block’s proximity.

It’s that cohousing concept again cropping up and I think we will see more and more of it as we seek to spread our retirement money further.   Women especially seem very drawn to the idea.  Loving and supportive friends are a constant that never goes away as opposed to the currently elusive dollars in our retirement accounts.

OK, call me an unsinkable optimist.  At least I have company.

As Jeff Smith, author of  The Long Baby Boom:  An Optimistic Vision for a Graying Generation, says in his Huffington Post blog, even though the political climate and economy are a mess right now, and optimism seems almost politically incorrect, we need to be optimistic anyway.  To this end, he has formed a support group called Optimists Anonymous.  Money will still be made, interesting literature and films will still be written and made, life will go on.  Well, sign me up!

I think that’s what optimism is anyway.  There is always some good in a situation.  Although it may be almost invisible to the naked eye, it’s there if you look for it.

Posted on October 28th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Job, Money, Older and Wiser, Retirement, Wealth Health | 3 Comments »