Aging is difficult

Let’s keep this real. There are challenges in recovering from injury, arthritis surgery, or aging. There are emotional costs too. Face it. We’re losing it. We seniors can’t run as fast (if we run at all.) Our hair might be thinning. Our hips, knees, and wrists might be in pain. So, how do we maintain joy in life’s journey?

Whatever path life takes you on, whether by choice or circumstance, your career doesn't define you. Neither does your vocation, though it might align more closely with who you are and what you want to contribute.

Careers are defined by objective metrics like money and status, which measure progress. Vocation may be rooted in subjective suitability. That might be a closer fit, but it’s still incomplete.

Yet beyond these, there's a deeper layer when you ask, "What am I doing with my life?" For many, this includes dreams, aspirations, and passions—core elements since childhood that persist despite career choices or life's twists.

There is the “what you do,” and there is “who you are” as a human being. Ironically, the “who you are” metrics are not things you can measure directly: money, friends, power, authority… It’s an internal thing only you can evaluate. It is the alignment of the “doing” of your life (how you spend your time) with the “being” part of your life, your internal vision of the kind of person you want to be.

Given the limitations of an aging body, it's within your power to continually integrate these passions into your life, regardless of your chosen path. Embrace them; they're part of who you are and can enrich every aspect of your journey. Joy comes from the personal, internal recognition that you are the kind of person you want to be. There is peace in discovering you are precisely where you want to be.