I'm in the final year of my sixth decade. My adult children are walking their own paths: some still at home, some come and go, but the days of parenting-as-caregiving are largely behind me. I’m blessed to live in a beautiful place and to have been here long enough to put down roots.

I'm also fortunate to have dear friends and family who’ve retired from lifelong careers, giving me a front-row seat to their journeys. One thing I’m not seeing within my circle of friends and family is any pull to slow down or rest. If anything, these curious people are living with energy and intention—exploring the world, learning, honing creative skills, and spending time with those they care about most.

Pondering the rest

The English language has its tributaries: one word can flow in two completely different directions, depending on context (much to the dismay of anyone learning it as a second language!). “Rest”—as in a pause or relief from activity—is also a remainder, something left over or kept in reserve. Given my age, the slow shift from parenthood back to independence, and my friends’ retirement journeys, it’s not surprising that I find myself pondering what remains. A scavenger at heart, I gather nuggets — ways of being, thinking, moving, and participating in the world— and keep the ones that spark my imagination. So, what exactly do I think about the rest?

“Rest”—as in a pause or relief from activity—is also a remainder, something left over or kept in reserve.

A video and a conversation with one of my sons is on my mind these days. He was 3,000 kilometres away at school, studying for a philosophy degree, and we discussed how meaning isn’t often something we happen upon—like a baseball on the ground—but something we actively create. Meaning-making is a creative act. In the video The Greatest Regret You’ll Ever Have, the narrator takes a hard swipe at the “cruel trick” of nostalgia. He says, “Every phase of life carries its baggage, its problems, its stresses, its tedious routines... it’s the curse of nostalgia to look back on the past and look only at the highlight reel and see none of these things.”

The past is what we make of it—and there are traps to be avoided in that endeavour. The future is, too. I am as young as I’ll ever be, right now, writing this. And now. And now. What am I to make of that?

The power of self-definition 

Synchronicity struck again while listening to Ideas on CBC Radio.  Writer Brett Popplewell read from his recent book, Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain, and the Search for a Hidden Past, about Dag Aabye, an octogenarian super-athlete living off the grid in British Columbia’s Okanagan. Popplewell spent years following Aabye—running with him, climbing mountains, and talking at length. “He reframed my way of thinking about life, death, and the limits we place on ourselves as we age,” he shared.

In his talk, Popplewell notes that in the West, we often view life as an arc—rising and falling within a fixed timeline. He had once believed the common narrative that as people age through life, they also age out of life. But Aabye held a radically different view. He saw age as a mindset, not a number. He flipped the old saying “youth is wasted on the young” into “youth is abandoned by the elderly.” At the heart of Aabye’s philosophy was the belief that lamenting the past, limiting the present, and dreading the future only hastens our decline. Each day, we can choose to do something for what might be the last time—or choose not to try at all. That, he said, is what aging really is. Of all the ways to limit yourself, self-definition is the most powerful.

He flipped the old saying “youth is wasted on the young” into “youth is abandoned by the elderly.”

What you make of it

As I consider what the rest of my life could be, I’ve come to understand that self-definition and meaning-making are vital creative acts that demand my full attention. They must be shaped—by hand—with the same care and devotion I give to the things I hold most dear. It takes a lifetime to build a philosophy, and only through a lifetime of experiences and reflection do I begin to see which insights truly matter—both now and for the future.

I’ve come to understand that self-definition and meaning-making are vital creative acts that demand my full attention.

Life isn’t a recipe card, and it’s not a cake with just a few slices left after the guests have gone. What I choose to make—even from what remains at the end of the party—is entirely up to me.