I’m hoping to keep today’s post short and simple. I recently read the book Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up by James Hollis. As someone who is definitely in that second half of life (I doubt I will live to 114), there were many aspects of this book that resonated. There were also many aspects of the type of second-half-of-live maturity that involved letting go of the earlier versions of our spirituality and relationships.
“Doubt is unsettling to the ego, and those who are drawn to ideologies that promise the dispelling of doubt by proffering certainties will never grow. In seeking certainty they are courting the death of the soul, whose nature is forever churning possibility, forever seeking the larger, forever riding the melting edge of certainty’s glacier.”
Some of this loss of certainty is just a realization that we are not going to achieve some of the dreams and goals we may have had, or even if we did, that part of life is done. We are no longer taking on the world. That time is past.
“As the child once fantasized that its wishes governed the world, and the youth fantasized that heroism could manage to do it all, so the person in the second half of life is obliged to come to a more sober wisdom based on a humbled sense of personal limitations and the inscrutability of the world.”
Another realization with age is that, to quote Det. Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon, “I’m too old for this shit.” Menopausal women in particular have the sudden realization that nobody is going to care about them (they haven’t so far), unless they finally prioritize themselves. My own perspective is that menopause showed up and whispered to me, for the first time in my life, “You matter.” I’m not saying I was a doormat or that I never put self-care first, just that it was the first time that I didn’t think self-sacrifice was always noble and worthwhile. In reality, the majority of my discomfort did nothing for anyone else, and only irritated me. For what? Absolutely nothing.
“To be mindful of our fragile fate each day, in a non-morbid acknowledgment, helps us remember what is important in our life and what is not, what matters, really, and what does not.”
Looking backwards, for most of us, the first half of life is about building our identity.
It’s dominated by:
- Ambition
- Achievement
- Fitting in
- Proving yourself
- Creating stability
- Forming a family and career
- Following rules, roles, and norms
Typical questions:
- Who am I?
- Am I good enough?
- Where do I fit?
- What should I accomplish?
- How do I build something stable?
Psychologically, it’s about:
- Ego development
- Differentiation from parents
- Establishing competence
- Accumulating skills, credentials, and resources
- Constructing a social identity
Spiritually, this stage often emphasizes:
- Certainty
- Structure
- Belonging to a group
- “Answers,” not questions
- Clear boundaries around right/wrong & success/failure
At some point, we transition away from those ways of thinking. Our energy levels change. We no longer have to create our identity, but we have to deal with life as it is.
The second half is triggered by:
- Loss
- Disillusionment
- Major transition
- Failure of one’s identity script
- Empty nest
- Divorce
- Illness
- A sense of “Is this all there is?”
- Midlife unraveling
Meaning shifts toward:
- Authenticity rather than approval
- Purpose rather than performance
- Being rather than doing
- Relationship rather than achievement
- Wisdom rather than knowledge
- Inner growth rather than outer success
Typical questions:
- What truly matters?
- What do I want to give back?
- Who am I when I’m not performing?
- What parts of me have I neglected?
- How do I love more deeply and live more lightly?
- What is worth my finite time and attention?
Psychologically, this stage is about:
- Letting go of ego
- Integrating shadow parts of the self
- Grieving losses
- Healing old patterns
- Opening to vulnerability
- Making peace with one’s life story
Spiritually, this stage often emphasizes:
- Paradox rather than certainty
- Compassion over judgment
- Mystery over dogma
- Interdependence over individualism
- Values over rules
There are benefits to this stage of life. As I mentioned, there’s letting go of the idea that the sacrifices we make are necessary or sufficiently valued by their recipients, and that what we want and need actually matters more than we’ve allowed ourselves to think. We move away from anxiety to acceptance. In fact, studies show that people in their 50s and 60s are often much happier than at other stages of life because expectations soften, and meaning deepens.
“The first half of life writes the script. The second half of life discovers what it really means.” Richard Rohr
One of the elements that alters how we live our lives as we age is related to the fear of not belonging, or of being judged, or of disappointing parents or being disapproved of by authority figures. These are all elements that manifest in both our family of origin, and for those raised in a religious family, in our churches.
- How has your life changed as you’ve aged?
- Are you still in the formative first half of life, or are you on the other side, finding meaning?
- Did life events move you toward this transitional phase? Was it difficult or easy?
- How has your attitude toward approval from community, parents, or church leaders change as you aged?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
“Paradox rather than certainty
Compassion over judgment
Mystery over dogma
Interdependence over individualism
Values over rules”
I am on the downhill side of life, and I endorse all of the above observations, and these shape how I approach gospel living. I hope I also endorsed them in my younger years, when I was on the uphill side. I appreciate seeing this sentiment reduced to words.
Can someone tell me how to do bullets here?
Uh oh, I got a quick downvote, but what I copied seems like motherhood and apple pie to me. Anyway, for my downvoter, would you prefer it as follows?
Certainty rather than paradox
Judgment over compassion
Dogma over mystery
Individualism over interdependence
Rules over values
This restyling might make you happy, and there are threads in LDS thought and our church culture that might seem to support you, but on the whole it seems very unchristian and uncharitable to me. I don’t think our Savior would agree at all with this restyling. Please share your thoughts.
Most of you would probably agree that once you start having kids, your purpose in life shifts from focusing on your own welfare to focusing on the welfare of these little ones. And you probably also agree that you never stop being a parent; the way you feel about your 30-year-old daughter when you’re 60 is very similar to how you felt about her when she was a child. However, once your kids are adults you are no longer responsible for their daily survival (hopefully). And so you begin to really reflect on what’s left to do in this life.
I just turned 60. I’m very active physically and mentally and hope to stay that way for years. But there’s no doubt that I’ve shifted my concerns. I’m trying to hang on to my physical and mental and financial health but I’m no longer seeking improvement. I’m more focused on my four adult kids even though I have no control and less and less influence over them. But for me the shift has been made. Also, my life’s major decisions have been made…they are still making theirs.
I can only hope that they (my 20-something year-old kids) have the same opportunities I had. Home ownership seems elusive. Healthcare costs seem overwhelming (even with insurance). And I can no longer blame it on the libs as long as MAGA is running things (into the ground). NOW IM REALLY SOUNDING LIKE AN OLD MAN.
This resonates—thank you for putting words to something I’ve been living but hadn’t articulated. In my early 50s, I feel very much in that second half of life Hollis describes: letting go of certainty, ambition, and the fantasy of who I thought I was supposed to become. My patriarchal blessing said I’d be successful beyond my dreams, yeah not so much.
There’s been something strangely freeing about accepting limits—career, body, energy—and no longer living for external validation, including religious certainty, even including approval from spouse, church, and God. I resonate deeply with the shift from certainty to paradox, from performance to authenticity. I don’t feel like I’m “giving up,” so much as finally living life on its own terms. God might not approve but Albert Camus might.
Interestingly, I’ve found that while age may be a liability physically, it’s an asset psychologically. I recently took up mountaineering, and an expedition guide told me that judgment and mental toughness matter more than raw strength—something that feels like a perfect metaphor for this stage of life.
My sister was about 50 when she announced she had finally grown up. My mom kind of laughed and asked about it, and my sister reported that she was in the grocery store and looking at the toilet paper and figuring out which brand was cheapest, because we grew up poor enough that pricing by a few pennies was important. But she looked and considered and her favorite brand was not the cheapest. But she bought it anyway. Doing what was important to her finally won over doing what she had been taught was proper and important. My mother was rather flabbergasted and wondered if she had damaged us by her penny pinching. But it was really just a very normal transition into that later life stage where one evaluates what has always been the rules of life written by others and one starts writing one’s own rules. I had to laugh at my sister, because I had been through the exact same thing about, let’s see, I am seven years older than she is, so it was about seven years earlier. I was just tired of pinching pennies until they screamed in pain. And I (almost) quit worrying about how much things cost.
About that same time I decided that old men living in Salt Lake didn’t get to determine my spirituality or my underwear choices, or tell me I was less important to God than people with penises.
And yes, huge increase in happiness. I even advise younger people to get there sooner than later. You can make a choice even in your twenties not to care so much what other people think of you. You can make a choice to not let old men who don’t even know you tell you how to live your life. How could they possibly get inspiration from God about how you as an individual should live? They have no idea of your individual likes, needs, or feelings, so they have zero information to take to the Lord for some big revelation. As computer geeks used to say, garbage in, garbage out. So, if some GA has zero knowledge about your circumstances, how on earth are they going to study it out in their minds to ask God? They can tell you what worked for them 50 years ago in a land far far away. So, great, it worked wonderfully for them to have their wife stay home and take care of 10 children. But did it work wonderfully for her, and will it work in 2025? Doesn’t look good. So, why do people base their lives on what these old men say? So, you really can make some of these changes before you hit 50. You only get one life. Don’t waste it trying to live what worked for someone else 50 years ago.
Great post, Hawkgrrrl. I’m also well into middle age, and I think a lot about the shift in my thinking about what I’m focused on, what I care about. When I was younger, I was so much more competitive, especially in being determined that I could always be the smartest. Of course I couldn’t, because there are always lots of smarter people. In aging I’ve come to realize that that’s a waste of time because who cares? Kindness matters so much more.
Also on the idea of younger people feeling more social pressure, and us aging people feeling more like “heck with everyone else, I’ll do what I want,” I’m in the middle of Robert Sapolsky’s book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. In talking about adolescence, I think he even points out that you can see this social awareness in our brain functions, that if you put young adults in an MRI (or whatever scanner) and have them consider social situations, they spend more thought on them than us oldsters.
And Anna, I think your concluding point is so important. I’ve enjoyed my life a lot more since I realized that I own it. The Church doesn’t, regardless of what GAs claim about speaking for God. As you said (with a small edit), “GArbage in, GArbage out.”
This post is really personal for me. Richard Rohr’s book Falling Upward has been one of the most meaningful reads of my life over the last five years. The subtitle is A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, and once I read that, something clicked. The first half of life is about building things—career, family, success, an identity that feels solid. The second half is more inward. It’s about learning through failure, loss, and disappointment, and discovering that the very things we try hardest to avoid are often what shape us most deeply. Rohr calls it “falling upward”—how our stumbles and suffering can actually lead us toward wisdom, grace, and a fuller way of being.
I’m now just a few hairs past 50, and I often think back to my 27-year-old self when we bought the home we still live in today. I remember being so sure it was just a starter home. I figured five or six years, tops, before a growing business and career moved us into something nicer nearby. That was 25 years ago. Life, as it turns out, had other plans.
Back then, I was bright-eyed and determined to win at life. I thought if I worked hard enough and made the right moves, I could shape things exactly the way I wanted. But life pushed back. It always does. Some of that was on me—poor decisions and career setbacks that were hard to swallow. And some of it was simply life being life. Around that time, our third child, our beautiful daughter, was born with bilateral club feet, hip dysplasia, and no motor nerves below her knees. She’s endured more than anyone should have to—ten surgeries, chronic pain, and severe depression. Along with the emotional weight came medical bills that stretched us to the edge financially. Somewhere along the way, my ideas about happiness started to fall apart.
Over the last decade, I’ve also found myself wrestling with what I actually believe, not just what I was taught to believe. Rohr often points out that most organized religion is really built for the first half of life—rules, certainty, belonging, getting it “right.” There’s very little space for the spirituality of the second half. Institutions, trying to protect themselves, often lean into a story that starts with the assumption that we’re not acceptable as we are. That creates a quiet fear that follows you around: Am I worthy? Am I good enough? Have I obeyed enough? My faith often felt like looking into a mirror and constantly seeing “almost, but not quite.”
At some point, the need for certainty finally cracked. And surprisingly, doubt didn’t destroy my faith—it gave it room to breathe. I’ve come to believe that certainty is actually the enemy of humility and repentance. Once I’m sure I have it all figured out, I stop listening. I stop growing. Curiosity dies.
My life hasn’t turned out the way I imagined it would. And it’s not just that I’ve learned that many of the things I once chased don’t really matter. I’ve also had to grieve the life I thought I was going to have. That grief is real, and it’s ongoing. I’m still learning how to loosen my grip, unclench my fists, and hold life with an open hand. I don’t think life was ever meant to be won. I think it was always meant to be lived.
I think the moment I knew I was right in the middle of my life was a week when I spent feeding my grandfather who had stroke. That same week I was also feeding my infant son. It just dawned on me that here I was, right in the middle of these two life spans giving nourishment to both incredible beings who could not feed themselves. My grandfather passed away a week later and my son just turned 11 last week. So I suppose I am 11 years older to my own finish line. But nothing is promised, and I try to live every day so that it is meaningful.
Great and timely post. Todd S’s comment about grieving the life one thought one was going to have really resonated. I had so many ambitions when I was younger and most of them simply came to nothing. My life has changed as I’ve aged, but I’d say things have gotten worse, not better. I used to be full of passion, fire, and never-ending intellectual and emotional curiosity. I just turned 60 and at this point in my life, most of that has gone away and has been replaced with cynicism and an immense, all-consuming fatigue and unhappiness. The previous sentence sounds really bad, but honestly, my life has had both peaks and valleys, like everybody else’s. On the one hand, I’ve gotten to achieve my dreams of being a father (to two really great kids) and of working with young people as an educator. Those have been immensely satisfying achievements. On the other hand, I have two failed marriages behind me, a lack of close friends, and a pretty consistent and deep sense of disconnect from people and the world at large. I realize that those are minuscule problems compared to what many people deal with on a daily basis, but I do wish I had come to understand much earlier what a profound influence childhood trauma would have on my inability to make friends and establish healthy relationships. I’ve never been able to do it, and I consider that both my greatest regret and the great failure of my life; hence, I think, me being a lot less happy/content than many other 60-year-olds may be. I’m still trying, though, to heal/change old, established patterns of being in order to make peace with my life story. That’s something I consider to be a worthwhile endeavor, especially if it means figuring out how to be happier.
And to answer your other question about approval, as a young convert (I joined the church when I was 20), the church was both very good for me and also very bad for me. I was exposed to a lot of kind, loving people who modeled a better life than what I had had up to that point. That was tremendously helpful. Also, though, there were immense social and cultural pressures (the first place I lived after I was baptized was Provo) that led me to seek approval from my leaders, my friends, and people I dated in ways that were generally unhealthy. That lasted about a decade. Once I reached my 30s, I realized that one of the very few blessings of feeling so disconnected from others is that you don’t have any qualms about occasionally telling people to go f**k themselves if they insist on trying to pressure or guilt you into doing things that you don’t think are right. Of course, like all superpowers, it must be used sparingly, since practicing kindness is way more important than telling people off, but I am grateful that the older I’ve gotten, the less I give a crap about what anyone thinks. That’s more healthy than not, I think. And amen to Todd S about life being meant to be lived, not won.
My wife and I were both born in 1948, and married in 1970, 6 weeks after coming home from my mission. At the time the church was teaching that a RMs next responsibility was to get married but it was also teaching of the evils of birth control. We had our first daughter in 1970 too. So when I married I did not have a job or any educational qualifications. So we spent the first 10 years in poverty and struggle. I eventually got a job as a sales rep. I am an introvert but managed.
So we had to figure out a way to be financially successful without a very impressive single income. Property.
Last weekend I was at a Christmas party and approached by our present stake president. He told me he had attended a presentation I gave 20 years ago, when I was HP group leader, on how to achieve financial independence. I had written a booklet too. He told me it had changed his life for the better, and he knew of 3 or 4 others similarly affected. There were 2 others at the party including the host. Have I done any good? The church thing at the time was getting a better job.
After I retired I built houses for each of my children and self using unconventional building materials, to help them get a foot on the ladder. Cheaper, better, and less building skill required.
Last year I had a stroke. I had physiotherapy and was able to get my driver’s licence back, but I lost credibility. Whereas before my driving, and decision making were trusted, now those I live with second guess me. In Australia after you are 75 you have to have a medical certificate to drive, and so far That has not been a problem. But still.
This year I have weakness and pain in both arms, more on the right, because I have worn my shoulders out, again physiotherapy.
We have a cruise booked for February, but dare not book any too far in the future in case we are not capable of doing the walking required, or otherwise limited.
At present I am putting led lights full width on my tesla x with sequential indicators half the width of the car, to make it individual. I bought the car as a repairable write off, and repaired it and got it registered.
At present Australia is playing England at cricket. This is called the ashes, and started in1882, and is played in each country alternately. Today is the second day of the third match, and Australia won the first 2 matches. There will be 5 matches of up to 5 days each. If you are watching cricket on TV you can read a book, and replay the highlights. Cricket is a very complex and sophisticated game. Recommend it if you are retired.
Such a great post and discussion. After a chaotic childhood as an immigrant to the US, I’ve basically lived the American dream and won all the prizes. I’m now in mid life and reminded often of the short story The Monkey’s Paw. My life is full of abundance and ease but to my surprise I’m not much interested in it anymore.
I am so with you on the menopausal realisation that I matter too. My preferences are just as important as anyone else’s. And Anna, I so understand that about the penny-pinching. It’s difficult not to feel extravagant sometimes, even when the things I am buying are not unreasonably priced. I find it helps to remind myself of the fabric costs, and work and time required, were I to make the item myself. And that I am happy to pay a fair price.
I kind of got an early kick start into the things I am doing now, when my father was diagnosed with MND. I panicked, and thought of all those things I was waiting to do once the children finished secondary school and went off to university and how it might be too late. (My father was 68 when he died). So I resumed music lessons, and volunteered with the school brass band.
Now, at 56, I am enjoying playing with the local community orchestra. I am also better at saying no to things. If I am asked to give a sacrament meeting talk, I want to know the topic, and if it’s something I think I won’t be happy addressing in a way that isn’t going to upset the congregation, then I decline the invitation to speak. If a RS activity is the same time as an orchestra rehearsal, well the orchestra rehearsal wins.
Fine post and discussion, with so many angles. Here are a few LDS angles that spring to mind.
First, the Church doesn’t want you to grow up. It would be tough enough to manage some of the transitions identified in the OP, but if you are active in the LDS Church it’s tougher.
Second, how many senior leaders or local leaders are, in the terminology of the OP, grown up themselves? Maybe 1 or 2 in 10, I think. Certainty, structure, belonging, clear boundaries — leadership is all about these LDS values. Paradox and prioritizing self over the Church and erasing boundaries, there are just darn few in LDS leadership at any level who take that approach.
Third, just to emphasize the above two items, the LDS plan for seniors and retirement is to do a bunch of church service as senior missionaries or as temple workers. The idea of a leisurely retirement or of spending more time with the kids/grandkids or of doing cruises or tourism — that is never explicitly criticized but it’s not The LDS Plan for Your So-Called Retirement.
Dave,
I’d say that what the church wants is for us to be “rooted, grounded, and settled” — and I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be as flexible as a willow tree. We have to have that kind of flexibility–even to the point of breaking–in order to meet life’s challenges head on as Christians. And so, to use another metaphor: our feet are “shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace” while we put one the “helmet of faith.” We are grounded in the foundational elements of the gospel and open to come what may.
Oops. That’s the “helmet of salvation.”
I think I reached the second half of life intellectually and spiritually around 40, after a few years of questioning my beliefs and making peace with a new world of uncertainty. There were conversations with people in my life at the time that might have contributed to beginning that transition, but in many ways I can see the seeds were planted long before and it was probably inevitable. It was not a particularly difficult transition compared to many other stories I’ve heard, and I’m glad to be on this side of it, still participating in the church on my own terms. I can tell I have a very different relationship to the institution and to authority than my fellow congregants. Now a bit past 50 I feel I’ve reached the second half physically, both in terms of the actuarial tables for someone my age, and in terms of my physical trajectory no longer being upward. My focus is shifting to making sure that downward slope is as gentle as possible, recognizing that what I do with my body now will probably matter more 30 years from now than it does now. That was probably always true, but it has begun to feel more salient.