15. Adulting 2.0
June 27, 2025
When I think about it, it strikes me as odd that we have a shared cultural understanding that tells us that working as an adult for a company and then stopping work to retire at 65 and live off the wealth we have accumulated consists of a complete life. More than complete – desired. I’m no expert on sociology or economic systems, but it seems to me that this is the perfect mental model for a strong capitalistic system. When the goal is to make money and accumulate wealth, as it is for capitalism, having a job is the penultimate accomplishment. What if we shifted the goal of a life from accumulating wealth to accumulating joy. Or expanding our heart. Or creating a strong community with deep connections that will sustain many people. And keep the emphasis on work in a more secondary state – a chance to earn a living, yes, and also interact with different types of people and different types of ideas. Maybe a chance to learn something or create something new.
When I was on the State Board of Education in Ohio, we developed a strategic plan, and one of the topics of many long conversations was, what is the goal of a K-12 education? Our group of educators, administrators, community leaders and policy makers ended up defining the way we would measure success of K-12 education for Ohio using this metric:
Ohio will increase annually the percentage of its high school graduates who, one year after graduation, are in one of these categories:
· Enrolled and succeeding in a post-high school learning experience, including an adult career-technical education program, an apprenticeship and/or a two-year or four-year college program;
• Serving in a military branch;
• Earning a living wage; or
• Engaged in a meaningful, self-sustaining vocation.
All of these bullets are related to being self-sufficient. At the age of 17 or 18, the age at which you are finishing high school, it makes perfect sense to be focused on how you will be able to support yourself and your family. “Building a container in your first half of life” as Robert Rohr describes it in his book, “Falling Upward,” includes being able to pay for food, shelter, clothing, and also being able to engage in activities that allow you and your family to grow and experience the world, like attending school, participating in cultural activities, taking care of your body through physical movement, and so on.
But to have that same goal at 40 seems odd. How do we keep that same goal for all of our adult life? If there have been struggles then yes, you may still need to focus on being self-sufficient in your later years. But if you have a relatively stable income and health, after 20 some years of participating in adult life, I am proposing that it makes sense to develop a new goal. One of fulfillment or service or creativity. We could call this phase “Adulting 2.0,” and look forward to that as we work hard to build our container in our earlier adult years.
It is always good to have something to look forward to, a friend and I repeated this to each other recently. Yes, you may still be building your career and maybe still raising kids, but as the time required for these tasks is reduced, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a new focus to put that energy into?
