40. Growing into the Third Quarter of Life - Level 1
December 19, 2025
My vision for an “Elder-in-Training” curriculum is coming into focus. I expect this will continue to evolve over time; this is my view for now. I wrote about the Third Quarter of Life in last week’s essay. The Third Quarter of Life is from around age 50 to age 75, so it includes later working years as well as years when you likely are no longer working. I see two levels within the third quarter, with the first being a steppingstone to the second. This week, I focus in depth on the first level.
Level 1 - Own Your Life. By “Own Your Life,” I mean to convey that you are taking the driver seat, purposefully moving in a certain direction. These elements have to do with the direction that you choose. As I see it, this can include at least three elements at its core: Body, Community, Purpose. Think of them as parts of the story, parts of your life that you can consider, add to or focus on. I’ll go through each of these elements here to share my current thoughts on what that part of the journey could contain. Working on each these elements takes time and intention and focus and can be something to consider when looking for something more.
Body has to do with being comfortable in your body, listening to your body, and doing what is good for it. There is no one “right” way to take care of your body; there are a wide range of ways to be strong and fit, and the science is always evolving. The aim of the Body element is that you do not take your body for granted and acknowledge that it’s worthwhile spending time and energy regularly to give your body what it needs, including sleep, movement, and strong food. Choose what is important for you, as related to your body. Start from where you are, and over time, your abilities and interest in this element may grow and evolve.
Community I’ve talked about a bit in earlier essays, check these out: Building your Village, Tending and Befriending, Growing Relationships, Expansion. In our Second Quarter of Life (ages 25-50), we are building our family, our friends who are like family, our relationships in the communities we live in. Again, the idea in the Third Quarter is to not take those relationships for granted, but to invest in them, to wrap them around you. To weave your stories together with others, even with those you only have in your life for a short while. To give you people around you that make you feel grounded, seen, accepted and loved. In childhood, those relationships may happen without much effort from you, but as we age, we need to invest in relationships like we invest in our 401k, with the attention and care towards the goal of sustaining us with the resources we need for the rest of our lives.
Finally, I’ve talked a little about Purpose in some essays. In one essay, I talked about how your job may not be your purpose, even though our culture can lead us to expect that it will. I am sure I know many people who would say their children or grandchildren are their purpose, but I want to invite you to set aside that view and allow it not to be our only purpose. Think of your purpose is something that makes you sturdy, makes you really you. Growing into your purpose will make you even more important and engaging for your children and grandchildren; it will give them a model of how to lead a good life.
As for purpose, I believe everyone has their own gift. I’ve been surprised at how many people insist that they do not. A gift or purpose is something that makes you excited to get up in the morning, that leads you to lose track of time when you are pursuing it. Think music, gardening, art, puzzles, reading. It seems right that devoting energy to figuring out what that magical thing is for you and building the ability to do it more often would be something worthy to pursue in our Third Quarter of Life.
What does it look like to focus on these? I am not a fan of making daily “to-do” lists and including these types of pursuits in them. I would invite you to take time at the start of each week and consider what times you will have to engage in each of these areas over the week. Then, at the end of the week, review how much you were able to do. And keep doing that. Over time, barring distractions or disruptions (which will inevitably come and go), you will start to spend more time in each of these elements.
In my view, these three areas can be considered the foundational elements of our Third Quarter of Life. I hope that putting focus on these three areas will provide some focus for a time in our lives that can be confusing and uncertain. Instead of feeling unmoored when our children leave home, when we become less engaged at work, when we are looking for something else to focus on, these three areas can give us something to be working towards. Come back next week to hear about Level 2!
