A few nights ago I engaged in a conversation with another gentleman about his feelings on aging.  He was a bit older than me, perhaps in his late 50's.  A fairly fit man, he was describing his frustration with how he is perceived as being "older", yet he doesn't feel "older".  He wasn't just rebelling against people's opinions, because he acknowledged that when he was younger, people his age seemed to act older and feel older than he does now.

It was there that I presented an on-the-spot theory that set him aback...but seemed to resonate nonetheless.

I pondered whether the extension of our life expectancy has changed our own perception on the procession of our lives.  Decades ago, when we expected to live into our 60's and 70's, the life procession was kids, into teenagers, into young adults, into marriage, into parents, into grandparents, into retirement, into death.

Now that we expect to live into our 80's, 90's and even 100's, have we changed the way was view that progression, and has that changed our psyche for the second half of our lives?  Now, it is kids, into teenagers, into young adults, into marriage, into parents, into...well, into what.  It seems that now for many of us, we enter into this time our kids where have grown up and we now examine how we feel and what we should do next.  We are still young and virile and now have a chance for some level of freedom.  We re-examine our relationships, our careers, our place in the world.  We may have 30, 40, 50 more years before we die and are not satisfied by the simple slide into the track of retirement and death while we feel so good.

Any of this resonate with anyone?