I’ve been spending some time lately on a few self-improvement-ish websites (Live Your Legend, Life Reimagined), reading and contemplating. I guess it’s all part of my not-midlife-crisis where I am trying to figure out what the next chapter/act of my life is going to look like. Full disclosure: I had a recent birthday and, well, I’m not getting any younger. I know! Who knew! Funny how that works. So I’ve been spending some time thinking about big stuff: what makes me happy, what fulfills me, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? And I realized after some reflection that I don’t know the answer to any of those questions.

I’d like to say that I decided to start this quest all on my own, but Chuck was the true instigator. He turns 70 in two years, and is definitely ready for his next big thing. He calls it retirement, but it really means having the time to pursue his true passions/interests. And here’s the thing: I find myself realizing that I am not really sure what my passions/interests are. I feel a bit embarrassed to admit that; it feels like I somehow failed at Life 101. But I guess the truth is that it makes me like a lot of people: caught up in the day to day of work and life, and not really giving a much thought to my overall working life satisfaction level as long as I could pay the bills and keep a roof over my head. Somewhere along the way I quit (or never thought to start) thinking about how fulfilling it all really was. And here I am (finally) asking that question, and finding that the answer is: not very.

What now? There is, I fear, some navel-gazing in my future, as I think about what I want to be when I grow up – or at least grow out of where I find myself right now. What do I like to do? What makes me happy? And answering those questions, how do I go about making my life more about those things. That’s at the core of Live Your Legend. It’s at the core of a lot of self help books and blogs, of course – find your passion and hey presto! your life will fall into place. I don’t actually believe that it will be quite that magical, but as a start I can identify the things that really make me happy and excited to get up in the morning.

As we plan our journey toward retirement (or as I like to think of it, doing something completely different from what we’re doing now), I am starting the big think about my next thing. So here goes: I said I didn’t know what my passions or interests are but that’s not really true, my big passions involve running, travel, and writing. Running is part of me – it’s been my meditation, my church, my salvation more than once in my life. I imagine there will come a time (maybe in the not-too-distant future) when it may be more walking than running, but the act of getting off my ass and going outside will always be a part of who I am. Travel has been a defining part of my adult life. When I was a teenager (and at other low points of my life), I got through the sucky bits by dreaming of all of the places I’d go – and I have been to a fair number of them, but the world is a big place and there is so much more to see! And writing has always been a joy of mine – an avocation, never a vocation (except briefly post-college when I did some pretty lame local journalism). So I think that I really want to throw down the gauntlet at myself (is that even possible?) and take the chance and start writing seriously, like a real writer.

It’s thrilling to feel like I’m at the start of a big adventure. Then I remember the quote from T.S. Eliot that hung on my wall all through high school and into college: “We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” But even if I do end up, after all this navel-gazing, pretty much where I started, if it feels new again it will have been worth the journey.