The Call to Adventure After 70
A call to adventure does not come with an age limit. After 70, it may arrive quietly: an idea that keeps returning, something you want to learn, a problem you feel compelled to address, or a contribution you suddenly realize you are uniquely equipped to make. It may even seem impractical. At this age, you know what effort costs. There is a growing realization of mortality, that time is finite. That can make the question more important, not less: Is there something I still want—or need—to do with the life ahead of me?
The Call to Adventure does not require that you abandon the life you have or undertake something enormous. It asks only that you take seriously the possibility that you are not finished becoming, learning, creating, or contributing. You bring something to a new undertaking that your younger self could not have brought: your decades of experience, mistakes, accumulated knowledge, and a clearer understanding of what matters to you. The adventure after 70 is not an attempt to become young again. It is the opportunity to discover what you can do with everything you have become.
I have said that man should not ask what he may expect from life,
but should rather understand that life expects something from him.
It may also be put this way: in the last resort, man should not ask, ‘What is the meaning of my life?’
but should realize that he himself is being questioned.
Life is putting its problems to him, and it is up to him to respond to these questions by being responsible;
he can only answer to life by answering for his life.
Viktor Frankl
The Doctor and the Soul
(Ärztliche Seelsorge: Grundlagen der Logotherapie und Existenzanalyse.)
Dr Frank’s most well known book may be, Man’s Search for Meaning. Many people have reached for it when they found themselves upended or bereft and wondering how to make sense of life again. I highly recommend it.
The Doctor and the Soul is Frankl’s explanation of logotherapy, itself.
Man’s Search for Meaning uses logotherapy to help us find meaning and new purpose.
