There are so many ways to answer this question……….

For many of us the term “aging” is a negative.  Relative to our adult lives we want to avoid it, cover it, hide it, surgically modify it, and reverse it to stay youthful, vibrant, and beautiful.

What a year it has been as I reflect on turning 60!!!

This is one of my FAVORITE photos from one of our adventures as I "walked" in to my 60's.  We were blessed to travel to India with our dear friend Madhu in April.  It was an adventure that I would not have signed up for without the personal connection of wanting to learn more about Madhu's background and culture.  India is amazing in so many ways and it was an extraordinary trip.

Any of us who have traveled know things don’t always go as planned.  Not only that but in most cases we cannot control the circumstances and sometimes #(&* happens. 

In this space of experiencing the abundant blessings in my life, I am also aware of holding the paradoxes. As I muse about how I hope this year will unfold, and "who" I want to be as I add years to my chronology, I am struck today by the juxta positioning of my rich life with the suffering around me.

Older people are happier—and so am I—some thoughts about how this happened, and evidence for why/how it is part of the human experience.

A key word for us to understand, ponder, and demonstrate as we grow older is the word resilient (ience).  The definition of resilience: “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.”

I started bagging groceries at QFC at age 16 and for the next 29 years stayed in the grocery business.  I left QFC in 1999 as president of the company. We had 105 stores in the Pacific Northwest and a big part of my job was selecting and mentoring future leaders for the business.

Christy Spivey has spent her adult life working in various retail leadership roles. Until 2012 that was all in the state of Florida, where she was married and raised two children. Nearing the age of 50 Christy had no idea how her life would change. We spoke with Christy in April 2017 and asked her to share a bit of her personal story – and how life doesn’t stop at age 50.

I'd been doing dentistry for 40 years. Either being in school or practicing. I wanted to do something different. I didn't want to die while clutching a dental instrument. I knew I wanted to stop doing dentistry but I didn't want to stop working. I knew I wanted to find meaningful work but I didn't know what that was going to be.

In July 1987, at the age of 48, Jerry was driving on the freeway and had a clear sense that he should be professionally engaged in helping families. He began volunteering at the Community Counseling Center in Bellevue, WA and then went back to school, getting a Masters Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy.

After a couple decades of being full-time Mom and part-time employee in various capacities, Laurie purchased Island Books on Mercer Island – a community fixture for 35 years. The rest of the story:

Wow. Spending the last two weekends of February learning felt like immersion in a warm and rich climate of curiosity. I learned a new term to describe my interest in learning--catalytic curiosity--from Chip Conley in his talk about "modern elders" and our place in the world. This begins a series of captured and curated wisdom from juicy time spent with my best friend and partner at Wisdom 2.0 and the Search for Meaning book festival.

I met Suzanne over coffee on March 20, 2017. Her husband Tom told me about Suzanne’s decision to rekindle her piano playing after a 20-year hiatus.This eventually led to a full-on concert performance on September 17, 2016 – with four other performers - in front of 300 people. Here’s the mini-Suzanne story.

At the age of 60 Nancy started her own business, in a field completely different than the nursing career she had as a younger adult.