A couple of universities often ask me to speak to senior media classes to offer real world advice. I approach my talks from the same perspective in which I raised my kids, and that is: Adaptation is the only predictor of success for any species or individual.
Now that I am asked to blog to a Boomer generation and the beginning Generation X-ers like myself turning 50, my approach is no different.
The river of life takes turns we can never predict or imagine, and yet, we survive and thrive by virtue of our ever-sharpening navigational skills.
I tell the students and my children not to hold fast to one dream or one reality set out there in the future. Instead work on yourself. Prepare yourself. Like a football running back, put in the practice to be ready. When it is game time and you are holding the ball, that’s when you look for the holes in the defense and you run. Opportunities arise that you may not have imagined. Be prepared. Keep your eyes open. And run! If you were only looking in one direction you may have missed the best play and the opportunity to score big. That is the advice I give the young.
But we are more than halfway through life now. How well have we adapted? I couldn’t have predicted the turns in my own life. The divorce was not in the cards. Raising two children on my own wasn’t either. Then two years ago the train went off the rails once more. My father had a stroke that has left him paralyzed. My second long-term relationship broke up. And both children left for schools in different cities.
Finding my own meaning again without falling back on my self-definition of ‘nurturing caregiver’ to my children was a big adjustment. New tuition costs put my need to succeed in the workforce on the front burner. And, most importantly, my wake-up call came: I would not have many more years with my parents.
I packed up my home and moved south to be near my ailing parents. Then, I took the ball and started looking for gaps on the field that I could run through. My appreciation for the importance of adaptation helped me face the new challenges, situations, and environs. I found adapting gets a lot easier with practice!
Today, I have a small media company called Patty Wolfe Media Group. (My old career was in network television. That paradigm does not lend itself to my age or my locale.) I hire talented and vibrant young people to help businesses and non-profits thrive through today’s ever-changing (there’s that word again!) media landscape. Web, videos, photos, social media, the entire arena is dynamic and evolving rapidly. We are, in fact, working with this website on blogs and books. I have grown very comfortable with change — in fact, I embrace it — and that alone has helped my career, company, and life.
Gigi says that “after 50 life is SoAgeless.” And for me life is change. Time is change. We cannot stop changing or adapting to it.
Watching my Dad, 84, surf the challenges in his life after his debilitating stroke proves this to me once again. His life today is not recognizable to the one he lived one minute before the stroke. He is paralyzed. He has trouble speaking. But he has new wonders in his life. Therapists and their families are now a part of my parent’s expanding family. Dad, always the caregiver, has learned to let others care for him. His smile and his positivity are intact because he navigated change with grace.
To become static is to become extinct. I give this advice to anyone at any age. Keep yourself prepared. Be ready. The river will turn. That is life. Resist defining yourself by titles or circumstances, but rather pride yourselves on your power to adapt!
Take the ball and keep running. Life is still a game to be played – at any age!
