Whose Life Did You Live?

Welcome, my name is Edna White and we are actually starting our first one of 60 Now What? And my sole presenter here is... So excited she can't wait her own turn. I'm so excited. I know, so exciting. I'm so super pumped, yeah. I'm Ann Peska and yeah, 60 Now What? I mean, what a fantastic topic for a podcast. And we're the perfect people for it, so. The perfect people. 100%, 100%. You're up in New York, I'm down in Florida, I can cover everything in between. That's right. And I think you said something before as we were talking about it before, you called it the great migration. Yeah, always. Yeah, I know, you like send them off my way, I catch them. And then at some point, I often return them. That happens. But what happens in the middle? And that's kind of like life, right? Like we start out like these perfect versions of ourselves. We've got these great dreams. And then in the middle, we get sent somewhere that we often don't even know how we, what even happened. We wake up and we're 60. Yeah, we wait. I think most of us, for me from New York, I think a lot of people become 60 and go. That's true. They become 60 and they go. Very rarely do you find somebody in their 30s saying, oh, yeah, let's go to Florida. Unless it's Miami Beach, of course. But yeah, let's go to Florida. No, very rarely do you hear that. So it's when we get 60. When we New Yorkers say, you know, I'm tired of working, I'm on retirement. And this is going to be great because I'm headed to the sunny state. You know, we get that sunny state. Yeah. And we get down there and it's probably gloom. Yeah. Because we're kicking back on the beach. We got a Mai Tai in one hand and then we're sitting there going, what the hell happened? You can only drink so many Mai Tais though, babe. You can only drink so many. But you're still the commonality for a lot of people is they're like, how did I get to retirement? Yeah. What did I do with my life? And now what? Yeah. Now what? Like, who am I? Like, because, you know, when you're when you're retiring, you're retiring from doing something just like when you when there's empty nesters, you're retiring from your children being your own, you know, and now retirement from a job or retirement from volunteering. Now, who am I without that? And that's what you get. And then you get that. I think it's fantasized. I think going to anywhere, anywhere, just saying anywhere after retirement is fantasized. Like it's a fantasy. People tell you about it. Oh, that sounds great. Because, you know, you know, my friend, she she left when she retired at 62. She left and she sold. She left eight years ago. How? I didn't know she was that old. And, you know, anyway, I didn't realize that. But she had such, you know, they say it's the weather is great. Girl, I went out the first time I went out there and the weather was horrible. It's like 80 degrees blustering. And I was like, what do you guys do besides crawl under a rock? Yeah, too much. And I'm like, this is this was horrendous. I don't like a lot of heat anyway. So, yeah, yeah, no. So, you know, you get the I think it's romanticized. I think it's fantasized and all of that. And then when you get there, it's like, well, now what? You know, so true. So, you know, and it's funny because we feel like I feel like we're in a race to always get to the next best thing. Right. When you're a kid, you're like, can't wait till I graduate. And then you're like, you have no idea what that means. But you can't wait to graduate. I can't wait till I get married. And then you're like, you have no idea what that means. But you can't wait. No, you don't wait to get a dream job. Yeah, same thing. Right. And then I can't wait until I retire. And this is what I hear a lot when I've got people that show up on the doorsteps of Florida. So excited to not have to punch a time clock anymore that all of a sudden they realize what happened. Yeah. And now what do I do? Right. Yeah. I've made I've made the jump. I'm in. And it's literally like getting into an airplane with your parachute on not not knowing where you're jumping to and where you're landing. Then when you land there, it's like, OK, now what I do next? Like, you know, I made the leap and it was a big it's a big leap. It's not like moving in from like a house to an apartment. It's not that. It's moving from a whole nother area, the different culture, everything. And so now things change because now you've been stripped. And that's the whole thing. I think we don't wait until to degree because that's a process. Like, yeah, your ring is a process because you now have to shed that. You know, my friend was a cop. She had to shed the fact that she was a whole cop. You know, and she had to shed that fact. And she went like when she realized because I'm not a cop anymore. I was like, no, you did this 20 something years, 29, something like that. You know, you know, and now what do I do? You know, I can't go around, you know, waving my back. You can't do that anymore. Now, I don't think we take the time in the retirement stage. I don't think you take the time to say this. You know, I have to grieve the loss of this because this is this has been a big chunk of my life and just jump into the next best thing. Jumping like jumping into bed. What am I used to say? Jump into jumping from the frying pan into the fire into the fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? I don't think that we really grieve any process of change like when we all of a sudden. I remember when I went from teenagerhood into like big peoplehood. I was like, what do you mean? A refrigerator doesn't come with mayonnaise and ketchup and all that stuff. But how come there's no towels or bed sheets? And like, what do you mean there's no bed? Like, isn't that issued to you at birth? Like, you know, you don't you don't you take for granted all of these different stages and don't give yourself time to go, wow, I'm moving into a new stage. And how can I prepare? And even if there's no preparation time anymore because you're there. How can I best take care of myself in this new period that I'm in? Yeah, I don't think that that doesn't happen. It doesn't happen because it's all expediency. You know, again, fantasize that I'm going to just. You know, it's like, wow, it's a great commercial. It's like New York. Yeah, you know, and that's really what it is, is we don't we don't take time. And yes, things may have to happen quickly. You know, certain situations. However, do we sit down and we do we really think about it? I said to my friend, I said, I know you want to go to Florida, but be sit down and weigh, weigh the things like sit there, you know, and think about, OK, you go in there thinking you have this great socialized life. I said, all of Florida is not Miami Beach. Right, right, right. Exactly. It's not. So did you sit down? How am I going to grow my, you know, and nobody thinks about that, you know? How am I going to like even when I when I when I moved to my house, I sold my house and moved to this apartment and I said, well, I didn't think about socially because that's a part of you. Socialization is a part of you. Yeah. I don't care if it has to do with, you know, I think introverts and extroverts is still part of us. That's why we have two ears, two eyes, two feet. OK, connection. And so we don't sit down and weigh the fact that socialization is part of the plan. We don't know what we're going to socialize with. If we if we pick an area, is there socialization in that area? Yeah. You know, we don't do that. Then we end up isolating ourselves now. Like, what do we do now? Like, this is so funny. I'm sitting in this house with a pool and a jacuzzi, possibly an air conditioner. What am I doing? How are we getting the socialization I need? You know, and you know, all of that factors in. And I think we forget that piece. That piece is very important. We do. And we forget that we have a responsibility to ourselves and to the situation. So I'll hear a lot of things from people that I don't I don't have any friends. Nobody in my neighborhood is friendly. Nobody says hi. But you know what? When was the last time you stood up and walked up to your neighbor's door and knocked on it and said hi? Yeah. My name is Anne, and I just wondered if you'd like to have a conversation someday. We're all from New York. Got to remember that. They're all from New York. They don't talk. OK, no, they don't. Not friendly. Same thing from other parts as well. You know what I mean? It really is like so quick to complain about what's not working in their world. But let's look at the common denominator. Like you. Right. But I think, too, you just put a great point is that we disconnect. We have had friends. And this I hear this my mom all the time. My mom is 85. And I hear, you know, I don't have any friends. I was like, mom, all your and it's the truth of the matter. And I'm saying it and I don't want to sound cruel, but all your friends are deceased. OK. And if not, unable to connect with you on like arm in arm, you know, in person. Right. OK. Right. But all these other people are right here. Yeah. And it's they've gotten out of the habit of showing themselves. They've gotten out of the habit of doing that because, well, all my friends are dead. But friendship is something that happens over and over again. It's not just longevity. It's over and over again with whomever. You can be friendly. You can have a partner. You can have you can have a companion, you know, just somebody somewhere with. Right. But we get out of the habit of because of the age, we get out of the habit of being friendly to people. That's a big mistake. A big mistake is being friendly, being in our own world, you know, and I know you think I'm thinking about the grumpy old man at the grocery store. You know. Oh, yeah. I'll say, hurry up. And he's got two things of bread and eggs. Yeah. But in their own world. And in order to be social and want those things, you have to be out of your own world. Yeah. You can't live there. And that's what I think, you know, a good majority of people. I saw somebody yesterday and she smiled at me and I smiled at her. And she's older lady. She goes, what are you doing? I said, I'm old, just like you. I just might not look like it. But she started laughing. And so she didn't. She came back from the bathroom. She smiled at me again to be in here. I think I'm here because I'm in pain. So it was. But you see, she came. She was out of her comfort zone because she kept her head down and walked to the bathroom, did what she did, but she didn't. She made eye contact and she smiled. A smile transcends every bad thing. I know it happened to me. So, you know, it transcends. You show yourself friendly. Yeah, if everybody has you, that'd be bad. Yeah, that's the best invitation. That's the best invitation. You know, it's funny because I just heard I listened to a podcast this morning and they were talking about relationships and, you know, we know, right, we're in our 60s. So we got wisdom. We're not just smart. We got wisdom. Relationships take work. They take work on both sides. And they're doing studies on the millennials and, you know, Gen Z. And I mean, there's such a massive disconnect. They say that the average teenage young man from the age of 16 to 24, over 45 percent have never asked a girl out on a date. Right. That's tremendous. Right. So that is actually quite sad that the disconnect is so, so great. But we come from an era. We come from a generation that we know differently. Yeah. I don't want to say better. We know differently. And we know whether we've had marriages because now we're in our 60s. Right. So some of us have had we've gotten really good practice and had several of them. So whether we've had one or none, we still understand how relationships worked. And we often got to see our parents connecting with the neighbors, connecting with our extended family. And it was very intentional. It was driven by somebody inviting another. Like, I don't remember ever sitting around listening to people around me go, well, you know, she just never calls. And well, they just never want to do anything. I don't remember those those conversations. And I think it likely was because somebody was extending the invitation more often. It could have been. I don't want to go. But I don't ever remember such a disconnect as there is today. You didn't have all those these apparatuses that everybody I call them apparatuses. You don't have all those. You wouldn't have those. So going out for me going outside and everybody like I lived in a town like when I came from Alabama, I lived in a town that every it's an affluent now. It's like this big hopping village. They like used to play around the streets. I said, yeah, I know all the streets over here running around. And we used to get home before the lights went out every night. You know, even my mother was home or not. The lights the lights went out. We were in trouble. OK, and we tried to get the lights home. The street lights as they pop on. We had to get home. Literally, we're running like the light popping off, popping on. We go literally. But it was more of that, you know, and we talk about, you know, retirement is supposed to give us freedom, freedom, freedom. But do we really want free freedom? And what I think we have in our mind is freedom from that job because we really didn't like. Yeah. But when we say retirement is actually free to fly to your next destination, right? So, yeah, it means to free you up to now, because you have to expand your wings because you've been in a cage for a long time. Some of us in retirement is like you at a job for 20, 30, 40, sometimes even 50 years. Yeah. And so you're cooped up like this. And so when that cage opens, it should be the freedom to do that. And I think we again, I'm going to go back to we just don't take the time. You only need two minutes to spread your weight. You only need two minutes. And I think that we don't have we don't put the time in what you said. We don't intentionally put the time in. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or the effort or the effort. And, you know, it's and it's really interesting that we use the term freedom because all the rules are our rules. Yeah. So if we had already initially chosen a free way of living, we would not be seeking freedom. So it's from somebody else's rules or looking for an exit strategy, right? Right, exactly. So that tells us that who you what we're talking about today. Who am I? Or what is that topic? Who? Yeah, that's right. Who am I? Who am I now? Right. Who am I? Yeah. Right. Who am I? So now you have to now that's off of you. Retirement's off of you. Your children are off of you. Now, who am I? It's a right time to discover yourself, to unearth all that stuff that you thought you were or you lived the experience of, you know, and a lot of times, too. And I was talking about this the other day. A lot of times we take on different roles. Yeah, maybe because of our mistakes, right? Or we get involved. We say yes to the decision we made. Or. Right. Someone told us, oh, you need to be a nurse and you needed it. You needed it. I know my first marriage, my mother was like making me get married. I was like, are you kidding me? I was like, I think I can handle this. You know, I had a kid out of wedlock. I think I can handle it. I'm all right. But adding that was the worst thing that ever she could have ever done for me. It wasn't great instruction, you know, and I struggled. I struggled. And I was like, but I was smart enough to say no more. I can't do it. I can't put the kids through it. So no more. I can't. No, we'll do without that part. You know, I'm OK with if they want to label me as a single mom. I'm OK with that. I'm OK. Right. I'm all right. Right. I got other things to think about. So. Right. We sometimes those things are upon us that it really in order for us to be a diamond. And I think this is the time the 60s, 70s, 80s are the times that we we have been compressed as a now that we need to be diamonds. And how do you do it? You get a diamond. It's under the it's under dirt. So that has to be all on earth. Where are the diamonds in the rough? Because guess what? At the end of the day, we tell this generation, if we don't have children on our own, we can we can give another generation our knowledge and leave a legacy. That's what we do. That's what we have. Yeah, exactly. And wisdom on top of all that pressure comes experience and wisdom. Exactly. It comes. Right. It does. Right. You're nailing it. It is wisdom, too. There's a distance between knowledge. So when you're in your 30s and 40s, you you don't have wisdom. You've got knowledge. Right. You've got to really move closer to 60. And then you're like, wow. And I really I really hope people realize how much they have to bring to the table. Retired in your 70s or, you know, just beginning your retirement in your 60s or well into your 80s. You have a lot to bring to the table. Absolutely. Yeah, I can tell you that. I saw this commercial the other day. Might have been a commercial. Might have been. I don't know what it was. I just moved looking. And so this guy, he's older, generally is over his 50s. And the Gen Z's were hiring them for this whatever company they were. And they they they hired him because he had wisdom and knowledge to keep the team together. Yep. OK, to keep the team together. He had 30 years in, I guess, some management, team management, something like that. And and so he met this other woman. She was older. He goes, yeah, why did they hire us? Because we have what they don't have. Yep, so true. So I say that to say this is that we have it. We're not in the we're thinking that we're alone because we're not. Oh, you know, if we if we put together and I think if we go to Florida, if I go to Florida right now together, maybe 20 people say we're alone. Yeah, we could literally easily put 20 right on my street. Yeah, yeah. You're saying the same thing the other 20 people are saying, and you're not alone. You're not right. And if those alone people get together, you're going to find some commonalities and you're going to find some camaraderie somewhere, somewhere. What an amazing opportunity that is everywhere. It just requires some. Maybe there's a way for us to put together some some kind of, you know, prompts to really ponder and think about what is it that gets in my way from wanting to extend a hand to another human being and share. Yeah, that's a good question. And maybe audience, you should be starting to answer that, you know, and that's a great question to start. Yeah, because this conversation is about that. What is what am I doing or what am I saying on what pattern am I repeating? Right, right. From getting to where I really want to be. If I see something simple as that starting like that, just I want to make a friend. Yes. Oh, my God. I love it. Just that one. That's it. Move. What is it that and let's answer that question again so that they can hear it nice and loud. What is it about myself that holds me up from extending a hand to another? That's good. It's good. That's good. Yeah. And let me tell you, with this wisdom that you have, it also unearths intuition. And what's the other word that everybody uses now? I've got the other word. But I use intuition. It opens, it turns it on. So the way you feel doesn't supersede that. And you can tell, oh, they have great energy. And you'll know who to go to. You'll know who to go. You'll know who to smile at. You know, you'll do that. If you are that, if that question opens up your own feeling, your soul, your soul, it opens it up. It'll open it up and you'll start taking physical and mental responsibility for yourself. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Because that's one thing that we definitely are masters of is that inner GPS called our intuition, our guidance system, because it is spot on when we're in our 60s. It says, oh, no, and a hell yeah. And you just listen to that. It's so easy. Yeah. And then, you know, the third thing it says is I can say what I want to say and do what I want to do. That's what it says. Love it. This is going to be so much fun. I am so super excited to have these conversations. I really am. These conversations are really necessary. And we as a team, on each of these conversations that we have on 60 now what? They're going to be different topics. So each time we want, we're going to give you a question for you to answer. And we want you to come back and bring somebody else like, you know, like, share, subscribe. And we want you to bring somebody else. But additional to this, we're going to have a worksheet for you to work through this and replay this again, maybe with somebody, maybe even with your partner and say, OK, what can we do? This is one simple question every week so that you can start to rebuild your life. Yeah, it's going to be great. It's going to be great fun. Yeah. And welcoming all of the ideas and the comments as well. Please send them. Yeah, absolutely. We're open for that because we want to hear what you got to say because, yeah, you're going to hear everything we have to say. But we want to hear what you got to say. And you can always leave your comments in this in below. Or you can just click the button under the video, complete the worksheet for yourself and we'll be able to ask you questions. Yeah, that's fun. That's fun. Cool. All right, my friend, I will see you in the next button. That is what 60 looks like when you stop waiting for permission. Now, before you go, don't forget there's a question for the day. So I want you to sit with it. I want you to write it down and roll this back if you have to so that you can get the answer for yourself. Hit like, subscribe, leave us a review and share this with someone who needs to hear it. Every one of these things puts this show in front of more people who are ready to move. All the links, the question prompts, everything we talked about today. It's all in the description. Listen, we are not done. We're just getting started.