Chapter 1: What life changes do people consider at retirement age?
I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is the Sunday Story from Up First, where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. As we approach the new year, we often think about resolutions. You know, like wanting to exercise more, maybe do some Pilates, some cardio, eating better, drinking more water, saving money, all of those things.
Today, we're actually going to focus on life-altering changes, like the choice to go back to school, to pursue a new calling, or pick up an old passion. And specifically, making those changes late in life. Now, you've probably heard of a three-act structure in movies or plays.
It's sort of like the beginning, middle, and end of a story, where the beginning is the setup, the middle is the big challenges and conflicts, and the end is the resolution. In life, we've assumed that the first act is youth and adolescence, the second is middle age, and the third act is usually retirement.
Chapter 2: How does the 'three-act structure' relate to life stages?
But what if you choose not to rest and retire, but to launch into a whole new era? That's what today's episode is about. People who are rejecting the idea that a productive life ends at a certain age and who see life in older age, not as an ending, but a powerful and purposeful new beginning. Anthony Brooks is a former NPR reporter and longtime correspondent at member station WBUR in Boston.
He's spent the last few years interviewing people about their decision to reimagine and reinvent themselves late in life. His series is called Third Act, and he joins us now to talk about what he's learned. Hi, Anthony.
Hey, Aisha. Nice to talk to you.
Yeah. Welcome to the podcast.
Chapter 3: Who is Tom Andrew and what inspired his third act?
Thank you.
So I'm intrigued by the origin story of this project. Did you decide to do this because you were feeling stuck or you wanted a change in your life?
I think there's always a bit of that going on with me. But I think where this really started for me was about 16 years ago. I had a bit of a health scare, which thankfully I recovered from. I was also mourning the loss of my dad. And I guess you could say that I was coming to terms with this idea that there's a lot more of my life behind me
Chapter 4: What challenges did Tom face after retiring from his career?
then ahead of me and I'm thinking for the first time, what do I really wanna do with the time that remains? And I became intrigued with stories of people who found ways to reinvent themselves late in life in interesting and inspirational ways.
And just when I was dialing into this idea, Catherine Seeley of the New York Times reported a great story about a man who began this third act journey in a really fascinating way. And that story really helped launch this project.
Okay, so tell me about the man in that story that drew your attention.
Yeah, so his name is Tom Andrew, and he worked a full career as a doctor, including 20 years as the chief medical examiner for New Hampshire, which is where I live. Tom saw it all up close, Aisha. You know, the grim toll of car accidents, of gunshot wounds, poisonings, assaults, and suicides. You name it, he saw it.
He said it was a job that gave him a particular appreciation for the fragility of life, And he remained committed to his work until the opioid crisis hit New Hampshire hard. And he told me that he watched too many kids, too many young people die, and that he didn't feel that the state was taking the epidemic seriously enough.
And I tried to raise the alarms about this, that at this rate, we will see more drug deaths in a given year in New Hampshire than traffic deaths. Well, sure enough, it came to pass. What was the actual number if it started out at like 50 a year? There were 500 drug deaths a year. There was this frustration with some folks who were perfectly content not to do anything. We live free or die here.
I could not reconcile that with what I was seeing and what I was feeling.
And eventually, Tom just had enough. And in 2017, at the age of 61, he quit.
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Chapter 5: How did Juliana Richardson's background influence her journey?
He'd done the job for 20 years, so he retired.
But I'm guessing since we're talking about him, he didn't just stop and retire in a traditional sense.
No, not at all. You know, he could have followed that route. He could have retired, put his feet up, cruised into old age. But instead, he goes back to school. He's a man of faith. So he goes to seminary school to become a Methodist deacon because what he wants to do is work with his local Boy Scout troop. So here's a bit of what he told me about that.
I spent 20 years on the assessment end, counting the cost. When I wanted to make my change, I wanted to work with young people and let them see that there's a better way than that pill or that powder or that joint that's offered to them by their erstwhile friend.
So he wanted to do good and he wanted to do it at a point when it would matter, right?
Yeah, he really, and this animates a lot of the stories that I found. He wanted to give back is really a good way to put it. And it's worth pointing out that becoming a full-fledged deacon is a long process. It involves not only seminary school, but studying and sitting for interviews with church elders.
And Tom was still at it just a couple of years ago at the age of 66 when I was talking to him.
Well,
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Chapter 6: What led Juliana to pursue her passion for oral histories?
Well, how is it going for Tom now? Like, is he happy with the life that he chose and the radical change that he made?
You know, he really is, as far as I can tell. His kids are grown. He's still happily married. And perhaps most importantly, his life has new purpose, Aisha. And he seems to be really thriving in this third act.
So, Anthony, this is a really heartwarming story. And as you say, what Tom did, I guess, is no longer as out there or outlandish as it might have seemed. What has changed? Is it that people are just living longer?
Yeah, I mean, that's a big part of it.
Chapter 7: How did Natalie Jones reinvent herself after her marriage ended?
I mean, there's a lot of things going on here, but that's one of the main things worth considering. If you go back just over 100 years to 1900, the average life expectancy was around 47. Today, it hovers near 80. So that means we're living three decades longer than we used to.
You know, I spoke to a bunch of experts on this subject, and one of them put it this way, that if you're 54, you could be only halfway through adulthood. And by the way, I came across this fact, which sort of blew my mind, Aisha. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans living into their 90s by 2050 could be as much as 10 times higher than it was in 1980.
So that means if you're one of those people and you're 45, you're only halfway through your life. So you've got half your life ahead of you. So when you hit that traditional retirement age, there's still a lot of life left to live. That's the main point here.
OK, I'm not 45 yet, but I certainly hope when I'm 45 that I got half of my life ahead of me. I hope I got a long, long time.
You got a good chance, Ayesha. You got a good chance.
But that is wild to think about, like how much longer people are living these days and what that means.
Yeah, it is crazy. And consider that some 80 million people in the United States are over the age of 60 and there are more and more of them every day. In fact, as many as 10,000 people a day are turning 65. So we're living longer and there are a whole lot more of us thinking about sort of what do we do with this extra two or three decades of life?
And those who study this period have given it a name. It's called middle-essence. Think of it as a later-in-life adolescence. It's a time of change, of tumult, but it can also be a time of opportunity and growth, like adolescence. And by the way, Aisha, old age or older age offers an opportunity to be even happier than you might have been.
And there's research on this, the so-called U-shaped theory of happiness. That suggests that happiness declines for many people from the teens or early 20s into the 40s and 50s, but then rises again when people hit their 60s, 70s, even their 80s. So this can be a really great time to reimagine your life.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can we learn from these stories of reinvention?
She was ambitious. She ends up going to Brandeis University outside of Boston. And that's when she made a discovery that would eventually really change her life. So she was studying the Harlem Renaissance when she came across this well-known song.
You're just wild about Harry. And he's just wild about... Can I do without? Harry's wild about me.
So, Aisha, you've heard this, right?
I have not heard this, but...
All right. So, well, it's a well-known song from a while ago, and I forgive you for not hearing it because it is old, but it was a famous old song called Wild About Harry, famous Broadway tune that was a song about President Harry Truman. Oh, okay. But when Richardson learned that it was written by a pair of black songwriters, Noble Sissel and Yubi Blake, it absolutely blew her mind.
It thrilled her. I mean, here's a woman who grew up without any sense of black history, of her history, beginning to discover it. So that discovery inspires Richardson to record a series of interviews with a number of prominent black Americans for college, for this project. But it would take a while for her to figure out what to do with all this.
And that's because her dad wanted her to be a lawyer. There was a lot of pressure on her to go that route. So after Brandeis, she went on to Harvard Law School. She got a law degree and ends up landing a job at a corporate law firm in Chicago.
I mean, it sounds like she was extremely successful.
She was successful. She was well on her way. But here's the thing. She never felt completely at home in the world of corporate law. She always was more interested in acting and the arts, as she told me. And she said that she was the first black attorney at the firm in Chicago and only the second woman to work there.
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