The Challenge of the Second Act

Sometimes I worry that I acted like a spoiled brat. I didn’t like the game so I picked up my ball and glove and stomped home. But in reality what I did was enter one of the most challenging times of my life. What sometimes feels like a cowardly retreat was actually bravely stepping into the unknown.

August 24^th 2012 was the last day I spent in a career that spanned more than 25 years.  I left, not for better pay or even a more satisfying job, but for the opportunity to explore what I want to do when I grow up – at 48 years old!

I’m not alone. As many as 8.4 million Americans between the ages of 44 and 70 are launching their second careers, seeking positions that combine income with personal meaning and social impact, according to a recent survey on boomers, work, and aging by the MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures, a San Francisco think tank.

Sure, it’s an exciting endeavor and I feel blessed for the opportunity to take the time, to toss out the alarm clock and spend leisurely hours with my doggie and husband (in that order?) but it is also pretty darn scary.

Me, mid career at a national conference

I gave up a healthy, steady income, structure, routine and a capable IT staff. I turned my back on a career where I had risen to the upper echelons, earned a solid reputation among my peers and – honestly – was very talented. And it wasn’t like it was some soul-sucking venture either. I raised money for worthy non-profits in New York City – places that fed the hungry, tended to people with AIDS and cancer, protected children from abuse and more. But the fact of the matter was I was not happy and I probably hadn’t been for about ten years.

I had to wonder: what happened and how did I get here?

Like many people I kind of fell into my career. My sophomore year at Colgate University I was assigned to the development department as my work study job. My task for the next three years was to review each and every one of the foundation files and then type (and yes, I mean type as it was 1983!) a chronological summary. It may sound tedious to you but I actually really liked it. It was a much-needed respite from my rigorous studies and each onion skin paper correspondence was like a little bit of history. It gave me even more pride in my school reading about our worthy projects. I was doing good, getting paid and it seemed easy to me. So, with no better idea, I got my first non-profit job after graduation in 1986 and never looked back.

Then, somewhere along the way things soured. The pressure of meeting the budget month after month, year after year outweighed the satisfaction of “making a difference.” Donors demanded more for their gifts. Board members seemed more interested in one-upmanship than service.  New media and technology required we attract a younger audience – most of whom couldn’t care less about philanthropy. Everyone in the office seemed stressed and uncooperative.  

But, the straw that broke the camel’s back came in the form of an “urgent” phone call from my boss about paper stock for a brochure during my mother-in-law’s funeral. I hung on for a few more months, but I knew I was toast.

Meanwhile, in my personal life, I had been cultivating an interest in food and nutrition for years. I gave up red meat while I was a student living in Eastern Europe in the 80s. Later in my 20s I successfully used vitamins to cure my acne after a horrible scare with a toxic antibiotic that was affecting my brain! I began devouring all the information I could on nutrition, alternative healing and holistic health in magazines, TV, and lectures. I began advising friends to try Echinacea at the first sign of a cold, to drink more water as a cure for just about everything, to cut down on dairy during allergy season, to take up yoga, etc.

So when began thinking of what my second act would look like it was pretty clear where my passion lives now. But the leap…oh the leap! How does one take a 25-year career in fundraising and all of a sudden become a …hmmm…well I’m still not sure what I want to be?

The answer is you don’t “all of a sudden” do anything. And that’s what’s so challenging and scary. I have always thrived on structure and busy-ness and now I live day to day with only myself as a task-master. As my father used to quote from Invictus (way too often, by the way:)

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Whether or not I fully subscribe to that theory, I know that only I can figure out my future. I don’t want to “fall into” another career. I don’t want go back to fundraising just because it’s familiar and lucrative. I want to do something thing I believe in, something that uses my brain and heart, something that serves the greater good, but doesn’t involve 9-5 office stint (oh please Lord, never again!)

So for the past ten months -- along with spending more time with my family and tackling domestic projects that have been dogging me for years -- I have been researching educational opportunities, diligently doing my exercises from “What Color is Your Parachute,” reaching out to people in the fields of food and nutrition, reading all I can on the subject, teaching myself some new cooking techniques, getting back in shape, and pursuing a certificate in wellness at NYU (a first – but not last step in my education…more to come.)  

I am not so much following a path towards a goal but grasping at stars. It is new, unfamiliar and utterly unnerving. But I’m sticking with it.

 

                                                                                                   

Saying goodbye to office life (hopefully)

 

P.S. And about that not having a steady income….I am currently available for the following services: Wardrobe Purging and Closet Organization; Shopping Coach/Fashion Consultant; and Freelance Writer (but please no grant proposals!!!!) All at reasonable rates!