Did Charles Handy come up with the concept of the “third age”? I’ve done a bit of searching online but I can’t find the answer to that. Wikipedia reckons the Third Age, is the history of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings! In The Empty Raincoat, Handy describes four ages –
- Formation – education, training, life experience
- Endeavour – work, parenting, house-keeping
- Second Life – extension of the Second Age, or something different
- Dependency – the final years
He attributes roughly 25 years of life to each of these stages (or ‘ages’).
Whoever coined the term originally, the concept is a useful one, and as Handy points out, with increased life expectancy and quality of life for most of us, the Third Age is becoming increasingly important. He points out that the Third Age used to be what we called retirement and was seen as a time to do nothing, live off your pension, then die! Nowadays, with the changing demographics producing many more older, healthier people, and correspondingly lower proportions of younger people in society, he says we can no longer think of the Third Age as a time for doing nothing and earning nothing. He describes four sources of income in the Third Age –
- State pension
- Occupational pension
- Savings/inheritance
- Paid work
and he says that as neither State nor occupational pensions will be enough to live on in the future, that we’ll increasingly have to rely on paid word beyond the age of 65. This needn’t be a bad thing of course. Many people feel tossed on a waste heap on retirement day. But certainly, it’d be good if it wasn’t about just more years of 9 till 5 and wages! Given that most people will have some pension income, and maybe also some savings or inheritances, then paid work needn’t take centre stage but might potentially be more meaningful work – something which adds value to life beyond a simple income. But, then, that’s a pretty good goal to have at any age, isn’t it?
Heroes Not Zombies 
Bob,
Thanks for the kind words on the previous post. I am interested in the Hindu stages of life:
1 The student stage (BRAHMACHARYA) 12-24 years old.
2. House holder (GRIHASTAASHRAMA) which is pretty much where Western society ends.
3. Not your Western-Style of Retirement (VANAPRASTA). I think this is where we are when we are not working. We can think of this as adult education for the fully formed adult.
4. Hermit/Renounced. (SANNYASA ASHRAMA). The Greeks did away with this because they saw society as being more important than the individual.
I don’t know if you are familiar with LinkedIn but I answered a question today that has generated a inquiry into a commercial writing opportunity for me. I just wanted to share that with you as I it makes me happy. Paid work is my only option apart from some investments.
But more to the point, the question that I am answering (posted below) is do you worry about outliving your savings. Here goes:
Forgive me for being philosophical but that is how I think.
You have two ideas. One is about living a long life, and the other is worry. Let’s take the latter first. No matter how good your external situation will be we humans have an innate impulse to worry and complain. Psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote about high grumbles and low grumbles. What you complain about is an indication of the quality of your life. His example (if I remember correctly), was that if a woman complains that her husband likes too much sugar in his coffee that is one thing (what my wife calls a first-world problem), but if a woman complains that her husband knocks her teeth out that manifests a different quality of existence. Even if you had enough money (and that concept of “enough” in itself would be an interesting topic), we would still find something to complain or worry about.
Michael, I know you are in the business of focusing people’s attention on the future. All sales sell an imagined future. If you had been trained as an IBM salesman your job would be to exaggerate anxiety about the future and only then offer a solution. No one would ever buy insurance if they didn’t worry. We all worry to some extent. But let’s look at long life.
I was struck (metaphorically, not physically) by a sign in the doctor’s office that read, It’s not adding years to life, but adding life to years. This message may have arrived a little too late for those reading it, but I believe in Horace’s urging to seize the day (Carpe diem). We need a balance of prudence and presence in my view. Investing for the future makes sense but none of us will ever be this young again. Can we live with the fact that we will age, probably suffer and certainly die? I’ve never heard of anyone on their deathbed wishing they spent more time in their cubicle at work. And what is the point of postponing debilitating old age at the expense of living a full and rewarding life now?
The Greek philosopher, Theophrastus, who lived over two thousand years ago said, “Chance and not wisdom rules the life of men.” Perhaps baby boomers like me, agree. I am surprised we haven’t had a major earthquake in Northern California yet. How lucky all of us who live here have been (so far).
Paradoxically, Epicurus took the position, “Over a man who is wise, chance has little power.” Both are right in my view, but in different contexts. Epicurus (from where we get the word epicurean) was more of an optimist. If he were around today he would surely be an American. He believed that philosophy (love of wisdom) was to attain a happy life characterized by absence of fear and pain. But suffering now for an imagined better future can simply be taken too far. What’s worse is simple denial of the future aging, suffering, and death. In the face of this we can truly appreciate living.
I am hoping that the stock market won’t vary too much from its historical returns. But as we are warned, Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. If it all falls apart, I hope to bear my misfortunes with dignity. That is something I can control.
Wow! Great comment. Thanks, Christopher. Handy does mention the Hindu stages in his chapter on the Third Age. I thought it was pretty interesting too.
I like the sign you saw in the doctor’s office. It’s a quote I’m familiar with, but I’ve never seen it in a health care environment! Maybe we should try it out in the Homeopathic Hospital where I work. (By the way, in our pharmacy we have a notice that says “TEETH – Tried Everything Else? Try Homeopathy” – but that’s another story…..)
I am completely in agreement with the focus on daily quality of life, not the putting off of what feels meaningful, enriching, and pleasurable until some imagined future date. I guess the trick is how to do that and yet be prepared for future eventualities to a reasonable level. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about and I’m not a fan of a goal-driven life, as that often seems to assume too much about the future (and for other reasons I won’t go into here) but the phenomenon of the fractal appeals to me – you know that? It’s based on self-symmetry, so that as you scale the image up the basic pattern remains the same? I think if you can focus on life that way, then what you are doing today is ALSO the best thing you can be doing for the future. They’re inherently bound together. OK, I don’t have this idea totally worked out yet, but I feel there’s a seed of something in it!
I’d like to know more about this self-symmetry idea and how fractals (which I know very little about) apply. Does this have anything to do with making an assertion and you evoke its opposite? For example if I say, good shot, to my badminton opponent or partner, it is good in relation to a bad shot. I evoke bungling and clumsy playing. When people say, “Quite frankly,…” It evokes suspicion of everything else they are saying.
Edward de Bono talked about self-organizing systems. His example was to take paperclips and shake them up in a jar. The way they attach to each other is their self-organizing system.
I like the TEETH idea. If you were closer I’d send my missus over. She’s a fan of Homeopathy.
Ah, no, not the opposites thing. There is a form of therapy known as “paradoxical therapy” which works just like that. I think Patch Adams, the great physician clown uses that amongst his techniques.
All living systems are self-organising (though, I must admit some folk aren’t much better at self-organisation than de Bono’s paper clips!)
I’ll do a post on this idea. It’s something that’s rattled around my brain for a bit……time to clarify it a little I think.