Eldering begins...

The moment you declare you're responsible for your life, your relationships, your community, your world. The moment you make a commitment to create a world worth saving. Eldering doesn't begin when you reach a certain age.

Anyone can learn Eldering at any age. You simply need to be willing to unlearn who you have been to realize who you can become — to fulfill the possibility you are. Most of us will take on Eldering in midlife simply because it takes most of us that long to realize our egos are never going to be satisfied-that we've either "made it" already or won't make it playing the same game we've been playing. The proof of whether we've learned is in our actions.

Successful Eldering appears as:

• You getting the most out of life while helping others do the same
• You holding a vision or an intention when everyone else is suggesting you're a naive dreamer, and then engaging and inspiring those same people to take actions consistent with realizing your vision.

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Eldering

Making a difference

Aging happens whether we like it or not. Our bodies change as we grow older, and we can't always do what we once could. However, what those changes mean and how we relate to them is not predetermined. We can choose how we wish to grow older.

By choosing, we can have the rest of our lives be the most satisfying, the most empowered, the most creative and the most productive years of our lives. We can contribute to the people we love, our communities and the world. We can express our wisdom in our actions.

Eldering is...

• Being — a servant leader, an ordinary person who challenges conventional wisdom and makes extraordinary commitments, who assumes responsibility for creating the future as a vision, who acts as a mentor and a coach for others, and who continues to learn and pursue wisdom with every fiber of their being.
• Letting go — of preconceptions and prejudices, setting aside issues or baggage from the past to be free in a way that allows you to be present for others with compassion
• Mastering — the age-old virtues of humility, gratitude, acceptance and responsibility so that we 'have' our ego (rather than 'be' controlled by it)
• Transforming — ourselves, our relationships, our communities, our organizations and, ultimately, our world.
• Mobilizing — a generation to understand the nature of the major challenges we face as a civilization, challenges that will have unprecedented impact on the lives and the futures of our grandchildren and that many of us will witness before we die.

Eldering is a possibility for humanity to learn, once and for all, the lessons of history. It is an opportunity to create new practices for coordination and collaboration that both honor and respect differences. It is, perhaps, this civilization's last chance to redirect the energy and resources we've invested in conflict toward designing and implementing a world that works for everyone.

Eldering isn't...

• Idealistically optimistic — the result of wishful thinking about a better world. It is the product of millions of individuals arriving at the same conclusion: we are on a path toward mutual self-destruction in the not-too-distant future and the only rational response by any sane individual is to profoundly accept that we're collectively out of control. We've relied on conventional means and problem-solving, and now we've passed the point of recovery. Business-as-usual is a formula for our worst nightmares becoming real.
• Inherently pessimistic — a product of sacrifice, toil and hardship. Eldering is the possibility of recovery by accepting the facts of life — accepting what is — and surrendering to some interpretation or power that is beyond and outside one's own, self-referential perspective.