Evolving With Age

For over eight years, a wonderful story about the bald eagle has been making its way around motivational sites on the internet. 

The bald eagle, we’re told, lives 70 years. To reach this ripe age, it must make a life-changing decision at 40. Its long and flexible talons can no longer grab prey for as food. Its long, sharp beak becomes bent. Its old, aged and heavy wings, due to their thick feathers, stick to its chest and make it difficult to fly due to their lack of thick feathers.

At this point, the eagle is left with only two options: Die or go through a painful process of Change, which lasts 150 days.

The process requires that the eagle fly to a mountaintop and sit on its nest. There, the eagle knocks its beak against a rock until it plucks it out. Then it wait for a new beak to grow back. 

At this point, the eagle then starts to pluck its old and aged feathers, allowing for fresh ones to grow back. According to this legend, once this process is completed, the eagle lives another 30 years. 

The moral of the story is that the eagle is forced to change as it grows older if it wants to live a longer, fulfilling life. 

While it’s a wonderful message for all of us to hear, it’s a big fat lie. None of the story is true, not even the life expectancy of the eagle.

Yet, even in the lie, we can learn a powerful message. 

To highlight this take, there is a wonderful scene in the AMC Show “Mad Men,” (another fictional story) about the advertising agency business. Partners Don Draper, a young man, and Bert Cooper, an older man, have a meeting. 

Draper wants to start the agency over, resisting the on-coming merger, whereas Cooper wants to ride it out and accept whatever lies ahead. 

Cooper shouts, “Young men love risk because they cannot imagine the consequences.” Draper replies, “Old men love golden tombs to lock themselves in with the rest of us.” 

In some ways, both are correct. As we get older, we tend to rely on experience and don’t have the appetite for risk or adventure, forcing us to lock ourselves into a world we accepted, with hesitation. 

The eagle story can keep us away from being locked up. Age is only a number. And if we are willing to change and become more adaptive as we grow older, we can have the best years of our life the older we become. 

There are aspects of the story that are helpful when we are transitioning. The first thing the bald eagle does is declutter its space. The eagle flies to a mountain top to be alone and recalibrate, which is exactly the best pathway to beginning a second career. 

The eagle then focuses on its health, making sure to heal its wounds, preparing for the future and not allowing impatience to set in. They take their health seriously, become proactive in resolving their issues. A healthy body leads to a renewed spirit. 

Ask the same questions you asked when you were twenty-five years old about what lies ahead. What are your passions?  Why can’t you do whatever you want? All it takes is a few steps, a little polish, and a shift in your approach. Second careers, second halves of life can become more rewarding than the first. 

We aren’t approaching the end, we are finding a new beginning, just like the fictitious Eagle. 

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