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“You have to study yourself and what you want to do. You have a purpose, and that purpose has to be one that can change.”

—Annie Mays Larmore (1907–2013), participant in the Georgia Centenarian Study

According to Ayurveda, the Vata (airy) stage of life begins at around age fifty. During this time of life, a new kind of wisdom evolves. We move from the Pitta (fiery) stage of life to the air portion of our journey. Western culture typically values the ego and power of the fire element over other qualities, making this transition tricky. Embracing the wisdom of our Vata years means letting go of our old identity and finding a new one. Chip Conley was fifty-two years old when Brian Chesky, one of the co-founders of Airbnb, asked Chip to become his mentor and help lead the growing startup. Back in the day, Chip had been an early “disruptor” of the hospitality industry. In the late ’80s, he transformed a seedy, rent-by-the-hour motel with a pool in San Francisco into a go-to accommodation for touring rock bands, such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He grew a unique boutique hotel business called “Joie de Vivre,” which had 3,500 employees when he sold it in 2010. A few years later, he was approached by Brian Chesky of Airbnb, who was wondering whether Chip would join the Airbnb team and mentor him. Chip was twice the age of the average employee at Airbnb and he would be reporting to a twenty-one-year-old. Even though he was all-in, he quickly realized that things were a bit different than he expected. By the end of his first week on the job, Chip explained to a friend, “I feel more like an intern than a mentor.” In a team meeting, an engineer asked a question that, to someone unfamiliar with the tech, sounded like a Zen koan, “If we drop-ship an item to a customer and they don’t use it, did it really drop-ship?” To get over the generation gap, Chip decided to emulate someone he admired greatly: anthropologist Margaret Mead. Pretending to be a cultural anthropologist was Chip’s way of completely upending his own self-image in order to survive this new stage of his career and life. In his capacity at Joie de Vivre, he was superstar and CEO. While working at Airbnb, he would need to get over any and all of his addiction to admiration. He now advised behind the scenes. No longer would he be the guy with all the answers. Chip became curious: a hallmark quality of the Vata stage of life. His big transition meant letting go of the fire element of the ego and embracing the air element of older adulthood. The Vata time of life is all about wisdom, seeing the big picture, and connectedness. Intuitively, Chip aligned with the Ayurveda model of aging. He transitioned gracefully because he realized Airbnb did not need a second CEO going around spouting Baby-Boomer / Brick-and-Mortar wisdom to a bunch of people who wanted to reinvent hospitality. “I realized quickly I need to listen, with empathy and no ego and very little judgment.” Going from center stage to coaching from the sidelines was not easy. It was the perfect movement from fire to air, from ego to wisdom. Chip Conley spent four years with Airbnb, helping them to grow exponentially. He has stayed on as an advisor to Airbnb because the company told him, “We can’t exactly explain what you do for us, but your intangible value is critical to the company.” This intangible value is exactly what describes the air element or Vata stage of life. It’s all around, intangible, yet essential to life.

Become a Modern Elder

In the words of Chip Conley, a self-proclaimed “Modern Elder,” there are a growing number of older adults who feel irrelevant. How do we create an intergenerational bridge? He likens the “Modern Elder,’ someone who is someone who both serves and learns, is mentor and an intern and student and sage all at the same time. He thinks it is necessary for Boomers because we are going to live at least another ten years longer than our parents. We can create a way to learn from each other and connect generations. This wise advice comes from someone who has embraced the Vata stage of life.

Ayurveda Stages of Life

While science has no definitive model to explain aging or even why we age. There are a few animals, bacteria and plants that don’t actually don’t age. For thousands of years Ayurveda described life in three stages. From birth to puberty, the earth or Kapha stage of life: During this stage, children do a lot of growing. They are alive and full of earth. It is a time of attachment and love, nourishment. This is also why older generations and young children complement each other in balance. Babies are pure love and develop rapidly. Earth represents love and steadiness. Children teach us about nature and love as part of the earth element. Puberty to about age fifty is the Pitta or fire stage of life. In this stage of life, there is fire, ego, separation, sharpness. It is also a time of moving forward and accomplishment. The Pitta stage can transform. Teenage rebellion is a good example of the fire element. Watch out he/she is on fire, I would say of my own teenagers when they were in a particularly angry or righteous state. Professional sports and competition is the realm of fire. Fire, when out of balance destroys. Out of balance fire can also manifest as criticism directed at the self or others. Vata or air/ether stage of life is age fifty and up. These are the wisdom years of air. When we are high in the air, we can see the big picture. Air is inspiring and dominates the heart center. As the number of humans who are living in the Vata stage of life increases on the planet, I believe they will bring a much-needed breath of fresh “air.” For the next few decades as the number of people over sixty-five doubles and the number of centenarians increases eight fold, the world will transform with more people in this inspirational heartfelt time of life. People who are in balance in the air stage of life offer considerable wisdom. People who are out of balance in the air stage of life become out of touch and disconnected

Keep Your Fire Burning

Critical to Super Aging is finding one’s purpose or reinventing one’s purpose. A purpose not driven by ego, but by a deep desire. When you are younger, you have more of the fire element. Our drives and ambitions can have more of a fiery quality and when fire is out of balance, a person can be egoic and obnoxious. When you reach middle age, you must adjust, but not abandon your ambition and deep desires. Often purpose transforms to a desire to serve. Purpose becomes humbler and may be better described as contribution.

Chip Conley found his purpose in listening to and helping digital natives embrace emotional intelligence and leadership as they disrupted the hospitality industry. All generations gained wisdom and transferred information. When you find your purpose, you thrive in your able to meet adversity and face the challenges in your life, and especially those of aging. A purpose as we age is our passion and fire, it burns brightly and with strength. It helps to point us in the right direction to create a legacy, have better relationships or pursue a new vocation as an artist. Later in this chapter I will offer several styles of therapy or exploratory work that will be perfect for finding your passion and purpose.

Finding your purpose or reinventing your purpose is the at the heart aging in a healthy way. When you know your why, you can build a healthy life to support your why. Other words that may describe your purpose or your why could be contribution or service. If purpose sounds to lofty or goal oriented. Maybe asking the question, how can I serve the world right now in my life? Your answer may be different than it was ten or twenty or even thirty years ago. Don’t be afraid to keep it simple. A grandfather named Tsegai told me that he drove Lyft for four to five hours a day to save money to give to his grandsons, ages seven and ten. He had retired from driving big rigs and running his own trucking business. He loved driving and he knew that his health depended on keeping busy. He set a goal to save a set amount for his grandsons. When he hits his mark, he told me he would like to serve young children in his community. He plans to volunteer to read and tutor elementary school children. He realized the importance of having goals and visions for his “retirement” years.

Your contribution or purpose may be to enjoy stimulating and wise conversations with friends and family. You may not be giving a TED Talk, but I know that if you have a purpose to have wise conversations, there will be a ripple effect. You will be gaining the health benefits of living your purpose and your purpose will in turn benefit the world. Your stimulating and inspiring conversations, if this is your purpose can embolden others young and old to come into their own powerful purpose.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that having a strong life purpose may help you dodge many debilitating conditions associated with aging. A 2017 study found that having a clear purpose had strong physiological effects on your health. In one study, people who reported having a purpose slept better and had less diagnosable sleep issues. Another study found a connection between those who reported feeling purposeful to having a faster gait and stronger grip strength. A study of older adults at Northwestern University defined purpose as, “having aspirations and goals for the future and feeling that experience in life are meaningful.” People who reported having purpose have less sleep issues according to the study published in the July 2017 Sleep Science and Practice Journal. And subjects in this study were over 50 percent African American, a group that is often left out of research data yet suffer on average more sleep disturbances and a shorter life expectancy than white counterparts in the United States. The study found a link between purpose and better sleep over a long period of time. “Helping people cultivate a purpose in life could be an effective drug-free strategy to improve sleep quality, particularly for a population that is facing more insomnia” said the study’s senior author, Jason Ong, professor of Neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Purpose in life is something that can be cultivated and enhanced through mindfulness therapies,” he added.

Finding a sense of purpose can add years to your life, according to a study at Canada’s Carleton University. The researchers sorted through a long-term study of six thousand individuals over a fourteen-year period, looking to see if having a direction in life at any age affected longevity. The study concluded that greater purpose in life conferred benefits across lifespan and this was consistent even when other beneficial psychological traits were teased out (“correlation was not causation”). “These findings suggest that there’s something unique about finding a purpose that seems to be leading to greater longevity,” said lead researcher Patrick Hill. When you feel a desire to contribute to the world and have a personal connection to the value of that contribution to the world, you have a powerful health protector, one that is perhaps more potent than many pills.

Ikigai: Your Reason for Living

The Japanese word ikigai can be translated in many ways. One simplified meaning can be “reason for living.” For some this word may have more resonance than “purpose.” The book, Ikigai, The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles details the secret of ikigai and how the villagers of Ogimi, Okinawa (yes, that’s within The Blue Zone® known as the “village of longevity”) live their purpose, along with other helpful tips for readers who want to live a long and happy life. The book points out that there is no word for retirement in the Okinawan dialect, indicating that its culture values hard, yet joyous work in each stage of life. Many of the villagers in Ogimi describe their ikigai in practical words, “I plant my own vegetables and cook them myself. That’s my ikigai.” “Getting together with my friends is my most important ikigai. We all get together here and talk—it’s very important. I always know I’ll see them all here tomorrow, and that’s one of my favorite things in life.” Ikigai can also translate as “the happiness of always being busy” (Garcia and Miralles 2017). Indeed, ikigai infers deep connection and resonance to one’s essential self. It seems related, yet not quite the same as the Sanskrit word dharma, a word that also has multiple meanings. Dharma can mean duty, a right way of living and when applied to an individual can confer “a purpose in life, independent of material pursuits.” Getting to know oneself and what makes one joyful, as well as fulfilled would be of supreme importance in fulfilling dharma and ikigai as we grow older. In our search for meaning, we may discover new passions. Chip Conley, The Modern Elder recommends that a person become an expert in a subject that is interesting to them. He has become one of the world’s experts in festivals, a subject that he finds fun and fascinating. Conley began pursuing this area of expertise by taking to heart the example of the late management guru Peter Drucker, who annually would learn and become an expert in one new subject: Drucker kept up his yearly expansion for over sixty years, long before modern neuroscience would affirm the wisdom of his perennial habit. The brain can indeed rewire and remold itself for the better even as we age, and even though neuroscience hadn’t proved this yet, Drucker just kept on learning, all the way to age ninety-five.

One of the reasons that a deeper connection to inner purpose and ikigai later in life is important at any stage of life, but especially for older adults. When you are in touch with your own inner desire to contribute to the world, this quality balances the softer, vaguer nature of air that characterize the Vata stage of life. Your focus shifts as you age, and a healthy purpose is one that brings you joy. You may retire at age fifty-two to pursue painting and sculpting, or you may continue to work as a high school teacher or researcher when you are ninety-five; the critical element to healthy aging is feeling connected to something important to you and your purpose. Curiosity and intuition are hallmark qualities of air. We may long to be an “expert” or to do a lot of good. A study that analyzed data from ten previous studies involving 136,000 individuals in the United States and Japan found that people who reported a sense of purpose had a 20 percent lower risk of death and a lower rate of cardiovascular disease. It’s important to note that if we have been fiery our entire life, we may need to soften during our Vata years to embrace a purpose that has a gentle quality. Desires are a gateway to our intuition and our true nature. Our desires become very important in midlife.

Our intuition and curiosity are very powerful internal compasses to help us connect with our ikigai. Follow those things you enjoy, and get away or change those you dislike. Be led by your curiosity and keep busy by doing the things that fill you with meaning and happiness. It doesn’t need to be a big thing: we might find meaning in being good parents or in helping our neighbors.

Nicoya Peninsula of Guatemala: “Plan de Vida”

Indeed, each one of us, as Ayurveda reminds us, has a unique blueprint of elements and qualities which makes up our personality and our physiology in the world. When you connect to this deep blueprint, your life purpose will emerge naturally. Research demonstrates that a sense of purpose has positive aging benefits. One study showed that having a greater purpose predicted lower mortality. And a sense of purpose was measured independent of retirement status, which is a known risk for mortality. A life purpose outside of a “job” seems to have deep health-related benefits. It makes sense that once we know and understand our true purpose, we will feel like we want to take better care of ourselves and to be healthy.

In the Nicoya Peninsula of Guatemala, people have a “plan de vida,” or reason to live. This “plan de vida” helps keep older adults active and positive in the face of adversity. Ayurveda can help us to bring more ease and less willfulness to our aging mindset. Air and ether gives perspective and wisdom. Air and ether also move erratically, we need more earth and fire to balance this Airy stage of life. When our lifestyle and our routine support us as we age, we can more easily choose a positive mindset. Think about when you feel calm and well-nurtured; when you feel frazzled and overwhelmed, it is hard to stay positive. This is when we need to step back and take a different approach. Ayurveda can give tremendous insight into aging, and especially how we age as individuals.

References

Here are some references1 that can help you flush out your ikigai or reason for living, especially if you feel blocked.

Therapy

•Research Logotherapy based on the work of Victor Frankl; www.logotherapyinstitue.org has more information and offers online classes.

•Morita Therapy has an extensive website based on Zen principles and extensive video resources at: www.moritaschool.com.

Books

•Ikigai, The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles

•My One Chief Aim by Mitch Horowitz

•Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn

•The Desire Map, by Danielle LaPorte

•The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron

•The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo

•Your Inner GPS: Follow Your Inner Guidance to Health, Happiness and Satisfaction, by Zen Cryar DeBrucke

•Also check out the Divine Purpose Meditation in Chapter 11

–PRACTICE PLAN–

•Journal Daily on your purpose or ikigai. Ask yourself question such as what brings me joy? Think about what you loved to do as a child or a teenager. What would you do if you could wave a magic wand and be absolutely anything in the world? It is never too late to be an actor, dancer, writer, DJ, or an artist. Keep letting yourself dream.

•Be a detective for joy and purpose. Imagine that your reason for living is like a treasure. It could be far away, or it could be in plain sight. Get your mental magnifying glass and your spy kit and get to work. Remember your ikigai is unique and always, always inside of you.

•Read one of the recommended books and or start a Super Ager book group. Read books on purpose and discuss.

•Meditate – Meditators have a stronger sense of purpose, according to a study that followed meditators on retreat in Colorado. Following the retreat, meditators reported feeling a sense of meaning and purpose in life. If you have never meditated before, start with a small, daily practice. Use an app or a timer. Choose a time of day when you can meditate daily.

•If you do not feel strongly connected to your own reason for living, take a few hours a week to really seek your purpose. Spend these hours walking in nature, doing something fun that you might not usually allow yourself to do. Or go on an artist date. If you don’t know what an artist date is, look up Julia Cameron and The Artist’s Way.