Have you ever thought: ‘I always wanted to be…’
Any regrets? – I was meant to be a fashion designer but ended up a psychologist.
We are working with senior people who are transitioning from their career into the next phase of life in a thoughtful, planned fashion. It is quite rare for people to have a clear idea about something else they always wanted to be. My own husband did: a respected consultant psychiatrist, having written the book on medical interviewing used across America, one day he said, “I’ve always been a doctor. I’ve always wanted to be an actor. If not now then when?”
The catalyst had been a life threatening illness. So he took early retirement from the NHS, went to drama school and commenced a new life of repeated rejection, profit sharing performances (hint: there is never any profit to share), the Edinburgh festival 5 star reviews, more rejection, learning 3 scripts a week for acting workshops, and now a new play he is currently workshopping on medically assisted dying. He is 84 now and showing no sign of stopping.
He may not be treading the boards at the National – his preferred choice – but here he is in a rather sweet music video for Sofia Cordoba. The dancing, by the way, was in fact choreographed to look like that!
So perhaps we need to think wilder in the option for the next phase of life and discover there is nothing retiring about it!
