I've got plans.

I'm just not sure what they are yet.

We are only a few weeks into the new year, and I hear a theme surfacing among my cronies. We’ve struggled with goal setting, vision boarding and any attempt at planning for 2025. We wonder, “Is this an age thing?” As much as we resist our doctors putting all our health issues down to the reality of an older body, we do it to ourselves all the time! Our first question when something changes is, “Is this what it’s like to be older?”

I struggled to find the motivation to create a vision board this year. It’s been a life-giving practice for over fifteen years. I combine it with a year-end review and the selection of a word for the coming year. I’ve always found it an energizing start to a new 12-month cycle.

This year was different. I tossed one vision board and began again. Several hours later, I had created something that felt less vision and more wisdom. Instead of making big plans for 2025, I created a board of gentle and soothing ways of being in this year. When I look at it, I feel grounded instead of a need to get things done. (Note to self: Wisdom boards are the way to go in the Third Act of Life*)

Do we lose interest in planning, achieving, and doing things as we age? I know I’ve felt more resistance to anything that feels like a commitment or a goal. I don’t want, need or have the capacity to live my life at the pace I did when I was 50. It’s making end-of-year planning a challenge.

You’ve no doubt heard or said, “I’m a human being, not a human doing!” We talked about it in a Crone Circle last week. The idea of being busy and filling our calendars has lost its appeal. We no longer define ourselves by what we do. It is one of the transitions in this season. We discover new ways of seeing ourselves and discover our worth is unrelated to the roles we’ve had in the past.

Three recent conversations have discussed the topic of doing vs. being. The idea that our senior years are a time for being, not doing, seems to have settled into our collective psyche. Or maybe we’ve internalized cultural messages about older people being irrelevant with little to offer. Some have bought into the idea that our last big contribution to society is our tourist dollars.

Something doesn’t feel good about it.

I don’t feel done. I have some doing left in me.

I’m reading Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail by Ben Montgomery. I love the gumption of this 67-year-old woman, who in 1955 told her family she was going for a walk. Two thousand fifty miles later, she became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. That’s a lot of doing. Or is it a lot of being?

Last week, I spoke with a woman I consider a mentor. After the call, she sent me some resources, including this diagram.

From: What are Old People For?: How Elders Will Save the World by Bill Thomas, MD

This diagram makes sense to me. This season of life isn’t about doing vs being. There isn’t a dichotomy. It’s both/and. The change isn’t from doing to being. It’s a change in orientation. We lead our lives from a place of being. It’s from that deep well that our doing emerges. At an earlier stage of life, our focus was doing, but we were still being as well. We can’t separate them. It’s like breathing in and out. We need both to find harmony and balance in our lives.

I still don’t have a word for 2025. I know I will be both being and doing. I will be offering ways to help you connect with what’s deepest in you right now so that you can bring those gifts into the world. We need your wisdom.

And who knows - there may be a long walk in your future.

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*I will follow up on this idea in December 2025. If you are interested in creating a Wisdom Board, let me know!