We Die with a Whimper
Updated February 2021
First , take a happiness test with one of the twenty tests devised by Penn State to measure your happiness, engagement, flourishing, meaning and satisfaction with life. If you don’t like the results, read on.
Looking at the circulation of International Living newsletters, it appears many people share at least the dream of beaches and Mexican night skies. There are plenty of logical reasons not to live in Mexico of course - Mexico is not for everyone. But when so many people over 55 comment to me that they’d love to live in Mexico, I take it on faith that they really would like to. So why don't they?
"Heaven is living in your hopes. Hell is living in your fears. It's up to each individual which one he chooses" - Tom Robbins, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues."
Starting again from scratch at 55 in Mexico
You never forget your first...apartment in Mexico.
Ten years ago I certainly would not have thought I'd end up living along a Mexican beach. After moving to Denver from Virginia during the Great Recession, I did all I could think of to recharge my career.
My life consisted of meager contract work, interviewing (and all the hell that goes with that), volunteering on nonprofit boards, attending continuing educational courses, networking and every other imaginable thing associated with job hunting.
If you’re over 55 and job hunting, you too may have questioned whether continuing a chase that could well end up poorly (a bad job) is the way you want to spend the last decades of your life. Current reports confirm that many Baby Boomers never regained the ground they lost in their careers, home values and portfolios, even after the market recovered.
Now for a little tough love. If you are in your 50’s and lose your job, you are likely screwed for good (according to statistics, sorry!) Exceptions exist in certain careers, but generalists without specific training in fields, such as healthcare and accounting, usually don’t regain their footing.
It's just reality. You can read all the cheery AARP advice you want and let people coach you on "right" responses to issues like your energy level, technical skills and flexibility. Hard cold statistics demonstrate your chances are still slim. The job of the world is to sweep away the past. Hiring younger workers is part of that.
When these worn paths seem closed to you, it becomes a matter of whether to acquiesce to a lesser life or dare to imagine a riskier, wildly different life. Our society creates plenty of distractions from what should be the real task at hand - finally living an authentic life.
A time to be fearless - again
Oaxaca
Late mid-life is a time when life experience, skills we've honed over a lifetime, and a greater self-knowledge should converge into the most creative period of our lives. Our final act should be a culmination of what we've learned and love about ourselves.
By this stage, we have made (or lost) our fortunes. Children are up and on their way. Many friendships have slogged to a slower journey of discovery. You might find yourself doing things for the 3rd, 4th or hundredth time even as the ramp gets shorter and shorter to try something new.
Finally it matters much less what anyone else thinks. By late middle age, egos are be tamed, awakened to the realization that other people aren’t paying near as much attention to your life as you thought they were. It’s a last opportunity to develop a life by your own design.
Dealing with the expectations of others when making retirement plans
By this point hopefully, it will be much easier to to differentiate what you want from what your friends think you should want (which is, mystically, often based on a version of what they did, projected onto your life).
Such is the dissonance that readers have contacted me and shared that they weren’t telling anyone about their plans to move to Mexico. They know if they did, they would be herded towards the conventional, the path most people take. The one advertised.
Money: Is it locking you in or setting you free?
I recently listened to a doctor in Denver I know complain bitterly about the need to keep working after sixty-two. She lived in a 1.5 million dollar house. I think people greatly underestimate how their house, neighbors, and possessions lock them in to a definition of themselves they may have outgrown. They are living the story about elephant and the rope. The more people have materially, I’ve found, the more locked in they are to a lifestyle, even when it no longer fits their circumstances such as after divorce, children moving away or losing a job.
On the other side of the coin, lack of money often comes up as an excuse not to pursue a new lifestyle. While the lower cost of living in Mexico will save you money in the long run, maybe you’re discouraged by start up costs. You will need to travel to areas in Mexico that interest you and there will be expenses you can’t really foresee.
In my own trek toward expat life, what surprised me was how solutions appeared so organically once I committed to the plan. Problems solve themselves once you decide. I really like what actor Will Smith has to say on the power of commitment:
"There's a redemptive power that making a choice has, rather than feeling like you're an effect to all the things that are happening. Make a choice. You just decide what it's going to be, who you're going to be, how you're going to do it. Just decide. And then from that point, the universe is going to get out of your way."
Cabo San Lucas
For example, I dumped the $1,000 a month expense of owning a car for Uber and Lyft. The cost of a SUV in an expensive city like Denver was already a problem. Part-time life in Mexico solved it.
Not every problem that gets out of your way is a huge one. Many are everyday annoyances that you never got around to addressing because you lacked any impetus. With a goal, solving the issues become simple mechanics.
You’ve only got one life.
Again and again in our lives, we have to examine what activities and surroundings will make our lives feel most authentic and exciting and test them against the currents of familiarity and safety. Courage is its own reward.
You may wake up relieved, in total alignment.
You may wake up frightened, and unable to reverse course.
But remember, one day you will not wake up at all.
I read an excellent article in the New York Times about a triple amputee who made his palliative care his life work. One of the observations made was that at the end of life, rather than the existential clarity we anticipate, most often patients' days focus on quotidian beauty, small things.
It was a relief to realize that going with a simple sigh might be enough. We die with only a whimper, and according to hospice volunteers, that's perfectly normal. Knowing that we go with a whimper is still one more reason why it's what you do between now and then that matters most.
Related Links
"Do the Work" by Steven Pressman on getting "unstuck."
"Essentialism" by Greg McKeon - a best-seller on the disciplined pursuit of less..
About the author:
Hola - I'm Kerry Baker and a partner with Ventanas Mexico which provides insight and resources to people considering expat life in Mexico.
I am author of "If Only I Had a Place" for aspiring expats desiring to rent luxuriously for less. Here you can learn how to avoid the pitfalls and realize the advantages of renting as an American in Mexico. My most recent book is “The Mexico Solution Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico. Most recently she co-authored “The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico, a cook book for expats, travelers and snowbirds trying to eat and stay healthy.