"I retired two years ago, which threw me (not all at once, but in waves) out of the resume-building, ladder-climbing life I'd known since my early twenties. And it has slowly been relocating my center of gravity from what author Albert Brooks calls resume virtues to eulogy virtues-from those devoted to earthly success to those devoted to emotional and spiritual fulfillment."
"Brooks argues that relinquishing ambition doesn't mean relinquishing aspiration. The difference is that ambition is the desire to rise higher in the world (it originally meant "striving for favor"), while aspiration is the desire to become a better person. One is about social mobility, the other is about inner transformation-regeneration and renewal, growth and risk-taking, cultivating a feel for what wants to emerge in your life."
Retirement shifted focus from resume virtues—career-driven, success-oriented goals—to eulogy virtues centered on emotional and spiritual fulfillment. Ambition involves striving to rise higher in the social hierarchy and correlates with measurable success but not necessarily with happiness, well-being, or longevity. Aspiration involves inner transformation, the desire to become a better person, and encourages renewal, growth, and risk-taking. The later decades can function as a second adolescence requiring self-designed curricula for maturity and reinvention. Successful aging includes relinquishing profit motives and the demand for external results and emphasizes community, relationships, creative pursuits, nature, contemplation, activism, and celebration of life's preciousness.
Read at Psychology Today
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