2026 June 9 Be flexible at every age

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about re-imagining your life. Thanks for joining me today to talk about how the identity gap — and re-imagining yourself — really is ageless. So let's get started.

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This week we're going to talk about how an unexpected change in identity — what we refer to as the identity gap — isn't age-related, even though older adults often assume that it is. I thought I'd be talking about contribution tonight, another one of our five pillars to approaching aging with less stress, but I had an unexpected conversation with someone I met, and the topic kind of surprised me.

After church, I usually have my dog with me and we stop at a nearby park for a walk. As often happens, we met a few other dogs with their people, and my dog always enjoys that. As we were about to leave the park, we ran into Debbie and Delilah. Delilah was an older dog — nine years old — and she and my dog got along wonderfully. We ended up walking together for quite some time because Delilah would walk nicely off-leash, which meant my dog wouldn't wander far either.

We kept talking about all sorts of things, and it came up that Debbie, who is nearing 50, is fortunate enough to probably have enough money to live without having to work, although she still does work mostly for the health insurance.

And this is where the similarity between Debbie and many retired adults really struck me. I regularly work with AI for research and I'm starting to look into using it for general task automation. To me, AI — artificial intelligence — is really a kind of power tool. It takes what I do and allows me to do it faster, easier, or both. Debbie said she's pretty certain her company wants to replace all the people doing her job, and similar jobs, with AI. That makes her concerned about her savings and how she'll pay for health insurance if she ends up losing her job.

Does that sound familiar? These are exactly the same types of concerns that many older adults worry about. And the cause is essentially the same — being on what is essentially a fixed income in the face of inflation and uncertainty. In her case, the uncertainty is about her job. For older adults, it's uncertainty in the general money market, the rate of inflation, and all those sorts of things.

It also ties back to identity. Like many older adults, Debbie didn't necessarily face the loss of identity that many retirees struggle with when they first stop working. But there are many older adults who eventually got used to being retired and then suddenly discovered they had to go back to work — either to make ends meet financially or as a buffer because their savings were depleting faster than planned. That second scenario is quite disrupting, because now there's a second identity gap — this time going from redefining your life around being retired back to being employed, which can be equally disorienting.

And that's the part that really struck me. The redefinition of our identity is just disruptive, no matter which direction it goes — whether it's becoming retired or facing the need to once again be employed. In both cases, we're moving from a situation of familiarity to one filled with unknowns. And that always makes our brain concerned and a little uncomfortable.

The other interesting aspect is that, yet again, as older adults, we've been trained to think that these feelings are a result of our age. This is totally inaccurate. The reality is we always have these feelings of concern, uncertainty, and feeling inexperienced when we move into something new — not sure what the next steps might be and so forth. But when we were 20, 30, 40, or in our early 50s, no one was writing memes about how we were useless and invisible and meaningless. So there wasn't this huge bias being planted in our brains to be self-critical.

My acquaintance Debbie, who is nearing that "old person threshold" in the modern world — she's almost 50 — is looking at the potential for change the same way most older adults do: with concern for the unknown, instead of seeing that it's also a time of opportunity.

It's not surprising. There's constant talk about how AI will replace all the jobs, automate everything, and discover all knowledge. But these predictions have happened before, to varying degrees. And just like before, there may be significant upheaval and societal changes — but also, just like before, there's significant opportunity.

I'm looking into taking on some part-time work to stay current in my engineering world, specifically reviewing the output of AI-generated plans that aren't practical in ways that another AI can't easily catch. AI is good at many things, but seeing past the next step isn't always its forte, because the world isn't linear. Outcome C doesn't always follow outcomes A and B. Experienced people are very good at navigating those situations. And even when AI is trained on those decisions, it's still incomplete and unreliable without real-world experience to help in the review.

I know many people will disagree with that, but we're already seeing the results of this in vibe coding and elsewhere, where even the code is separately reviewed by other AIs — and still, bugs slip through that are as large as a barn door when someone else goes and looks at them. Will it become fully automated eventually? Possibly — maybe even probably. But the point is there's opportunity now for those willing to pursue it. And that is independent of age.

That's the real lesson from tonight. While feeling overwhelmed is not age-dependent — despite how society frames it — seeing opportunity is also not age-dependent. As we age and gain experience, we're still able to contribute and still able to be resilient in a changing world.

Just like Debbie and Delilah — although the world may look very concerning from a distance, if you look more closely, you're likely to discover that there are many new opportunities available to those who look below the surface story. And does that take a bit more work than just watching and hoping things go well? Yes, it does. But remember the old saying: hope is not a strategy.

While being hopeful is always a beneficial trait, being involved in your own future is also prudent. That means staying involved in your own affairs, maintaining a strong social circle, and being active both physically and mentally — all those things we always talk about. When you do that, you'll likely find that much of the scary news isn't that scary once you start looking past the headlines.

So be upbeat and proactive. And remember — being concerned about current events and life-changing situations isn't some age-related disorder. It's just common sense. You did it all your life. There's no reason to stop as you get older.

One of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others. Please take a look at UKR7.com, which has links to help the people of Ukraine, and WCK.org — World Central Kitchen. Those are two incredible international organizations. World Central Kitchen works in disaster zones around the world, and they are known for getting on-site literally the first possible day — if a helicopter can get in, they are there handing out food. It's a miracle to watch. And of course, your local charities are always looking for help too. Even something as simple as a smile can change someone else's day in ways you can't imagine.

As always, thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting and useful, please pass it along, subscribe, and hit that like button. Drop me a comment and let me know what you'd like to hear more about.

Have a great week. Remember to live the life that you dreamed of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com.