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Baby boomers seem gifted with perpetual youth. But they are also people of passion. From the moment this generation arrived on this earth, they seemed to be bringing a mission and a different vision for society than had existed before. This sense of knowledge and of vision accounts for the incredible drive baby boomers have shown throughout their adult lives which have resulted in changes to society so profound that life in America today only faintly resembles how we lived in the 50s and 60s.

Each era of life has brought its own challenges to baby boomers. As parents, baby boomers were committed to having a different kind of relationship with their children. They are more hands on, participatory and interactive with children in a much greater way than generations before. In a very real way, baby boomers parents sought to be both parent and best friends to their children. The outcome has not always been positive but you do see a sense of family unity and emulation of parents in children of boomers that is even more committed than the family model of the past because baby boomers viewed parenting as a mission and job one of their lives.

As baby boomers move out of the parenting role, at least in terms of having youngsters at home, they now have an opportunity to define in their own terms what it means to be a grandparent. Becoming grandma and grandpa may be a bit difficult for a generation that has always fought the coming of aging and resisted even adulthood much less old age. But if baby boomers embrace the concept of being the kindly and wise old grandparent and filling that role in the lives of their children and grandchildren, they can have an influence on another generation beyond them to pass along their insights and guidance in ways that only grandparents can do.

Children see grandma and grandpa in a different light. Naturally they love them and love the opportunity to visit their grandparents if for no other reason than grandma always has cookies for them. But sitting on granddads knee and hearing his stories or just enjoying his love and teasing is part of growing up that children cherish long into their adult years. And it is a time that even baby boomers can embrace and thoroughly enjoy.

There was a great book out not long ago named ?If I knew being a grandparent was this much fun, I would have done it first.? This amusing concept reflects that the joy of being grandpa and grandma to your children?s children is fulfilling in ways that even surpass the important role baby boomers had as parents. Children listen to their grandparents because they are wise and old and it gives them a sense of security to see that it?s possible to go through life successfully and still be full of life and fun even when old age is upon us. That is why children intuitively know that there are things grandparents know that they want to learn while on granddads lap and they cherish the lessons they are taught from a revered elder.

It?s good when baby boomers embrace this new role. Just as when boomers embraced parenthood, they threw themselves into the challenge with a passion that changed the definition of parenting for the better. So too, baby boomers can bring their passion, their sense of deep commitment and their love of family to the role of grandparent and give their grandchildren the gift of a wonderful grandma and grandpa who not only always had love and fun for them but also always seemed to know the right answer.

Look to your time with your grandkids as a time to pass along the wisdom that 50-60 years of life has given you. While children need the guidance and knowledge of their parents, the role of teacher, disciplinarian and rules maker sometimes clouds the parent relationship. That is why grandchildren are open to hearing what grandma or grandpa has to say because the relationship is more clear cut and they see their grandparents as fountains of wisdom always given in love.

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Baby boomers are no strangers to worry. It seems from the first decade this generation began to become aware of the world, there were big things to worry about. This was the first generation to grow up with a reality that world destruction is possible at the hands of a man made weapon that did exist and was pointed at them. In the 1950s and 1960s, the decades when this generation was entering youth, it was common for children to have to run drills to hide under their desks as a defense against the arrival of a nuclear bomb. Even back then, those baby boomer children know those desks were faint defense against such a devastating weapon.

So from worrying about the draft, the bomb, Vietnam or about corruption in government, boomers grew up as a generation of worriers. Of course, worry is endemic in the human psychology. And as baby boomers grew into adults, parents and the ones who would come to take leadership in the world, those worries of youth paled compared to the new responsibilities they faced.

This century brings the advent of the retirement years for baby boomers. Over the years, many have learned good coping mechanisms to defray some of the worries of life. Boomers have learned that worry about money, their children or whether the car needs a new set of tires should be taken in stride. That is because to some extent, most of these issues can be solved. Money woes can be fixed with better jobs and money management. Kids can be corrected and turn out fine even if they have troubled youths. And new tires for the car are easy to buy.

But the worries of the retirement years are often beyond such short term fixes. Boomers are hands on managers who have charged through life with the attitude of, ?let me at that problem. I can fix it.? But problems of aging are not always as easily conquered as many of the problems boomers conquered in their younger years. Some problems that demand a different approach in the later third of life that boomers are approaching include?

? Incurable illnesses such as Alzheimer?s, ALS or other forms of dementia for which the only relief is death.

? Running out of money because Social Security was not adequate and life was too challenging to really save up for retirement.

? The prospect of passing many years in an old folk?s home with no hope of release and no physical resources to save oneself can cause panic attacks in many an aging baby boomer.

? Dire issues with adult children such as death or illness, marital woes or the need for grandparents to raise their grandchildren present problems to aging boomers that seem beyond their physical, emotional and financial abilities to solve.

These new worries are unlike the worries of their middle age years. These very real and dire problems loom even larger if the baby boomer seeing them on the horizon is made suddenly alone by the passing of their spouse. Now one of their primary resources for staying calm and solving problems has been taken away from them.

This is a time in life when more than ever baby boomers need to get a refresher course in stress management and learning that worry cannot solve these problems. And like their parents before them for generations, boomers too will learn to face their sunset years with grace and maturity and to live with problems such as we have discussed with the same courage they faced down the problems of their youth.

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If you are not a gardener, you may wonder why this hobby has become so popular even with city people who have the resources to go to the grocery and get food with much less effort. Perhaps much of the joy that comes from gardening originated in our baby boomer values that came from those golden ?hippie? days of the 1960s. Part of the ethical and moral system of that time in our cultural history was the ?back to the land? movement to get back to our roots and away from the alleged sins of modern society.

From this same movement we got the increased interest in vegetarianism, yoga, natural eating and the environmental movement. So, while we look back with a bit of chagrin on the idealism and sometimes radical values that this era of baby boomer history represents, there are some very good lifestyle choices that came from that era of our shared lives. And the love of gardening is one of the good things we kept from that time.

Gardening is a hobby that is unique among pastimes because virtually nothing bad can come of it. Even if you are a total failure at gardening and don?t produce a single morsel of food from your garden, just the act of working with the earth and making something grow is so therapeutic that it?s worth the effort even if you only grow weeds.

One reason gardening is a wonderful hobby is that it?s simple. But you can get as sophisticated and scientific at it as you please. Gardening is like fishing in the way that even if you are terrible at it, it?s entirely worth doing just for the joy of the time you are out there. There really is nothing comparable in therapy for going out in the garden in the evening after a stressful time at your job. Working with the soil and spending sometime nurturing and pouring your tender loving care into the garden can make those worries and anxieties of the office melt away. Then when you come in after an hour of gardening, those cares take on their proper perspective so you can deal with them.

Gardening in creativity for the uncreative. When you till your garden and prepare your soil, that is like a master painter preparing his paints to produce that masterpiece. But when you finally open the packages of seeds and have that joy of placing them just so in that carefully prepared soil, there is a sensation of making something happen that is new life and wouldn?t have happened because of you that refreshes even the most cynical baby boomer and puts them in touch with themselves and with nature in a way that is hard to match in any other pastime.

Even the simple act of watering the soil has almost a mystical regenerative power for you which is so refreshing that you will look forward to your time with your garden as much as any other part of your day. But when that day comes that you rush out to your garden after work and see those young sprouts come up that you so carefully planted and cared for, it?s a little moment of parenting that can bring real joy to your heart.

We know that we did not create the seed and that we are no more than caregivers in helping that plant sprout and then grow into a healthy fruit, herb or vegetable plant. By becoming part of the cycle of nature when you care for the plants in your garden, it gives you a feeling of completion and connection to God and his creation that could not even be replicated in the best of church services. Even the most hardened atheist will feel that connection to the eternal by simply spending time with the simple plants of the earth and letting them become part of the life he lives.

So don?t be afraid to put together a small plot of land and begin planning your little garden. Even if you are an apartment dweller, you can organize a garden with planter boxes and grow lights and get many of the same joys from your little garden that the master garden with acres of crops can get.

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If there ever was a generation who would put every resource known to man against the challenge of defeating aging, it would be the baby boomer generation. Of course the deeply rooted desire in mankind to stop or turn back the aging process is as old as time itself. We have ample evidence of that in literature. From The Fountain to Youth to Peter Pan, there have been many efforts to just stubbornly say ?I wont grow up? as though stamping ones foot and refusing to participate can actually keep us from growing older.

Baby boomers have always had a love affair with youth. It is no doubt deeply rooted in their explosive teen and twenties years in which this generation became virtually the center of the universe as youth culture dominated the country if not the world in the sixties and seventies. That kind of thing can convince you that you are the generation that would never grow old.

But, of course, the baby boomer generation has grown old. But the interest in staying vibrant and active has resulted in the explosive growth of the exercise and diet industries. Because if baby boomers can?t stop aging from happening, they can at least not LOOK old or act like it either.

From a medical stand point, of course, there has never been an anti aging medicine or pill. Medical science has seen phenomenal changes and had breakthroughs in many areas of research and study. Boomers were fully prepared to fund any medical work being done that might result in the elimination of aging or at least in slowing its relentless onset. But medical science has not found any magic potion that could cause aging to stop or to reverse its effects.

Even if aging could be stopped at some level on the physical level, you have to wonder if that would be practical in light of aging that affects the whole of what a person is. We know that we don?t just age in body, we age in attitudes, in maturity and in our ambition and how we view our goals in life. This has as much to do with the cycles of life from youth to parenthood to middle age and then to retirement as it does with physical changes in our bodies.

For many, the question might be, ?If science could make it possible for you to never age or die, would you even want that?? There is an intuitive knowledge in our hearts that we have a season to live on this earth and then its time to pass the torch to the next generation. Everything works on that cycle. You are defined by your place in life. So if you are in your forties, being a parent or a spouse is considered the appropriate place to be. So too, at 70 or 80, we are expected to be wise old grandma and granddad. Our behavior in society, what we value and what we look for from others is expected to be driven by our age in life which is a subset of the aging process.

If aging was somehow defeated entirely, that entire cycle of life would have to be completely re-evaluated. If you knew you would live 200 years rather than 80 or 90 years, how would you plan your family, your career and your finances?

Thankfully, perhaps, aging remains a constant. The good news is while baby boomers fight aging with a passion, they are also capable of growing into their senior years with a lot to give back to society. So just as boomers have been had a huge impact on society through every other decade, when they accept that they are going to be part of that aging process, they will be a great generation of grandmas and grandpas as well.

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Baby boomers love the theater. And with good reason. The theater has always been an art form that teaches the love of culture and values that were important to baby boomers when they were enjoying those explosive years of youth during the 50s and 60s. You can see the influence of the stage even in the clothing and ways of expressing themselves that the ?hippies? demonstrated when they were at their zenith.

The love of the stage and culture that has become wide spread in the baby boomer culture also reflects that this has always been a very well educated generation. The fact that such a big percentage of baby boomers either had some exposure to the arts in college themselves or from their parents has been a healthy thing for preserving this important part of society throughout the time this generation has been in charge.

For many a baby boomer the stage has held a fascination that is more than just watching a good play and being a good patron of the arts. Many feel that there is a performer inside them that wants to become part of theater history by getting up there and acting in a play with all the joys and terrors that such a big step would mean. But that shyness and unwillingness to take a chance has kept many of us from getting out there and giving it a try, knowing it could lead to disaster. While risk taking of this nature might have been easy when we were youth, it might not be so easy as adults when we, allegedly, need to preserve our pride and try not to look stupid on stage if we forget a line.

But as more and more baby boomers move toward retirement age and have the time to explore the creative side of themselves, this time of life is a perfect opportunity to get out there and take that plunge and see if you can release the actor inside to captivate a crowd with your dramatic or comedic talents.

There are plenty of opportunities around that you can give yourself a chance to step out on stage and experience that thrill of performing a theatrical piece for a live audience. Virtually every community in the country has one or many local theater groups who offer the chance for an amateur actor to try his or her wings in a small role of that next local production. In addition, many churches, colleges, art museums, improv groups and culture centers use drama as part of their programs. These are good places to try out your acting skills in short 3-5 minute skits that would take less commitment to learn and limit your time on stage so you can get your legs and learn the craft.

If you want to get involved with groups like this, it?s easy to volunteer and perhaps enjoy being part of theater without getting out on stage at first. You can help with sets, costumes and other tasks and still have the fun of rehearsals and all that back stage drama before you actually have to step out there and face an audience.

If ever there was a part of life that cried out those words that should become our mantra as baby boomers who are sprouting new wings in our later years, the theater is that place. And that mantra is WHY NOT? Why not take a chance with a part of life you have always dreamed of trying out? Retirement is a time when you say, ?Hey! No more excuses. I am going to give it a try.?

You have let your fears and timidity keep you from letting that actor inside you try out an actual role in an actual play for long enough. By letting that actor inside out, you may have the most fun you could ever imagine by getting out on stage and becoming someone else for a little while. And when you hear that sound of applause and you know that applause was for you, then that actor inside you will not only thank you for letting him loose, he will begin nagging you to get out there again and try an even bigger role next time. And you will be hooked for life.

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The phenomenon of a worker who may have been in the work force for 40 years suddenly starting a new career at 50 or over is a trend that is exploding as baby boomers hit that age bracket. There has always been a phenomenon of older workers trying something new but the trend has hit such a new high in the baby boomer retirement picture. So you have to wonder what about baby boomers makes them want to start new careers late in life.

Part of it has to do with the way business has functioned in the last few decades. In our parents working years, the norm was to work for the same company and be a ?company man? for 40-50 years, get that old watch and retire with a handsome retirement package. That formula just doesn?t work any more.

For one thing, retirement plans supported by employers have become a thing of the past. Savings for retirement have plummeted as the financial demands of life are all most people can keep up with. So the concept of working on into what used to be called retirement years is now a given if for no other reason than financial necessity.

The model we just laid out of employees staying with the same company for their entire adult lives is simply no longer a reality for all but a few in the modern work force. Most baby boomers have worked for dozens of companies in their adult lives so their retirement packages, if they exist at all, are small. Part of this can be attributed to the entrepreneurial spirit of baby boomers. But there has been a discernable shift in the way American business works as well. Companies don?t like the idea of keeping employees that long. Add to that the fact that so many companies have gone out of business been absorbed in huge corporate buy outs or undergone drastic downsizing that by the time most boomers hit their 50s and 60s, the idea of keeping one single career moving forward is pretty hard to sustain.

But these negative explanations are not all there is to why baby boomers are starting over late in life. Boomers never did accept that the rules of life or aging applied to them. They are ambitious, adventurous and willing to strike on new paths with much less fear than previous generations. As boomers have faced some of the challenges of the economy and the modern business world, they have responded aggressively by starting businesses or changing their careers entirely late in life. And they are just as willing to pay their dues and stick with that new career until they are successful as they were when they were 30.

Many workers find a line of work and learn they can pay the bills and raise the kids early in life but they do not follow their dream career at that time. So when the time in life comes that the kids are out of the nest, the house paid off and the adventure of living has settled down somewhat, many baby boomers see that as the chance to finally throw off that boring old career and go after their dream career once and for all.

It?s inspirational to see someone in that stage of life setting the standard for not settling for anything less than realizing their dream by launching a new career doing what they always wanted to do all along. Who can fault boomers from wanting that kind of gratification of finding success in a career that fulfills their passions? So God bless the late in life boomers who go for the brass ring in their golden years. They will be an inspiration for many coming behind them to be as bold about their lives as well.

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If you ask a representative sample of baby boomers that are approaching their retirement years what they are looking forward to the most about retirement, the most common answer that comes back is, ?travel?. There is something about the romance and fun of travel that appeals to us as we think about stepping out of the work world and doing things we have been hoping to do for all our lives. And travel has that sense of adventure that calls to us when we look forward to a time when our responsibilities are few but we have the resources to realize our dreams.

If travel is a major objective of your retirement planning, the earlier in life you get started planning your travel adventures, the more fun your trips will be. They say that anticipation is half the fun of a trip. So why not start now planning for your various destinations and the adventures you want to have when you get there?

If the baby boomer got a chance to travel during those child rearing years, you no doubt already have some solid travel disciplines in place to use for routine trips. Most of us have learned to travel smart from business travel or traveling to see family over the years. But it?s a good idea to review your preparation check lists when you start thinking of longer trips, perhaps to more exotic and unknown locations such as Europe, The Middle East or South America.

Remember that when you are retired and planning longer trips, that is going to present some unique challenges in terms of packing. Its one thing to pack for three days in Orlando but its something else entirely to pack for two weeks in Germany or Greece. It takes an experienced and prepared traveler to only take the essentials and to keep your packing light and efficient. Some core principles that will help you include?

. Take things that don?t need pressing or a lot of maintenance. If you can use the same garment over several days, that cuts down on your bulk considerably. You can even rinse out wash and wear garments in your hotel room and hang them up in the bathroom while you sleep and they will good as new in the morning.

. Don?t pack it. Buy it. It might pay to pick up some of your disposable items when you get to your destination. You can buy your toiletries and even a garment or two if something gets left behind once you arrive. And by not taking a lot of disposable items, you cut down on the chances you will have trouble with security.

. Check your bags. You see people who try to drag everything on board with them to avoid baggage claim. These are your rookie travelers. Better to trust the airline with the bag and be prepared if your bag gets lost than to have all that struggle trying to get everything into bags you can take on board.

. Be prepared to lose your bags. Just pack a small carry on with what you must have that first night in the hotel. Include small items for changing clothes, sleepwear and hard to replace toiletries so if you do find your bags didn?t make the trip, you can stay comfortable until they catch up to you.

Be smart and think ahead about where you are going and what you will need there. Read as much as you can about your destination and book your accommodations well in advance so you know you are expected even in a part of the world that is new to you. These kinds of preparations will make your retirement travel fun and exciting and keep you on the road regularly for many years to come.

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Buying and selling a home is one of those things that baby boomers have learned to deal with in adult life. For many who may have lived in their homes for decades and raised a family there, the physical space can take on tremendous sentimental attachment. As you walk around your home, you can think of a memory for almost every corner and square foot of floor space of that house. But there comes a time when it is time to loosen your grip on the old plantation and prepare to let a new family move in.

For one thing, that home is a significant financial asset to you. If you have been in it for many years, it has almost certainly appreciated in value for you. So as you have paid down the mortgage, more and more of it actually belongs to you and not the bank. It has gotten more and more valuable, as the insurance company is more than happy to inform you.

Upgrading to a new home may be necessary for a baby boomer family as it grows and new needs create the need for more space. Improvements in income and the desire for a nicer living space for entertaining can also create this kind of demand. But as baby boomers move toward their retirement years, one of the biggest reasons they will have for selling their home will be to move to a smaller space or to redeem that financial resource for retirement or for other priorities that are more important than a big spacious house.

Whatever the reason, you want your home to show in its best possible light so the hopeful home shoppers see the wonderful home environment that you already know this house to be and can envision their own family in that house. There are some things you can do to make those moments when they are looking at your house the best experience possible which will put them in the mood to buy.

. Obviously, fix the place up. New paint jobs, replacing worn out cabinets, laying new tile and other improvements you may have been putting off should be done in the weeks and months before you list. This goes for outdoor improvements such as landscaping and gardening improvements. Don?t let the buyer see that they are going to have to put a lot of maintenance into the home up front.

. Keep the house constantly clean and ready to be shown to prospective buyers. This means maintaining a lifestyle where you literally can get up and leave virtually in a moments notice. This is tough but if buyers can come see the house virtually on a moments notice, you will not lose as many prospects.

. Make prospective buyers feel that they are welcome to look around. If you greet them when they come, invite them to enjoy looking around to help them overcome that feeling that they are imposing. Buying a house is as much about how the house feels as the technical features of the structure.

. Think about the senses. Often if they know someone is coming to see the house, its not uncommon for sellers to bake a loaf of fresh bread in the oven. That smell as the home buyer comes in creates a tremendous atmosphere of home. Candles are also pleasant but don?t overdo it. You can even leave out a plate of cookies with a handwritten note saying ?help yourself.? Those cookies might just sell the house.

Many of these tips appeal the emotional side of home shopping. But that is as much a part of a buyer?s decision as the importance of good construction and neighborhood. By doing your part to make visitors feel like this is their future home, you go a long way to helping them want to make it so as well.

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The baby boomer generation grew up with a number of specters hanging over their heads. One fear that seemed to hang like an inevitable doom for the childhood and youth of this generation was that of nuclear war and the potential end of life on earth that these weapons could cause if used unchecked.

But there was another much more real threat that was being used with great regularity and it meant a potential fate of death in a war associated activity. That was the specter of the military draft. This form of selecting soldiers was widely used for decades and over many wars and was considered the norm.

The use of conscription was not something the United States Government invented. Civilizations as far back as the Greeks and the Romans used a form of conscription to assure that their armies were supplied with a continuous, healthy flow of young men to serve in the armies of the country, primarily in preparation for warfare. In fact, up until the 1960s in America, it was part of the cultural assumptions that all young men would serve four years of service to their country between high school and college or starting their families.

Like many things related to he military, the horrific war in Vietnam changed that cultural assumption. And the generation to question and finally end the draft in this country was the baby boomer generation. Throughout the sixties, young men lived in constant fear of the draft which, at least in the eyes of baby boomer youth, meant almost certain deployment to Vietnam and almost certain injury or death.

But the horror of the military draft and the resultant imposed service in Vietnam did not strike terror only in the hearts of young men in high school. The war dragged on for such a long time that youth as young as nine and ten years old in the sixties were already making plans to find a way to avoid the inevitability of the draft. Forty years later, it?s easy to forget that at that time finding a legitimate way to cause the draft to pass you by was not considered by the prevailing population to be treason or even cowardice. In the eyes of moms and dads, sisters and aunts and uncles, anything they could do to keep their young men from that perceived sentence of death was fair game.

And so once the conflict in Vietnam came to an end, the draft as it was commonly known at the time came to an end. It?s to the credit of the military and the heart of American young men that the country has been able to keep a well staffed and well trained military that has largely continued to win on the battlefield even without the draft.

One wonders if the military draft will ever return to common use in this country. The memory of the horror of living under a draft may die out with the baby boomer generation. However, it may be that the cultural change in the way Americans view warfare may not permit the return to such a random way of finding America?s bravest and finest to conduct her wars. It?s a serious question that has serious results however, the country decides from generation to generation. We know that America cannot exist without a standing army. There is no question that in the minds of the American citizen that we must maintain a military that is superior in every way to every other army in the world. So can this be done without ever resorting to a draft to supply the armed forces with sufficient force levels to defend the country?

This may be a question that baby boomers themselves may need to decide in the context of the political dialog that happens around elections. For today, we know that the military seems capable of maintaining sufficient might to keep America?s enemies relatively at bay despite sporadic attacks. And as long as the military can keep the armies of other countries from disturbing the American way of life, it is unlikely we will see a draft any time soon.

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