WORK: STARTING OVER
Last on the freedom line, American men in their middle years are finally beginning to claim the right to redefine their lives. Young people, blacks, and women have been on the march for a much longer time, and now even groups like the Gay Liberationists and Gray Panthers are demanding room to grow. As oppressive stereotypes shatter with increasing frequency, it is not surprising that the need for change, first felt on the fringes, has now penetrated the Estabishment’s core.
In search of new challenges at this stage of life, men recharge their batteries and expand their horizons in many different ways. Some take on a teaching post, become involved in politics, or dedicate themselves to a charitable cause. Some travel to new and distant places, learn another language, take academic courses for fun, or devote more spare time to interests like gardening, photography, boating, tennis, or painting. Others work for the improvement of the physical, social, or cultural environment. Provided there is commitment and enthusiasm, such shifts in leisure-time activities can give a man a new lease on life.
Still, such sideline shifts arc not enough for many achievement-oriented men who have become disenchanted with their work and want something that will engage them more fully. Launching a second career in the forties, or beyond, may well be the wave of the future, according to some experts. Even now a rapidly increasing number of men are starting over in their middle years. Moreover, there is much evidence which indicates that countless others would like to do the same, even though they have not yet summoned the courage, or figured out the way, to make a meaningful change.
Peter F. Drucker, professor of management at New York University’s Graduate School of Business, believes that this desire to change direction at mid-life is more widespread than we generally acknowledge. A fervent spokesman for second careers, he reports that a magazine article he wrote several years ago on this subject elicited an incredible response. Despite the article’s appearing in a magazine of only limited circulation, over seven hundred letters and hundreds of phone calls poured in from all over the United States—from ministers, professors, military officers, school principals, accountants, engineers, middle managers, civil servants, and others.
“Almost all recited a life story of substantial success,” says Drucker. “Yet all asked: ‘Now that I am forty-seven, how can I start doing something new and challenging?’ “2
This restless yearning was no surprise to him. Drucker claims that an urgent need exists in our society to create “wholesale opportunities” for the middle-aged worker to launch a new career. “A second career at this age is a great deal more satisfying—and fun—than the bottle, a torrid affair with a chit of a girl, the psychoanalyst’s couch, or any of the other customary attempts to mask one’s frustration and boredom with work,”:l he insists.
Important changes in our society have caused this increasing on-the-job slump, says Drucker. First, the notion that jobs ought to be personally satisfying—a brand-new idea, historically speaking—causes more discontent than in the past. Second, America has changed from an economy of goods to a knowledge economy. This means that a large group of people—”knowledge workers,” or what the census calls “professional, managerial, and technical people”—must remain within a specific function or discipline, which invariably becomes tedious. Consequently, today’s working life span, having increased sharply since 1900, is too long for all but a few who reach the top and preserve their zest. Still in his “mental prime,” the typical knowledge worker is bound to become, dispirited as he approaches middle age, says Drucker, “because he has reached his limit of contribution and growth in his first career—and he knows it.”
Despite the many valid reasons that prompt men to change careers at mid-life, however, one major problem confronts them: Sanctions and guidelines are not readily available. Starting over is difficult and inevitably fraught with stresses, uncertainties, and questions. But the services that now exist to help a man thinking about, preparing for, or already launched on such a venture are scant indeed. Moreover, our society frowns on such mid-life shifts: Men who job-hop, switch careers, or return to school this late in life are still suspected of being neurotic or confused.0
Here, ironically, educated women are ahead of the game. They can enter, leave, and re-enter the job market and be considered “interesting,” or train for a new profession in their forties and be considered brave. In addition, more resources and available for women. Besides being able to air their fears and feelings more openly among themselves, they can generally find counseling services nearby. Partly because of the women’s movement, our society has in recent years focused increasingly on the problem of women who want to work after their children have grown, or gone off to school. Thus many agencies that are designed to help the older women set new goals have sprung up throughout the country.
Men who wish to reshape their lives at a time when major change is considered inappropriate arc not as fortunate. Talking frankly to a colleague might jeopardize their present job. Talking to the company psychologist or personnel counselor is more dangerous still. Most corporations have yet to recognize the existence of a mid-life career problem, much less set up facilities for a man to vent his frustrations or make changes. Outside help docs exist, primarily in large metropolitan areas. But there are still far too few university psychologists, management consultants, and career counselors to meet the demand.
What all this means is that the man who changes direction at mid-life cannot count on much help. He must gather information and search out existing resources on his own, and then, with ingenuity and persistence, bend them to his purposes. Too, he must rally his own sources of support among friends and intimates. Those men who have made a shift insist that the satisfactions outnumber the sacrifices. But, as we shall see, starting over is still a solitary venture for most American men, a venture that requires both courage and determination.
*57\93\2*
