Brian Clark

Midlife is a period of peak family, in both wonderful and challenging ways. After all, two-thirds of us have dependent children, and about half have a parent over 65. We’re the Sandwich Generation, tasked with supporting our aging folks as well as our growing or young adult kids, all while working full-time. Down below, Trudi …

We’re in the midst of a major restructuring in the workforce. Gen Xers should be ascending to the highest levels of company management, but instead find Baby Boomers who don’t want to retire standing firm. Longer lives and health spans – plus the increasing awareness that retirement is not all that – means that traditional …

I’m not sure I ever tried to imagine what life would like in my mid-50s when I was younger. If I did, it would likely be tied to the cultural narrative that we grew up with. I would be winding up my career and preparing to retire. Once retired, I would be effectively preparing to …

Less than 100 years ago, a revolutionary new social program went in to effect to protect older people. Social Security offered monetary benefits to those who reached the age of 65 so they could stop working. It wasn’t an arbitrary number, given that life expectancy for men was only 58 years, with the average for …

Midlife is having a moment, finally. Other than stereotypes about erratic middle-aged behavior and the myth of the midlife crisis, people over the age of 50 are usually just beginning to be ignored by advertisers and shunned by employers. But that’s changing. With the size and wealth of the Baby Boomer generation combined with longer, …

If you’re going to be addicted to something, you can do much worse than exercise. And while a consistent focus on enhancing your fitness is the key to healthy aging, it can become an obsession if you let it. The last year-and-a-half has been my most consistent period of fitness ever, and I can say …

Plenty of things have changed during our lifetimes. But the most relevant change may be the tremendous redefinition of being “middle-aged” just as we got there. Psychologist Daniel Levinson defines middle age as when “one is no longer young and yet not quite old.” And what used to be a stage of life between the …

When I took my midlife gap year at 51, it made me realize what I wanted to do going forward. Rather than upgrading to another home in Boulder, my wife and I decided we would spend our lives exploring the world outside of the United States. I had the location-independent income down, so we just …

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. On one hand, people are living longer lives. And with just some basic attention to healthy aging principles, Generation X could live much longer than expected. This means we have to work longer. That’s a fair tradeoff… assuming we’re able to do work …

I write about longevity quite a bit, both here and with other projects. Combine that with the fact that I lift weights and focus on fitness at 56, and I invariably get someone asking: What, you one of those people trying to live forever? No, actually. No matter how fit I am, I could still …

Your attitude about aging makes all the difference. Research by psychologist Becca Levy shows that people with the most positive views about aging live seven and a half years longer compared to those with the most negative beliefs. Newer research adds a twist. People who believe they look younger than others their age are more …

It’s no longer news that a large chunk of Generation X won’t retire at the conventional age. And for some of us, that’s by design. The message is now shifting from “Gen X can’t retire” to “Gen X is going to work longer.” Okay, makes sense… so let’s look at the options. We’ve already explored …