What do you still want to accomplish?

      We’ve accomplished a lot.

      Individually, many of us have raised families, put kids through college, worked long and well at myriad jobs. We’ve made, most of the time, our families proud.

      A lot of us have traveled, seen the world, been to places we couldn’t have imagined back when. Sure, we’ve made mistakes—lots of mistakes—but we’ve frequently been there for those who needed us, helped people who needed help and contributed in some way, we like to think, to what should be a better world.

      Collectively, as a generation, we helped end an unjust war and many of us worked toward a nation based on civil rights for all and a world that was more just. We nurtured rock into an art form and invented World Wide Web and the personal computer. We saved the world from the crewcut and survived bell-bottomed jeans and disco.

      Like the rest of us, you’ve lived a pretty long life, and for the most part, we hope, a pretty good life.

      But what do you still want to accomplish?

      Like us, you’re in your seventh, eighth or ninth decade and, let’s be frank, you don’t have all that much time left. So, in that remaining slice of your life, what do you still want to do? What do you still want to accomplish? What’s our there on the horizon that entices you?

      Maybe you’ve noted it down already—it’s on your bucket list— or maybe you haven’t really thought about it seriously till now. Let us know what you still want to accomplish by commenting here or writing to us at writingaboutourgeneratin@gmail.com.

      Whatever. Do think about it. Send us an entire essay or just a list or maybe only a simple word or two. Whatever works for you. Maybe actually writing it down will propel you forward, help you get closer to that accomplishment. Or maybe it will inspire others to take up the same challenge.

      There’s still stuff to do, you know.

Neil Offen

Neil Offen, one of the editors of this site, is the author of Building a Better Boomer, a hilarious guide to how baby boomers can better see, hear, exercise, eat, sleep and retire better. He has been a humor columnist for four decades and on two continents. A longtime journalist, he’s also been a sports reporter, a newspaper and magazine editor, a radio newsman, written a nationally syndicated funny comic strip and been published in a variety of formats, including pen, crayon, chalk and, once, under duress, his wife’s eyebrow pencil. The author or co-author of more than a dozen books, he is, as well, the man behind several critically acclaimed supermarket shopping lists. He lives in Carrboro, North Carolina.

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