Sixty Not Out!

Sixty Not Out is a cricket term, it refers in general to a person who is up at bat and has scored a certain amount of runs (In this case 60) and is still not out.

I am part of and to be specific, at the tail end of the generation known as the Baby Boomers, but I don't feel that the title and the box we are in really defines the age that I and my fellow 'Sixty Not Outers' really are.

I was born in 1955, ten years after the end of World War Two. Rationing had only stopped in 1953 in Great Britain. We grew up playing around the ruins of a country still trying to emerge from years of sustained attack and our parents were weathered and tired. We were the generation (along with others of course) who were given the task of rebuilding the country and between our Parents and Grandparents we did just that.

For me, I feel that I was part of a mixed generation caught up in a revolution of change. Our music and fashion defined us and our desire for something other that what our parents had drove us to search for something new. Half of my friends bought into the line of thinking that our parents had (Not a bad thing, I am not judging) They finished school, got a job and if lucky enough went to college (Not University, College). Then they got married, bought a house and had a family. The other half of us left school and were less focussed on those ideals. I joined the Army and served for eight years. When I left in1979 I went back to College but found out about a programme called Camp America and went and my lack of focus ended my first marriage. I remained in America for twenty fives years. I remarried and then remarried again. (No, I'm not bragging just recalling my journey) not so dissimilar to many of my kind.

I have been many things in my life, a Soldier, a Restaurant Manager, and an Actor and I work in the Entertainment Industry at present. At 38 I gave up a solid career as a Restaurant Manager and went back to Acting School and finally found that thing which stirred my soul (Much to my wife's bewilderment) Oh, and I have been married for 28 years and have three children (Possibly by best accomplishment)

The challenge as I see it though, is that as I reach retirement age I am nowhere near done. Unlike many of my Grandparents generation, who were physically and emotionally broken after a long life of working in mines and factories, I have not had to endure that. We have had better food, better education and better working environments. We are younger in mental years as well as physical and we don't want to stop, in fact in many ways we are only just beginning.

In the last ten years, I have taken up Triathlon, got a Masters Degree and written three Children's Books. I, along with my wife, bought our first house and we had our second child, I was 50 and my wife was 40. And what I find is that none of this is uncommon.

So if we are SIXTY NOT OUT! What's next?

What's next for you and what is stopping you from having your dreams turn out the way you wanted them?