Day 5: Welcome to the Third Age

I’ve used the term The Third Act in my work for about ten years. I liked the metaphor of a play—the third act is where the story begins to make sense. It is where the different threads come together. It seemed especially relevant to life review and life repair. I think I heard it first from Jane Fonda.

But recently I came across the work of British sociologist Peter Laslett, who used a different term. Close but different enough that it is worth noting. He calls this season of life: The Third Age. His framework describes childhood as the First Age, adulthood and the years of work and family as the Second Age and what he called the Fourth Age as the true old age. It is a time of frailty and dependence. The Third Age is a stage separate from old age. It can last twenty or thirty years. It also has its very own distinct work or purpose in our lives.

I like this language. The Third Act can sound as though we are moving toward the end of the story. The Third Age feels different. It puts this stage of life in the context of something vital in its own right. It isn’t simply a period of decline before death. There is still living to do, questions to explore, things to release and reclaim, and perhaps new ways of contributing. I’m beginning to think that The Third Age may be a better way to describe the work I’ve been doing for all these years. Or maybe I will use the words interchangeably. Maybe what we call it doesn’t really matter, but I like the distinction Laslett makes.