3 phases of the journey

Some years ago, I was introduced to cairns, stacks of rocks, routinely placed by hikers along a trail or at a particular point or summit to mark their presence and adding their story to those that had come before and those that will follow. I’m intrigued by the practice and try to contribute my rock when I come across one.

I was in a life/career conversation recently - with a couple of other seasoned leaders - and one shared an observation that their are three big seasons or phases of life - where we LEARN, EARN, and RETURN.

It’s a clever word play and if we project this onto our professional careers it resonates. Early career, we don’t have much, aren’t making a lot, and if we’re paying attention, learning all we can. Mid-career, we get to see that learning pay off in greater responsibility, new opportunity, and our earning potential grows. Late career, we get to a place where we no longer have to climb or accumulate and we are then in a position to give back, perhaps financially but also in building into others in the learning phase as mentors or guides.

I was positively struck by the conversation as it was offered very much in goodwill and by genuine motivation to pay forward in a season where we can have significant impact. Still, the more I thought about it, the more unsettled I became with it. Surely, at a macro level, most of us can probably identify with this rule of three. Yet, as with any good rule, there are some exceptions and I’d offer two to this one.

We don’t have to wait to RETURN. For any who are early or mid-career and you’re just trying to figure stuff out and life is complicated with relationships, perhaps a growing family and growing responsibility at work - you don’t have to wait to give something back. Perhaps you’re not “board ready” for a nonprofit, but you probably have time to volunteer for the 5K or the golf tournament. Or maybe you go to your kid’s classroom to read to children or serve as a classroom adopter/parent. You are not so far removed in life that you can relate to teenagers, so volunteering at church or an organization like Big Brothers Big Sisters could be an option. I guess my point is that there are varied expressions of RETURN, regardless of our life and career stage.

We don’t have to graduate from LEARN. Legendary basketball coach John Wooden said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” Surely, later in life we’ve accumulated experience, life lessons and we (re)encounter circumstances we’ve seen before. Still, I’m inspired by seniors who are still demonstrating an appetite to grow and experience new things. So much is being introduced to the world at a rapid rate, nothing says we have to shut our brains down and settle into our easy chairs. In fact, I think an argument can be made that it’s essential for those of us with experience continue to learn to be able to help make sense of and apply all the new that’s coming our way. As with RETURN, LEARN is not phase-dependent, but rather a choice we can make.

In the end, we have choices - where more than one thing can be true at the same time - and that would be a pretty cool cairn to come across.