Sunday, October 8, 10:30am
La Posada de la Aldea, Ancha de San Antonio 15
Free

Finding Meaning in the Third Chapter of Life, UU Service - spirit

by Jon Sievert

At this Sunday’s Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Service, David Manning, a longtime San Miguel resident and a Retirement, Life, and Leadership Coach, discusses factors leading to a successful retirement that provides meaning.

The third chapter of our lives can be a new beginning rather than an ending. It can be the start of a new life journey full of passion, risk, and adventure. We can become more interesting, even to ourselves, more alive, more personal, and find a deeper meaning in life never experienced before. Where do we get our ideas about retirement? From parents? Friends? Former coworkers? What makes this time in life so meaningful for some and deflating for others? Manning discusses the idea of life meaning, which has proven to be the most important of all the success factors during retirement years.

Life meaning is about finding a direction that offers a driving purpose and a deep sense of personal fulfillment. Meaning is a felt sense we experience that gives us peace, comfort, a sense of being useful, a connection with others, and a feeling that we are doing something necessary and worthwhile with our lives.

To help support this idea, Manning asks his retirement clients to craft a personal retirement mission statement. This activity causes a person to look inside his or her self to see who they really are, and to investigate meaning. Nothing is more important than meaning, which is rarely defined and investigated. He makes the case that before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, you might listen for what it intends to do with you. This takes deep listening at the soul level and accepting one’s true self with all of its limits and potentials

Special music is provided by the renowned international concert guitarist Alfredo Muro, whose repertoire includes South American music in its many guises, classical, and jazz. The service music is by pianist Liz Stone.

The UU Fellowship meets every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. at La Posada de Aldea, Ancha de San Antonio #15, and welcomes people of all ages, races, religions, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The room is wheelchair accessible. For more information, visit our website at www.uufsma.org