Boomer Men Growing Old Without Friends
I’m a Boomer. I look at my generation and I see a bunch of lonely guys. Something happened to us. We need friends. We were made to have them. But somehow, as we enter our 50’s and 60’s, it didn’t happen.
To be healthy and happy, my guess is that the average guy needs maybe 5-10 friends who we regularly connects with. Studies tells us that the average guy has just 2 friends. Perhaps you know someone like that.
What happened to us? I think we just got too busy with stuff that ultimately doesn’t matter. Our jobs and our careers became a focal point for the way we organized our lives and along the way we left the best part of ourselves behind.
I have two grandsons. I best connect with them when I play horsey on the rug or take them on walks in the forest. I have a group of college buddies that I stay in touch with daily. We help each other process life.
Today I’m headed out on a week-long hike on the Camino with seven other guys (follow me on my Facebook page). We will talk as we walk. We’ll ask each other what God seems to be saying. It will be fun. It will be life.
Guys need that.
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Connection and community are vital. Blessings to you all on your journey. I hope to make this trek with a group of family first at some point. Shalom.
Hey Seth! I have had the privilege of really getting to know you starting with a shared work path at the Institute For International Development (IIDI) and a trail of joys and tears ever since. That followed us crossing paths at Wheaton College–me two years ahead of you. We have experienced a great deal together which I treasure immensely. You, Karen and your family are part if the DNA for my own unfolding narrative. There isn’t a pit too deep nor vista too high to carry loving honor, respect and kinship as elements to a life friendship. I’ll speak affirming words at your memorial service or you at mine. Or maybe there will be a cataclysmic exit the whole world will see. Who knows. What I am unshakably certain of in this moment and now for 30+ years is this– You are loved amigo–always.
I give thanks for friends like you, Butch. Thank you for the years of friendship.