Life Unexpected: Why Seventy Isn’t What I Expected

Is turning seventy actually unexpected?

The title of this blog—Life Unexpected—would suggest that it is. And yet, after seventy springs, summers, and falls, you’d think arriving at seventy would be anything but unexpected.

And still—it is.

After the (expected) surprise party lovingly orchestrated by my children, I stepped into my eighth decade with relatively little fanfare and even fewer expectations. From the vantage point of nearly a year later, I can say this: it has been a surprisingly rocky year.

Not because of the outside world. Thankfully, our elderly parents are relatively stable, and our children and grandchildren are moving forward in their lives. The turbulence, it turns out, is internal.

Physically, I am doing well—better than well. After a long and demanding rehabilitation from knee replacement surgery, I’ve returned to daily walks and bike rides with a kind of exuberance and gratitude I didn’t have before. I’ve even begun strength training.

The minor aches and pains of aging don’t throw me the way they once did. They are like old friends—familiar, expected. My Qigong practice keeps me moving, breathing, and—on most days—grounded. This, I know, is a blessing, and one I don’t take lightly.

So where are the rocks?

They lie in quieter, more unsettling places—the questions that arrive uninvited: Who am I now? Where am I going? What is my purpose at seventy?

These are not the everyday questions—what’s for dinner, which route to bike, who to invite for Shabbat. These are deeper questions, the kind that gently but persistently shake the ground beneath your feet. They touch on the very essence of why we are here—and what I am to do with the hopefully good years I have left.

Why now?

I left my full-time work more than fifteen years ago—though “full-time” hardly captures it. It was all-consuming, stretching well beyond office hours and into the fabric of life itself. After recovering from cancer, I made a conscious decision to step back, to reclaim time.

I continued working as a consultant, traveling to places like Nepal and India, writing, teaching, and creating—while still having time to meet my daughters for lunch or swim regularly. It was a full and meaningful life.

So what changed?

Objectively, not much. Subjectively—almost everything.

I’ve become more selective about the work I take on. Fewer long trips. Fewer audiences that feel less than engaged. On the one hand, this is a relief. On the other, those engagements gave structure to my days—and often brought moments of deep connection and satisfaction.

Now, with more time, I find something unexpected has crept in: indecision.

How do I want to spend my days?

It is all too easy to drift—into screens, emails, the endless scroll. But I recognize these as distractions from what I think of as the “real work.” And yet, paradoxically, as my time has opened up, my confidence—especially in writing—has faltered. Procrastination has become an unwelcome companion.

Today, writing this feels like putting one foot in front of the other—not easy, but still progress.

Not long ago, I experimented with ChatGPT, feeding it a few ideas for a blog post. (Yes, she is a “she” in my mind.) Within moments, she produced something quite good—perhaps even better than what I might have written myself.

I threw up my hands: What’s the point?

And yet… here I am.

Because the question isn’t whether something—or someone—can write better. The question is how I want to live my days—how I want to begin them with a sense of purpose, and end them feeling they were well lived.

I think often of a time, twenty years ago, when I would have given anything for an extra hour or two in the day. Back then, what to do with that time was never the question.

Now, it is.

So this, it seems, is one of the unexpected challenges of turning seventy: not the lack of time, but the responsibility of shaping it.

I invite you to walk with me as I explore this new terrain—this latest chapter of Life Unexpected.

Turning seventy