Was reading this from the chapter "The Second Call" in Brennan Manning's The Ragamuffin Gospel:
"Many people between the ages of 30 and 60 - whatever their stature in community and whatever their personal achievements - undergo what can truly be called a second journey.
A man can have piled up an impressive portfolio of dollars and honors, and get his name in Who's Who, and then wake up one morning, asking, "Is it worth it?" Competent teachers, nurses, and clergy can reach the top only to discover that the job no longer fascinates. There is no where higher to go. They find themselves terrified of stagnation and asking, "Should I switch careers? Would returning to school help?"
Anne Tyler's heroine in her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Breathing Lessons, is driving along a country road with her husband. Suddenly the middle aged woman cries out. "O Ira, what are we going to do with the rest of our lives?" This is the question of the second journey.
Second journeys usually end quietly with a new wisdom and a coming to a true sense of self. The wisdom is that of an adult who has regained equilibrium and stabilized. It is wisdom that gives some things up, lets some things die, and accepts one's limitations. It is a wisdom that realized: I cannot expect anyone to understand me fully. It is a wisdom that admits the inevitability of old age and death.
The second journey begins when we know we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the morning program. The second call is a summons to a deeper, more mature commitment of faith where the naivete, first fervor, and untested idealism have been seasoned with pain, rejection, failure, loneliness and self-knowledge."
