Do you have your own dream retirement worked out in your mind yet? Have you thought about how long you will be in retirement? Do you think you'll be doing the same activities in your eighties that you'll undertake in your sixties? If you are a forty-year-old reading this, statistically you have only lived half of your life. Will you leave the employ of only one company when you decide to finally call it quits, or will you have traversed through a variety of career moves? The younger you are, the more likely you will have made a zigzag approach to your third age. You will have juggled many conflicting demands on your time, probably pretty successfully. Because you are accustomed to managing options, you will be able to embrace the ambiguity of writing your own post-work script as a good thing, not a paralyzing event.

Some scenarios for how you move through your later career days (and “later” can be as early as forties or fifties in some cases) are:

• Winding down, but not out — Would your employer permit you to move from a full-time work schedule to a part-time one?

• Trial run — How about taking a solid month off from work to test-drive being home 24/7? If someone else is in the house, will you be able to accommodate each other?

• Do you have an entrepreneurial itch that has never been scratched? Ready to leave the factory and open a card store?

• Do you need a much-deserved rest, but could envision taking on new commitments, such as joining a board of a charity you care about in your community?

• Is there a talent, interest, or skill you have been postponing developing because you simply don't have time? Ready to audition for the community improv troupe or learn another language?

• Do you want to travel, but in a way that lets you learn as well as see something new?

So many uncharted paths are awaiting you. The key to success will be your own ability to cope, either with your many choices or with things not progressing exactly as you imagine. You may be thinking you are far too busy with your current obligations to spend a tremendous amount of mental energy forecasting goals for what you will be doing in your fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and beyond, other than in broad terms.

It is a worthwhile exercise to keep your antennae up and observe others who are ahead of you on the path to their third age. Watch and ask what is working and what they would change if they could.