A recent article in the New York Times talks about people who found their direction later in life. What did you like about this article?I think the most important take-away from the article is to never give up hope. I’ve worked with many people in their mid-to-late twenties who haven’t found what they want to do in life and feel that it’s already too late for them. These stories of people who discovered what matters to them in their 50s, 60s and 70s and who are living very meaningful lives demonstrate that there isn’t a deadline for finding your life path. It’s also interesting to me that, not only were many of the people described in the article finding meaningful things to do, they were also hitting their creative peaks later in life. Some kinds of skills only develop early in life. People don’t become world-class musicians or mathematicians in middle age. But playing music for enjoyment, writing poetry, or starting an environmental organization—all of which were done by the people described in the article—can happen at any point in life.When I mention that helping people find their life direction is a major focus of my practice, people often assume that I work exclusively with young people. This article makes the point that finding passion and direction in life is an issue for people of all ages. If you feel that these are missing in your life, working with a therapist to help you find and pursue what matters to you is something you can do at any age. As the researcher quoted in the article says, “We absolutely have to revamp this idea of a linear pattern of accomplishment that ends when you’re fifty or sixty.” What do you think opens people up to discovering what they love doing? Sometimes it’s simply having the time. If you’re in a position to retire comfortably, you certainly have the opportunity to explore what you love without worrying about having to make a living from it. But the article also describes people who are still working and have decided that now is the time to learn to play the cello or do something else they’ve always wanted to do. The fact that they’re not going to do it professionally doesn’t make it any less meaningful to them.I also think that, as we get older, we feel less pressure to be the people we imagine other people want us to be. And we’ve experienced how the things that matter to us can change over time and that can help us to be open to new experiences that might lead us in a new direction.Can feeling pressure to find what you’re going to do “when you grow up” close you off to new experiences? Absolutely. To some extent, people have always experienced this pressure in our culture. You go to college; perhaps you go to graduate or professional school; and then you’re supposedly on the path you’ll be on for the rest of your life.But many younger people I work with—especially those who have graduated from college since the 2008 recession--feel this pressure particularly acutely. There were so few good jobs available when they got out of school that they feel a great deal of anxiety about figuring out what they want quickly so they can have some hope of making a decent living, of having a family and buying a house, and of having some kind of secure future.Unfortunately, the pressure they put on themselves often causes them to make choices that aren’t going to be sustainable in the long run. In some ways, it’s parallel to the pressure people sometimes put on themselves to find a life partner when they’re in their 20s. They’re looking for the security of a long-term relationship but they don’t know themselves well enough to choose the right person. There are exceptions, of course, but many of these relationships don’t last through people’s 20s. It’s better to slow down, I think, and give yourself time to find the direction and the relationship that will truly sustain you in the long run.How can you find that sense of freedom to figure out what you like doing when you’re younger? I think it’s really important to resist the pressures that can come from family, from society, and even from peers to locate yourself on the linear timeline. Even if you have to support yourself by working at jobs you don’t love, you can put time and effort into finding the path that will make your life meaningful in the long run.Of course, in order to do this, you need to value yourself enough to believe that you deserve to do something you love and care about. Self-confidence needs to replace hopelessness and despair. If a lack of self-confidence is keeping you from believing that it’s okay for you to have the life you want, it’s crucially important to address that issue. Having the hope and self-confidence that you can have the life you want is the first step toward achieving it.Click to learn more about finding your life path with Jane Rubin, Ph.D.