The First Half of Life: Building Identity
The big mistake we often make in life is how we view the second half of life. The first half is about finding your place in the world. You develop an identity and a sense of what you do, what we might call developing an ego, where people perceive you based on what you have achieved or what you may become. When people get together, they often talk about what you do and how you got there. You are focused on who you meet, how much money you can make, and building a life that includes children, relationships, and security.
The Second Half of Life: A Shift in Perspective
The second part of life is very different. You begin to feel that what you did when you were young has less and less to do with who you are becoming. You are older now, and you realize that you have fewer years ahead. At that point, it no longer feels important to conquer the world, because you no longer have the time or energy, and for what purpose? Instead, you often seek peace of mind and begin to share love and kindness, because they make you feel good. You become more spiritual as you study your energy and learn how to feel good as you age.
Spirituality as Energy
Spirituality, as we define it, is about energy. When we are young, we often have abundant energy, and then it becomes more limited as we age and enter the later stages of life. In the first phase of life, we are taught productivity, efficiency, performance, and a wide range of business concepts. Some of these serve us well, but society primarily values conformity, fitting in and achieving external success. Society often does not value aging, especially when it comes with physical pain and the awareness that life is finite.
So the first part of life is about moving outward, discovering what you can become. The second part is about moving inward, discovering who you are and what value you still bring to others. The first part is about developing the ego, and in that process we often mask our true selves in order to adapt and fit in. When we grow older, we no longer care as much. Things that were once important begin to fade or lose meaning. There is nothing left to prove.
The Star of Light for Both Stages of Life
The second phase of life is about going inward, in contrast to the first phase, which is about going outward and discovering what the world has to offer. We wrote about the Star of Light for both stages of life. In the first half of life, understanding manifestation is key—represented in 11:11, which symbolizes love, light, life, and living, or the intentional, mental, emotional, and physical dimensions. We express this through V-MAP, which can be used in any process of manifestation. It represents Vision, Mission, Action Plan, and Product—the steps needed before achieving anything.
V-MAP can be applied to accomplishing goals and is especially useful in the first half of life. For the second half of life, we focus on what becomes more important: ritual, meditation, going within, presence, and the 64 concepts found in the Love and Peace Scriptures. Simply reading these teachings provides a sense of what life offers at any age, particularly in later life. It is interesting that One Love is intended as a universal, age-independent philosophy for anyone seeking to understand life more deeply.
We believe it provides a meaningful framework for reflection, first in developing the ego and experiencing its illusions of success and identity, and later in realizing what life truly means, especially as one moves closer to its end.
