Imagining Your Life at Age 55 What will it be like to be you at age 55? In what year will reach this milestone? What major changes may have occurred nationally? internationally? The life course perspective holds that aging is a “lifelong experience that is multi-faceted and shaped by the contexts in which individuals live” (Moody & Sasser, 2015, p. 2). With this in mind, describe your life at age 55. Think broadly, considering your well-being in each of the following facets of your life: physical, psychological, spiritual/existential, social, and economic. What have you done during your early adult years to reach your 55-year-old self? What opportunities have you had? What challenges have you faced? Generativity versus Stagnation, Erik Erikson’s seventh stage of psychosocial development, is believed by some psychologists and gerontologists to be the central struggle of adulthood. How do you imagine you will have addressed this developmental challenge by the age of 55? The results of relevant recent studies are summarized on pp. 257 and 258 of your text (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2015). What difficulties, if any, have you had in attempting to imagine your life at age 55? References: Cavanaugh, J. C. & Blanchard-Fields, F. (2015). Adult development and aging (7th ed.). Cengage Learning. Moody, H. R. & Sasser, J. R. (2015). Aging: Concepts and controversies (8th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc. Guidelines for Completing Assignment The reflective essay is just that, a reflection on your life and how the theories and topics are relevant to your experiences using applicable theories and references. Address the assigned questions thoughtfully using APA format approximately 700-1000 words (minimum of 2-3 pages excluding title page and reference page; 1-inch margins, 12-point Times New Roman font).
