Hang gliding. Studying Russian history. Opening a bookstore. Sitting in the hammock and staring at the clouds. After fifty, the attitude should be “It’s my turn now, dammit,” and even if it’s still a few credit card payments off, you can start thinking about what your dream might be. You can even plan for it.

Three women counselors in Seattle, recognizing that wishful thinking may be part of good planning, developed a brainstorming program for women called New Choices. It’s a six-week program that helps women figure out how to plan for the next part of life. The idea, they say, is to encourage women to take advantage of the next thirty years or so instead of sleepwalking into the sunset.

It’s not therapy or a workshop. Nobody gives lectures. There’s a facilitator and a group of ten women. Some nights they talk about money; other nights the subject is how to know when you’re having fun. They’re all roughly middle aged, and many don’t know each other, but they’re all trying to figure out their passions. No one comes out of the six weeks with a business plan to open a bead factory in Peru, but together they spark some great notions.

It’s that kind of open-ended, blue-sky thinking that makes the Seattle program so popular. Within six months of starting out, they had a long waiting list, says New Choices founder Sandra Wallace, who at seventy continues to work part-time at her counseling job while helping to run New Choices.

“The second half of your life is not as ego driven,” says Sandra. “It’s more about satisfaction. Some people like me are going to work until they’re seventy. Some are financially set and retire but then they get bored. Even travel, if it’s the only thing, gets old.” Sandra was surprised at how many women admitted “they hadn’t really thought about what they’d do with the rest of their lives or just assumed it would all work out.

“I know a fifty-eight-year-old woman working at a high-tech company and putting in eighty hours a week. She’s not unusual. A lot of working women feel they have no time left over to do what they want. I call them overfunctioning. Maybe they need to reframe their job. We’re such a driven country, you feel you have to account for yourself all the time. People put down older people if they’re not working, volunteering, or doing something,” says Sandra. “Whatever gives you satisfaction, that’s important,” says Sandra. “Who cares, even if it’s golf?”

Excerpt from The Juicy Tomatoes Guide to Ripe Living After 50 by Susan Swartz.