With the assistance of a coach, every man and woman must find their own way to discern what is right and wrong for them. The first and most important step is to listen to the voices.
Without this first step, there is no need to discern anything, for we have chosen to remain deaf and blind to our inner world. We have chosen stagnation over generativity. We have lost the extraordinary opportunity for Generativity Three and Four—the roles to which we turn in the next essays in this series. It is in these essays that we listen to the words of Sage leaders who offered their own insights. We also learn from the life narratives of our four Featured Players as they engage the challenging process of discernment and moving to the new roles of Generativity Three and Four.
The Heritage Drive: Preserving Societal Values
Generativity is about caring for that which should be cared for, and this includes the ongoing presence of critical societal values. It is about caring not just for a specific person, organization, or community. It is about caring for an idea, for the history of action and achievement, for a particular artifact (e.g., painting, building) that represents a lingering value or exemplifies an ideal of beauty. In Generativity Three we are guardians of something that already exists – or existed in the past. McAdams (McAdams, Hart, and Maruna, 1998, p. 15) hints at this third generativity role when identifying the way in which cultural demands serve as an external motivating source of generativity.
Specifically, like us, McAdams and his colleagues suggest that the extension of time places an important role in generativity: “In its linking of generations, generativity links past and future time.” Like Kotre (1984), McAdams believes that generativity is about our desire to outlive our self. It is about stretching time beyond the boundaries of our own lives. We specifically suggest that this extension of time often takes place by honoring our heritage and preserving that which we most value and about which we most care.
Guardianship: We guard that which is still valuable. We care for that which may no longer exist but should be renewed, re-appreciated, and re-engaged. Generativity Three is about visiting the graves and placing flowers near the headstones of our great grandparents. It is about scrapbooks, telling tales around a campfire, and Veterans’ Day parades. It is about the birthdays of Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington. It is about Jackie Robinson, and why many of us still root for his baseball team, the Dodgers.
One source of inspiration for us came from a version of Generativity Three that was proposed by George Vaillant (2012) in his important book about the unprecedented longitudinal study begun in 1938 of 200 Harvard graduates: the Grant Study of Adult Development. As with Erikson, Vaillant sets aside our first role of generativity (parenting and conducting projects):
“Generativity, of course, may . . . include community building (our fourth role) and other forms of leadership, but not, in my mind, such pursuits as raising children, painting pictures, and growing crops.” [Vaillant, 2012, p. 164]
Vaillant also associates himself with most of what Erikson has to say about our second role of generativity:
“Generative people care for others in a direct, forward-oriented relationship—mentor to mentee, teacher to student. They are caregivers.” [Vaillant, 2012, p. 165]
