Falling Upward Finds Spiritual Promise in Life’s Second Half

By the time we reach our 50s or 60s, most of us have learned that life does not unfold according to the plans we made when we were young. Careers stall or end. Children leave home. Parents die. Marriages change. Bodies become less dependable. Achievements that once seemed enormously important may begin to feel strangely insufficient.

In Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr argues that these disruptions are not detours from the spiritual journey. They may be the journey’s most important part.

Author Richard Rohr

Published in 2011 and revised in 2024, the book offers an encouraging but challenging message: The second half of life need not be defined primarily by decline, retreat or loss. It can be a period of deepening, liberation and growing into the person we were meant to become.

Rohr is not dividing life neatly at age 50. The “two halves” describe stages of spiritual development, not birthdays. Some people begin the second half early after a serious illness, divorce, failure or other life-altering experience. Others, he writes, remain psychologically in the first half throughout their lives.

The first half is devoted to building what Rohr calls the “container” of life. We establish an identity, learn the rules, pursue education and work, form relationships and create financial and emotional security. These are necessary tasks. We need a stable sense of self before we can loosen our grip on it.

But trouble begins when we mistake the container for the contents. Status, possessions, professional identity and even religious certainty can carry us only so far. Eventually, Rohr argues, life confronts us with something we cannot control or solve through determination. A fall becomes almost unavoidable.

That fall might be retirement, bereavement, an empty nest, a lost job, a health crisis or simply the realization that success has not produced the fulfillment we expected. What feels like collapse may create the opening for a richer life—hence the book’s title.

“Those who have fallen, failed, or ‘gone down’ are the only ones who understand ‘up,’” Rohr writes in the book’s description. What appears to be a loss, he says, can ultimately become a gain.

A different definition of success

For readers in life’s second half, Rohr’s most helpful idea may be that the skills that built a successful career are not necessarily the ones that create a meaningful retirement.

The first half rewards ambition, certainty and accomplishment. The second asks for patience, humility and an ability to live with unanswered questions. Instead of proving our value, we learn to accept it. Instead of accumulating, we begin releasing. Instead of asking how far we can advance, we ask what our lives can contribute.

This does not mean becoming passive. Rohr’s later life is not a withdrawal from the world but a different way of participating in it—less driven by ego, competition and the need for approval.

Retirement coach Joe Casey writes that Rohr distinguishes between chronological aging and spiritual maturity: moving into the second half is “a conscious choice” that requires reflection, not something age automatically delivers.

Retirement Wisdom

That distinction matters. Simply leaving a job does not guarantee reinvention. Without reflection, retirement can become the first half of life with fewer meetings: the same striving, comparisons and anxieties transferred to golf scores, travel schedules or volunteer titles.

Rohr invites readers to consider a more demanding possibility. What if the task now is not to improve our résumé but to become more compassionate, honest and fully present?

The gift—and danger—of loss

Some of the book’s language about “necessary suffering” may trouble readers, particularly those who have experienced trauma, discrimination or devastating illness. Suffering is not automatically ennobling, nor should hardship be romanticized.

Rohr’s more defensible point is that pain can expose illusions. It reminds us that control is limited and that identities based entirely on work, health or social standing are fragile. Whether suffering becomes transformative depends partly on how it is understood and what support surrounds us.

The book also speaks from an unmistakably Christian perspective. Rohr draws heavily on Scripture, Jesus, the mystics, Carl Jung and the recurring spiritual pattern of death followed by resurrection. Readers outside Christianity may resist some of his theological assumptions, although his emphasis on letting go, accepting paradox and moving beyond the ego has parallels in other traditions.

The book is also more meditative than practical. Readers seeking a step-by-step retirement plan will not find one. Rohr circles his themes, sometimes repeating or asserting them rather than developing a conventional argument.

Yet that quality may explain why some readers find the book worth reading slowly. In a review for Baptist News Global, minister and author Marion Aldridge called it “the best book I have read in a decade,” adding that he could absorb only four or five pages at a time because the ideas required reflection.

The verdict

Falling Upward is not really a book about growing old. It is a book about growing deeper.

Its enduring value for Next30ATL readers lies in its refusal to portray later life as an epilogue. The losses that accompany aging are real, but they do not have to reduce life’s meaning. They may strip away roles and expectations that once prevented us from recognizing it.

Rohr’s hopeful proposition is that our later years can bring what he calls a “second simplicity”—not the innocence of youth, but the hard-earned wisdom of someone who has known disappointment and remains capable of gratitude.

For anyone asking, “Who am I now that I no longer need to prove who I am?” Falling Upward is a thought-provoking companion.