Welcome to The Second Act

By Sandy Burgham We all like a good story, it’s hardwired into us. Professor Yuval Noah Harari suggests in his book, Sapiens, that the reason homo sapien shot to the top of the food chain was not just our ability to create stories, but to believe in them. Our narratives, shared and personal, are a big part of our identity. There’s

By Sandy Burgham My husband and I are going through a good patch in our marriage. Today he spent a lot of time preparing the wood-fired hot tub at the bach, did the dishes twice, and made elaborate pizzas. This is getting into perfect man territory. To be honest, that’s all it takes to turn me into a nicer person

By Sandy Burgham One of the biggest questions people pose at midlife is, “what do I really want to be doing with my life?” On a recent trip to the UK I did a short course on career development, which explored the idea that a fulfilling career should be a grown-up version of who you were, and what you loved doing,

By Sandy Burgham I don’t usually agree with a thing that comes out of the mouth of property developer Sir Bob Jones, but I do concur with him on one thing — the value of an arts degree, and specifically, a liberal arts degree. For those still stuck in an era where a Bachelor of Arts was mocked as “BA

By Sandy Burgham My mother used to instruct me not to take life too seriously, to be really present every day, as you never know when something unexpected could occur and end life as you know it. For her it was a blinding flash of light, then a bomb that destroyed her school, many friends, and in fact her whole

by Sandy Burgham So they left within three weeks of each other. Poof! Vanished, these human beings who took up so much of my oxygen during the last 23 years — one to Mexico, the other to Wellington. As they left on their respective adventures, they expressed concern. “Will you be ok Mum? I mean there is Dad, but .

by Sandy Burgham                           I live in fear that my children will never be able to earn money after a lifetime of me probably doing too much for them, and in particular, for encouraging my daughter to go to art school. They assure me that “you just don’t

By Sandy Burgham       I had a passing interest in the Santa Parade this year as not only did it pass our apartment but I couldn’t help noticing that Santa had entered into the gender debate i.e the usual player had been pushed aside after commenting that Santa could not be female because Santa did not have boobs.

By Sandy Burgham   Like most-mid lifers I swing from thinking I should live like there’s no tomorrow, to ensuring I am making prudent choices that might see me through another 30 to 40 years. So as I was sauntering along in a carefree manner to get coffee at the airport recently, wearing what I thought to be boots of

by Sandy Burgham   I’m really trying to get with the social media programme like, “normal people” but I just can’t seem to get the point of it. Until around seven years ago, I wasn’t even on Facebook, but fearing that I was heading to 50 and being left behind, I hired a pointy-headed friend who made a living up-skilling