Dear Friends,
We love this photo from Bob Turner – people of all ages focused on the same view:
Never did learn what these folks were focused upon. Love walking around with my camera finding shooting opportunities such as this one!
This week we wanted to draw your attention to a brilliant new book by Arthur Brooks. It is called “From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life”.
Like all books on aging it really is worth reading when you are young. After-all, we all start our first jobs thinking of retirement funds and financial security in old age so why not our emotional security? We plan for paying our medical bills if we get old and sick but what if taking care of our well-being needs as we age reduces the chance of physical illness? What if we could live out our lives healthy and happy?
Anyhow, this book is just brilliant – it gives us a roadmap for life planning. It tells us that the strengths we have as young people diminish but other strengths “strengthen” and if we know about the changes, if we embrace the changes, we can lead a very full, purposeful, meaningful life into very old age.
See here for the first chapter of the book provided by Penguin Random House Publishing:
If you don’t have time to read the book, check out this article from Business Insider to learn how a former Vice President of Goldman Sachs, Johnathan A. Knee, makes sense of his own life in the context of Arthur’s findings. Knee’s major takeaway is that “Brooks is making a deeper point: Addiction to relentless achievement is ultimately bound to yield disappointment”. Read more here:
We live in a world so focused on youth and beauty, it is nice to know that there are good things awaiting us as we get older – like wisdom and contentment, and giving back and savoring.
Over and out,
The SeeingHappy Team
