Books to Read

I was listening to Marc Freedman on the radio the other day being interviewed about his book Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life It sounded pretty interesting, so I went and ordered it from Amazon.com. One of the wonderful little features of that web site is that it recommends similar books to the on you're ordering that you might also be interested based on what other people bought. Here are some of the interesting sounding recommendations.

Portfolio Life: The New Path to Work, Purpose, and Passion After 50 by David D. Corbett

Civic Engagement And the Baby Boomer Generation by Laura B. Wilson

After 50 It's Up To Us: Developing The Skills And Agility We'll Need by George Schofield

Don't Retire, REWIRE! by Jeri Sedlar

I have no specific recommendations on any of them, but considering that the baby boomers are now passing their 50th birthdays (like me), it's no surprise that there are a growing number of books on the market addressing this audience.

I'll report back later when I get a chance to read Encore

Am I wasting my time?

I recently read a book by Alan Lakein titled How to Get Control of your Time and You Life. I don't know how long it's been laying around the house, but the paperback version cost $1.95 new, so it must have been there quite a while.

The book emphasizes the need to focus on the truly important tasks and not let your time get taken over by less meaningful ones. One of the interesting pieces of advice I wrote down was:

Every time you find yourself working on an old or unimportant project, tell yourself “I’m wasting my time”. Do this often during the day if necessary.

Now here's a situation that brought up some interesting questions about applying this. This week while working from home, I found myself watching the Congressional testimony of General Petraeus on the progress of the Iraq surge. On one hand I'm a very strong advocate of insisting that citizens of our democracy need to make a real effort to keep informed on the important political events of the day. And the future of the Iraq occupation is right up there near the top of the list of important topics. However, given the amount of time that it would have taken to watch (and really pay attention) to all of the testimony, would it really have been better to read summaries of it in the paper, or catch the review of it on PBS later that evening?

In the end I decided, with some regret, that watching the live testimony and paying close attention to it was not the best use of my time. This is not meant to be a commentary on the quality of the questions and answers (though it could be). It's just that you need to accept the fact that you cannot do everything you want to do, and some activities though well meaning, are effectively wasting your time.

Seek Meaning

In his book "The 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life" David Niven expresses the following thought.

"You want to live in a nice home and enjoy certain luxuries. You want to have a certain position of respect in your community. But no accomplishment will be of value to you unless there is meaning in your life. Unless you know what you are living for, the style in which you are living will not matter one bit. Seek the meaning in your life and in what you do, and you will feel satisfaction in the process, regardless of the outcome."

I'd be hard pressed to say it any better.

"The meaning in life takes on a special significance when people reach their fifties"

I have been reading a little book titled "The 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life" by David Niven. I want to paraphrase a wonderful little discussion found on pages 161-2.

"...the question of meaning in life takes on a special significance when people reach their fifties. Before age fifty... most people have almost an automatic identity either through their work or through their family or both. There is little need or time for big questions of meaning...

But then you reach a stage in life when you enter a new phase. You may be winding down a career, you may be retiring, your children may be off raising children of their own. And for the first time, you are confronted with a combination of big questions and big openings. Because now you can go in a new direction. You can redefine yourself, because the responsibilities you have carried are no longer there...

...the greatest gift people can give themselves is the opportunity to think through what they really believe and value"

It was wonderful to read a confirmation that it is common to take some time in this period of your life (I just turned 50) to look for meaning and set new goals. In my case though, it was not a result of a transition leaving me with much more free time and flexibility (such as retirement). If anything, my responsibilities and work are more time consuming now than they has ever been. Instead, I just used turning 50 as a significant milestone that gave me the incentive to step back and reexamine my goals and efforts. It's somewhat arbitrary compared to using a major life transition to do this reexamination, but it seems to be incentive enough to work for me.

I guess also that the busy nature of my life forced me to accept that I can't do everything that I wanted to, and time is starting to run a little shorter to get major things accomplished, so I better decide just what it is that I want to accomplish from here on.