CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART
ONE: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
- What Does Retirement Mean?
- How Does Retirement Challenge Us?
- What’s Different about Our Situation?
- Searching for an Alternative Way
through Middle Age
- Old and New Views of Aging
- Rising Life Expectancy
- Is Aging the Only Option?
- The Dawn of a New Third Age
- The Option of Second Growth
3. Principles of Third Age Growth and Renewal
- How Do We Change Course?
- Six Principles of Growth and Renewal
- How the First Two Principles Get Us
Started
- The Pivotal Principle: Building a
Positive Third Age Identity
- What Are Key Identity Issues in Third
Age and Retirement?
- So, What’s Next?
- Vic—I came
to the idea of graduation because I didn’t like the word retirement.
- Ed—I
learned that I should think about retiring to rather than retiring from.
- Betty—I
don’t think of this as retirement. I don’t like the word. I
see it as the next phase in my life, as part of an ongoing journey. It’s a wonderful phase.
- El—The
first twenty-six years were for the company; the next twenty-six are for
Stephanie and me. What has changed
over the years is that I have found great satisfaction in community service, so
I can give back while pursuing personal interests.
- Five Lessons from
Graduates
- Expect the Unexpected
- Eva—The
biggest task is to find my way towards another way.
- Woody—I
find this arrangement so satisfactory that I’m absolutely convinced that if I
were offered my half-time job back I’d say, no. Really!
- Rebecca—Passion
for me is the most important thing. My art is an expression of my spirituality and my passion. It’s who I am—a
self-portrait. If I didn’t get to
do that, I would get depressed.
- Mike—I
had gone the whole nine yards: fancy cars, big homes, and expensive vacations;
it was not satisfying at all.
- Four Lessons from
Serendipitous Third Agers
- Snapshots
- Third Age Careers
- Organizational
Support for Third Age Careers
- Dan—For
the first time in my career, I determined not to orchestrate my future
proactively. I decided to pull the
plug and see what came my way.
- Joan—I’m
doing what I like to do best. I
like to build. I get bored when
things are too ordinary. There’s
always something that needs doing here.
- Carl—I’m
now starting my fifth career. I
have a distaste for the term retirement. That’s what you do when you go to bed;
you retire for the night. I’m
reinventing myself again. I see my
career changes as turning points in my life, as times of new beginnings, not as
times of retirement.
- Faye—I’m
going to keep on working for the next ten years. Why not? I love
what I do. I get to meet new,
interesting people all the time. I’m not ready to give that up yet.
- Four Lessons from
Third Agers Still Working
- What Makes Your Soul
Sing?
- Susan—What
I envision in retirement—or protirement—is
the financial freedom to do what I want. I’m not sure I’ll get there in this economy. So, I’m trying to live and do as much as I want now—so
that my life already has those elements that I’m looking forward to in
protirement.
- Ted— I
have a wonderful life. Being
semiretired feels like a promotion—giving me time to focus on what I
love. This is about as ideal an
arrangement as I can imagine.
- Four Lessons from
Portfolio Builders
- Casey No Longer at
the Bat
- Five Big Risks
for Third Agers Approaching Retirement
- Plan Your Third
Age and Retirement
- Cindy—I’m
trying to reinvigorate the notion that one person can make a difference.
- Five Major Tasks
for Third Agers Approaching Retirement
- Seventeen Lessons
from Third Agers (Revisited)
- “The Best Is Yet
to Be.”
Notes
Index
