over 35? From here down the hill! Harvard Professor Explains How to Find Purpose and Succeed Later in Life in Valuable Self-Help Book
- Highly skilled professionals often decline after the age of 30.
- Arthur S. Brooks wrote a guide to finding purpose and success later in life.
- Harvard professor advises finding ways to use wisdom instead of mourning the past
A LIFE
FROM POWER TO POWER
Arthur S. Brooks (Green Tree £17.99, 272 pp.)
The average American seems to die six years before he is old. In a 2009 survey, the most popular response from respondents to the question of what it means to be old was: “85 years old”, while the average American lives to 79 years old.
As Harvard professor Arthur S. Brooks points out, we do our best to deny the onset of old age. In the same way, successful people often refuse to put up with the decline of their strength.
Harvard professor Arthur S. Brooks shares tips for success later in life and finding purpose in a new book (file image)
Too many suffer what Brooks calls the “curse of the wrestler” by making themselves miserable in an attempt to prolong their stay at the top. Instead of stepping off the hamster wheel of success and accepting professional decline with dignity, they rush furiously in a doomed attempt to avoid the inevitable. And this is inevitable. The brutal truth is that no matter how brilliant and crowned we are, we will all reach the top. From now on, he can go downhill all the way. Even more depressingly, this peak comes surprisingly early.
One study found that doctors are at their best in their 30s, so if you feel confident because your therapist is more of a rock veteran than a fresh-faced youth, you might want to think again.
In almost all highly skilled professions, people begin to fall at some point between 30 and 50 years of age. Today’s high-tech companies are, of course, especially youth-oriented. Do you have enough old people working here? Brooks asks a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. The answer comes back: “You mean people over 30?”
Arthur S. Brooks, Strength to Strength (Green Tree £17.99, 272 pp.)
Fortunately, there are ways to avoid the “striker’s curse”. You can jump off the hamster wheel and enjoy a new pleasure in the second half of life. The answer lies in what he calls “crystallized intelligence” rather than “fluid intelligence.” Despite the jargon, the idea is simple. Young people are more able to think flexibly and face new challenges. Older people lose some of this “fluid intelligence”. But they are compensated by their developing “crystallized intelligence” – the ability to make the best use of the stock of knowledge accumulated over decades. In other words, older people have wisdom, and they need to find ways to use that wisdom rather than wasting time mourning the inevitable loss of previous skills.
Writing a good book on self-development is no easy task—there are countless bad books, and banality and stating the extremely obvious is a constant danger. Brooks avoided most of the pitfalls and created a valuable guide to finding new purpose and success later in life.