From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

by Arthur C. Brooks

Here is the reality: in practically every high-skill profession, decline sets in sometime between one’s late thirties and early fifties.

There are really only three doors you can go through here: 1. You can deny the facts and rage against decline—setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment. 2. You can shrug and give in to decline—and experience your aging as an unavoidable tragedy. 3. You can accept that what got you to this point won’t work to get you into the future—that you need to build some new strengths and skills.

When you are young, you have raw smarts; when you are old, you have wisdom. When you are young, you can generate lots of facts; when you are old, you know what they mean and how to use them.

our greatest gift later in life is wisdom, in which learning and thought create a worldview that can enrich others.