Our “Power Years” Give Us A Second Chance To Pursue Happiness
A friend recommended a very interesting book called The Power Years: A User’s Guide to Rest of Your Life. The primary contributor, Dr. Ken Dychtwald, is a psychologist, gerontologist, documentary filmmaker, entrepreneur and best-selling author of sixteen books on aging-related issues.
In my first perusal of the book, the following main points really stood out for me.
We’ll be living longer and healthier than we used to.
In 1800 the average life expectancy was less than 40 years. Today, the average lifespan is more than 77 years in the U.S. In Japan, a country with one of the highest life expectancies, men are expected to live to 78 and women to 81.
The cyclic lifeplan will replace the outmoded linear model.
The authors talk about how in the old model, we grew up, went to school, worked hard while getting married and raising a family, and then we died. Life was too short for second chances. We now have more flexibility as lifespans increase. We may end up working longer, but rather than waiting until retirement to relax, we might build in regular breaks during our life.
We’ll have a second chance to explore passions & pursue happiness.
They cite a Forbes magazine poll taken over the past 20 years in which people rated their happiness on a scale from 1 to 7, 1 being “not at all satisfied with my life” and 7 being “completely satisfied.” The average seems to be 5.8 no matter what part of the world, no matter what culture. The authors muse that with longer lifespans, we’ll have more time and wisdom to realize that brings true happiness.
Finally, here’s a quote from the book offering a hopeful outlook of the future:
“…because the economy will want to simultaneously prevent a brain drain and declining consumption by keeping all of us earning and spending longer, it will become easier to stay at work or start a new career. The vacuum of workers maturing means that older adults will be in demand and more able to choose our own schedules, and still remain valuable. With the rise of flextime and part-time schedules and contract and project jobs and job sharing, there are millions of exciting paths for us to explore in the work world – throughout the world.”
Angela Loëb is an author, speaker and co-owner of Great Occupations. She and her partner, Jay Markunas, help people make successful career transitions through workshops, “pajama learning” webclasses, personalized consulting sessions, as well as through The Job Search Boot Camp Show. Find out more at www.greatoccupations.com.
This book must have been written more than a few years ago, because it’s more like a fairy tale, based on current unemployment and age-discrimination realities. With jobs evaporating across our country after being sent off-shore, there is clearly no “vacuum of workers” to encourage employers to consider hiring those of us over 40 and certainly over 50.
What this book (and article) actually points out is that those of us that are unemployed over 50 need to be able to financially survive for a remaining 30 year average lifespan without more than the occassional low-paying, part-time job. Now try to put a positive spin on that!
Taking your challenge Jim-80129, see my article, “Fairy tales, ageism, the job market and fear” - http://tiny.cc/fvs83. - Angela