Life Gets Better: The Unexpected Pleasures of Growing Older
- ISBN-10
- 1101547677
- ISBN-13
- 9781101547670
- Category
- Self-Help
- Pages
- 256
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2011-08-18
- Publisher
- Penguin
- Author
- Wendy Lustbader
Description
The acclaimed author of What's Worth Knowing reveals the truth about aging: Old age often offers a richer, better, and more self-assured life than youth. From our earliest lives, we are told that our youth will be the best time of our lives-that the energy and vitality of youth are the most important qualities a person can possess, and that everything that comes after will be a sad decline. But in reality, says Wendy Lustbader, youth is not the golden era it is often made out to be. For many, it is a time riddled with anxiety, angst, confusion, and the torture of uncertainty. Conversely, the media often feeds us a vision of growing older as a journey of defeat and diminishment. They are dead wrong. As Lustbader counters, "Life gets better as we get older, on all levels except the physical." Life Gets Better is not a precious or whimsical tome on the quirky wisdom of the elderly. Lustbader-who has worked for several decades as a social worker specializing in aging issues-conducted firsthand research with aging and elderly people in all walks of life, and she found that they overwhelmingly spoke of the mental and emotional richness they have drawn from aging. Lustbader discovered that rather than experiencing a decline from youth, aging people were happier, more courageous, and more interested in being true to their inner selves than were young people. Life Gets Better examines through first-person stories, as well as Lustbader's own observations, how a lifetime of lessons learned can yield one of the most personally and emotionally fruitful periods of anyone's life. As an eighty-six-year-old who contributed her story to the book noted, "For me, being old is the reward for outlasting all the big and little problems that happen to all of us along life's pathway." The collected stories in Life Gets Better provide a hopeful corrective to the fear of aging aggressively instilled in us by the media. Don't dread the future: The best years of our lives just may be ahead.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2016-07-03
- 72 pages
- Paperback
- Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Similar books
-
The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50
By Jonathan Rauch"In this warm, wise, and witty overview, Jonathan Rauch combines evidence and experience to show his fellow adults that the best is yet to come.” —Steven Pinker, bestselling author of Enlightenment Now This book will change your life by ...
-
The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse
By Gregg EasterbrookIn The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook draws upon three decades of wide-ranging research and thinking to make the persuasive assertion that almost all aspects of Western life have vastly improved in the past century–and yet today, ...
-
Good Life Gets Better: Panning for Gold
By Dorian AmosISBN: 1903070309 Baghdad Business School - Heyrick Bond Gunning The realities of a business start-up in a war zone. ISBN: 1903070 333 The Accidental Optimist's Guide to Life - Emily Joy Having just returned from Sierra Leone, ...
-
It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living
By Terry Miller, Dan SavageWatch a video Growing up isn't easy. Many young people face daily tormenting and bullying, making them feel like they have nowhere to turn. This is especially true for LGBT kids and teens who often hide their sexuality for fear of bullying.
-
Age Gets Better with Wine: New Science for a Healthier, Better & Longer Life
By Richard BaxterKrenz M, Cohen MV, Downey JM. The protective and anti-protective effects of ethanol in a myocardial infarct model. Ann N.Y. Acad Sci 2002;957:103 Ford G. The science of healthy drinking. Wine Appreciation Guild 2003; South San Francisco ...
-
Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life
By Larry WingetThis book won't make you feel better about yourself. And that's a good thing. If you're hoping to change your life with a bunch of feel-good mantras, then this book isn't for you.
-
Life Gets Better: The Unexpected Pleasures of Growing Older
By Wendy LustbaderArgues that, in contrast to the popular image of old age as a kind of sad general decline, life for older people is often marked by increased self-knowledge, confidence, and spiritual awareness.
-
It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living
By Terry Miller, Dan SavageMany young people face daily tormenting and bullying, and this is especially true for LGBTQ kids and teens.
-
Your Awkward Life Gets Better: A Guided Journal to Your Better Life in 60 Days
By Andy VargoNeed a little help getting your life to be just a bit better than it is today? You have chosen the right book! The Life Gets Better Journal will guide you, one day at a time, to your best life.
-
Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work
By Chip Heath, Dan HeathIn Decisive, the Heath brothers, drawing on extensive studies, stories and research, offer specific, practical tools that can help us to think more clearly about our options, and get out of our heads, to improve our decision making, at work ...