38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Book -- Get it!, February 6, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: My Time: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life (Hardcover)
I bought this book for my parents in their early 60s -- one struggling through retirement and the other just thinking about what to do next. They both loved it and I ended up reading it, too. Though it's geared to the over 50 crowd, I thought it was an interesting and enlightening read.
My Time is not a "how to" on retiring. It gives insights into life changes that start in your 50s and urges readers to find happiness and fulfillment through interests they may have postponed because of obligations to small children or careers. With three small children and not a lot of time of my own, I now look forward to My Time and understand the title! The title refers NOT to being selfish, but rather to a time in your life when you most likely don't have the same daily obligations to young kids, career or family. It's like being a teen-ager again! Really. Author Abigail Trafford even address this in a section called second adolescence.
The message of this book is take advantage of this time that you have, live a lot and don't think "I should have done "xyz". Just do it -- Whether that means spending more time with your grandchildren or scaling Mount Everest. The book's premise is that it' s not like decades ago when people died much younger. Now you can retire at 65, but you may live another 30 years. What are going to do with that time? This book will give you ideas and will also help you through the sometimes difficult transitions. I highly recommend this well-written book by Abigail Trafford.
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53 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Your time -- if you're lucky!, July 6, 2004
This review is from: My Time: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life (Hardcover)
Being well into what Trafford calls "my time" -- the time when family obligations slow down and we get time for ourselves -- I was eager to gain insights from this book. As a career coach, I work with men and women who have moved to "my time" or realize they're close.
Unfortunately, I couldn't recognize myself (or my clients) in this book, and I couldn't figure out what My Time was trying to do. Trafford is a journalist, not a counselor or career coach, and she has conducted what appear to be dozens of interviews with people at midlife. Unlike Po Bronson, who explored career change through interviews, she shows only happy, optimistic people who make few mistakes and experience even fewer financial woes.
My Time can't be viewed as journalism. Trafford adds words of wisdom -- not especially profound and not new to anyone who's been reading the self-help genre or surfing the web. For example, on page 38, she writes, "You look for potential in the daisy by your doorstep," rather than reaching for the more distant North Star. Compare this advice to what's contained in a better book, Finding Your Own North Star. Martha Beck describes a 55-year-old who starts a business after losing his job and retirement. In just a few sentences, Beck sketches a much more realistic, hopeful story.
So my biggest complaint: About Time straddles between self-help and light journalism, yet fails to fit either category. We get snippets of generalization -- e.g., dreaming helps us focus and we need to have plans -- but no tips for implementation.
My second grinchy comment: About Time trades on generalizations. In the fifties, we have increased medical bills. Older adults handle stress better. We have greater wisdom. We want to find meaning. These beliefs are comforting but not accurate.
I know lots of people who still enjoy the edge that comes with making real money. Meaning? They'll donate to charity -- and frankly, they're not good at doing warm-and-fuzzy.
Wisdom? When you're thrust into a new life, you start over. Often skills and knowledge that served you in the corporate world become irrelevant -- even harmful -- during a life transition. Any real estate agent meets midlife retirees who decide to move to the country, only to find themselves isolated and miserable. They lose money as they sell their retirement homes and move back to where they belong.
Generalizations are especially dangerous when writing about midlife, because people in the 50-to-80 age range are so diverse. We are what we've lived. In a big city gym, I once observed a group of fifty-plus exercisers, walking slowly around in a circle. In the next room, members in the same age group were training to run a marathon.
At fifty, you may be fully employed at the peak of your career. Or you may be newly laid-off, forced to discover a new path, possibly with no retirement savings. You may be ready for a career change. I've met 45-year-olds entering college and others who trained for careers as truck drivers and flight attendants. In their fifties, they'll be newbies.
That's why the comparison with adolescence fails. In the US, nearly every fourteen-year-old is in 9th grade. A few are in 8th or 10th. But legally they're all in school, with a few home-schooled, and they're getting ready for high school.
A ten-year or twenty-year stint will pay huge dividends. At fifty, a ten-year-stint will have limited payback time.
Finally, this book is relentlessly cheerful. In a poignant interview, "Nancy" reports dealing with ageism when she applies for a challenging, full-time "real" job. She freelances and consults. She's learning to reinvent herself, chirps the commentary.
But we're missing a key point. If we have thirty years ahead of us, we have time for another career. Society's infrastructure and business culture have not caught up with this reality. There's still a stigma to starting over in many professions and often the doors are closed. Free lance work and volunteering do not compensate for the loss. For some of us, the daisy on the doorstep will be a reminder that we're missing our full-blown rose garden -- or our daily treks to the steamy jungle!
I wanted to be positive until I came to the end of the book, where the author rejoices in how "good," "strong" and "generous" people are. Anyone who agrees to invest in a journalistic interview will come across as good and generous.
Strong? Trafford says, "[F]or the most part, they repaired or renewed after loss..." What does "most part" mean? For that matter, what does "repaired or renewed" mean? What's the difference between the "most part" and the "least part?"
I didn't see examples of people who were tossed out of the corporate world in their mid-fifties, with limited options in their own industry. I didn't see examples of people who lacked insurance to get the kind of health care these interviewees took for granted. Nor did I see examples of lonely people who had to make new friends after losing a profession or spouse.
Midlife can be fun and rewarding but it's not easy. Happy books sell -- and light interviews keep us entertained. We still need a book that combines realism with optimism, even at the expense of light reading and good cheer.
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34 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read This and It Will Push You To Think About Your Future, January 6, 2004
This review is from: My Time: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life (Hardcover)
I read an article about this book in The Washington Post right before Christmas. Intrigued, I asked for the book as a gift, which I promptly received. It's a quick, enjoyable read, that has a deep message--that we need to plan for our future years. That it's not the money issue so much in retirement as it is the issue of creating or re-creating our life to continue to be meaningful. For the first time in my almost 56 years, I have begun planning for the next 5-10 years of my life--and that's primarily because of reading this book. Like Bob Buford's book, Half Time, this book stresses how valuable life is beyond retirement, and that after all that striving to make a living, there is time left to really make a life. I guarantee this book will stay with you after you read it. Just reading the case studies alone prompted me to dream a little. Or maybe a lot.
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