Customer Reviews

My Time: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Bravo! This is a very important (and wonderfully well written)book which will extend the range of our view of abundant living. Abbie Trafford details, through powerful stories, how people are making the most of the "bonus decades" after the children and work no longer claim our full attention.

I've heard many people discuss privately what to do with the "extra generation" of life which increased longevity and improved health affords us; this book brings these widespread private conversations into public view and chronicles a range of pathways to personal fulfillment in the later years. It links the stories to current research on aging and health, and makes a compelling case for active aging as a time of exceptional freedom and discovery.

Expect to be moved and inspired. Reading the book will expand your expectations for a high quality of life for decades to come, and challenge you to discover and live into the abundance that this extra generation of life makes possible.

If you are looking for a "What Color Is Your Parachute" book for guidance on making the most of your life between 50 and 75, this is not it. It is a collection of impressions and interviews with successful cheerful retired professionals, rather than a hard look at our choices and how to make major decisions on jobs, families, finances, health, and spiritual well-being. Her subjects are uniformly propserous, well-educated, self-aware, and articulate. It reads like an expanded article from the Washington Post, and since the author is a Post writer there, no wonder. Lawyers and doctors are her featured subjects. Some of the books and studies she cites may be worth pursing, but it is hard to tell. This book fills its market niche, but a wider audience could use a more comprehensive and analytic guide to these potentially productive and enjoyable years, as another reviewer puts it. This it reads like Gail Sheehy for 2004.

Abigail Trafford's compassionate guide to the post-retirement years is a fascinating collection of personal stories, mixed with a healthy dose of sociological and scientific findings. Her research into what she calls "the Bonus Decades" began when she found new meaning in her life after age 50. As she talked with hundreds of members of her generation, or "My Timers," Trafford uncovered a quiet revolution in the making. These adults, who are finished with child-rearing and have reached the end of successful careers, are wondering, "now what?" as they face longer, healthier lives post-retirement. It is this generation, she predicts, that will change the structure of the workplace, reaffirm the values of family and community, and leave an enduring legacy. Trafford's insightful comparison of the storms of adolescence to the emotional and spiritual crises of late adulthood will resonate with anyone facing retirement, a late-in-life career change or simply a growing feeling of anxiety and dissatisfaction with the norm. This is not a how-to book or a survival manual, but a reassuring travel guide to the uncharted territory of "Second Adolescence." We recommend this book to everyone older than 50 or soon to arrive there - after all, it's about time.

Abigail Trafford has written a book about how creative aging can be be; this is one of the themes that run through my writing and I am thrilled that it is getting such promient exposure. She was interviewed in Time Magazine; in it she explained the title this way:

"I went to a college reunion. It was an all-women's college, and we were all in our 30s. We were in that high-stress zone. We were trying to make it in the workplace; we were making it in our marriages; we had small children. We were just torn apart by the demands of our lives. We were trying to make everything work. I remember one classmate stood up and wailed..."When is it going to be my time?" That stuck with me.

The important thing here is that aging and its benefits are being recognized and becoming desirable. This is especially important for women who have historically dreaded the first wrinkle. Hoo Ray for Trafford!
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Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, award-winning author of THIS IS THE PLACE and HARKENING. Her new book THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T will be released in August.

This, by far, has to be one of the best books I have ever read. Abigail must have been writing it for me. I had read it years ago and then, at 59 now, and getting ready to retire, I re-read it and highlighted all the quotes, paragraphs that I want my sisters to read. I'm going to pass this along to my 3 younger sisters, who in a few short years will be my age and ready to retire.

I even wrote to the author to tell her how much I enjoyed this book.

So Women, if you are in your 50's, kids are gone, marriage may or may not be gone, and you want some inspiration, you have to get this book.

When I read an excerpt from "My Time" in Unity Magazine, I knew I had to order this book.
It is one of the best I have read regarding new avenues to explore in the retirement years.
University teaching plus being a trainer for business seminars in my earlier years were the love
of my life. Yes, I have a husband and four children but the children are grown and this is now
"My Time" to awaken to new adventures in teaching and training. Yes, there is less energy
but there is Wisdom to share which I had not acquired in earlier years.

If the target audience is those approaching, or in retirement, this book does a poor job of presenting anything new. The material is presented as if the reader few life experiences. The author seems to think that the stories of others remaking themselves will be completely new insight.

Most of us have older family, friends and colleagues who have shared their life experiences with us and we have been preparing for this time in life.

I do not have the perspective to say whether it would be useful material for the 40-something with many more years of work ahead.