Customer Reviews

The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Third Chapter looks at the stage of life from ages 50 - 75. The author approaches this stage of life from her perspective as an educational sociologist. The book's premise is that life's third chapter is one of substantial growth and change. This change is based on learning. The author defines learning in this stage of life as not traditional learning, but as a mid-life process of "changing, adapting, exploring, mastery and channeling energies, skills and passions into new domains."

Through my recent work and study in this area, I have come to appreciate the importance the third chapter plays in our lives. While I recognized its importance, I missed its significance. According to the author, "The third chapter represents a significant and new developmental period in our culture, one that comes along only once a century."

The basis of the book is forty interviews conducted over a two year period. These interviews were conducted with both men and women between the ages of 50 and 75 who had made significant life changes during this period. Many of the interviewee's stories are told in great detail. Weaved into the book are a number of theoretical frameworks, dominated by the theoretical frameworks developed by developmental psychologist Erik Erickson and cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson.

While the individual stories bring value and insight to the book, at times I felt they were a distraction. Personally, I would have preferred seeing less depth in the stories presented and more of the author's interpretation of each story. Despite this drawback, I felt the book was definitely worth reading. Approaching this topic from an educational and sociological perspective was a new learning for me.

If, like me, you are a student of the third chapter of life, I would recommend you read this book as part of your learning process.

I recently read a novel (can't remember the title) which takes place in France and referred to the Third Chapter of life. This terminology has apparently been common for years, but author Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot takes credit for the coinage. I was eager to learn about people who had successfully made this transition, as my life could benefit from more passion, risk and adventure. Unfortunately, the people interviewed in this book all seem to be highly privileged: judges, corporate lawyers, physicists, entrepreneurs. What can I learn from a woman who ditches her career to write plays, and who collaborates with her friend who is a famous broadway composer? Ms. Lawrence-Lightfoot might have considered how ordinary people with family obligations, or lacking fortunes, could find their bliss after 50.

I approached this book with eager anticipation, having seen Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot on television, making her points eloquently to Charlie Rose. I was disappointed by the book, however. The style was off-putting, and the substance was too often elusive.

The author's ponderous, repetitive academic writing reduces the promised exploration of "Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50," the book's subtitle, to a sort of "Chicken Soup for Aging Dummies." First, she spends several pages telling us what the chapter is going to be about. Then, she tells us. Then, she summarizes what she has told us. It doesn't help that quotation marks seem to be "sprinkled" about, "willy nilly" (you get the picture!). Sometimes they appear to refer to actual comments from those she interviewed, but more often they seem capricious. Digging for the content is a challenge, and it becomes tempting just to speed-read in the hope that a nugget or two of new and/or useful insight will leap off the pages.

Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot's major points are sound. The challenge of finding meaning in life's later phases is not new, but the quest looms larger as Baby Boomers enter their Third Chapter. It is a shame, then, that the author's storytelling is limited to anecdotes about well-educated people who have had successful careers and amassed sufficient financial resources to minimize the risks of their Third Chapter adventures. Most American seniors do not have these luxuries, and for them - especially women - the risks are likely to be too great.

I wish that the stories themselves had been less about contemplation - "going home," breaking old patterns, the introspective blah blah blah about which so much has been written - and more about the pitfalls and rewards of action. In one chapter, Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot relates a discussion with an interviewee who has discovered Habermas's theories of three stages of boundary-crossing. The third stage, her subject emphasizes, is about taking action: "This is the transformative part. The whole thing is not just to sit around, ruminate, and talk. The talk must lead to action."

As someone who is herself navigating through the Third Chapter, I found this book validating, but not transformative. I would have welcomed some light-bulb moments, some off-the-wall ideas, some radical insights into a journey that I agree should be fraught with passion, risk, and adventure.

Women Who Could... and Did: Lives of 26 Exemplary Artists and Scientists

The "Third Chapter," a still newly defining phase of life, following the middle years, can be a time of exploration, adventure, risk-taking and new learning. Distinguished Harvard Education School sociologist, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot's new book, The Third Chapter, takes us on a journey to meet 40 people she interviewed across the U.S.

What did she discover about people, aged 50-75 who are embarking on a new adventure? They were crossing boundaries, much as one would in an "anthropological expedition." Challenging themselves to leave the comfortable niche of their mid-years' careers, they enter a world where they feel like "awkward strangers, inept travelers, vulnerable observers." As one of the men whom I interviewed for my TV show, "Alivelihood: New Careers As We Age" said, "I'm both the oldest and the newest," at learning to be a stand-up comic after 30 years as a teacher.

Lawrence-Lightfoot finds that in crossing boundaries and learning to welcome ambiguity, these 3rd Chapter folks require several talents:
* Deep curiosity to know something new
* Ability to relinquish fear of the unknown and fear of failure; being able to name the fear and take a leap of faith
* Willingness to be vulnerable, exposed to public floundering
* Embrace contradictions and integrate the new with the familiar

This journey sometimes took people back to an earlier time when they felt vulnerable, challenged, unwelcome. Some of these were painful trips, back to times when a parent or teacher gave the message "You'll never amount to anything" or "Girls don't do that." Those people had to find a way to heal the wounds - by naming them, confronting the emotion, the inner gremlins, and then moving forward to take the risk.

In moving ahead, they defied long-standing stereotypes and institutional structures that still expect 3rd Agers to retire, withdraw, and leave the stage to the younger generation. But, in contrast, they are embracing new learning, new projects and careers with passion and a sense of adventure.

At her 60th birthday party, neurobiologist Anna Nielson (one of the women interviewed) remarked that she felt with sudden urgency the finiteness of life. "I had this big, newborn sense that I must do things I had left undone for too long." Instead of remaining in the research lab, she decided to bridge the gap between research and public policy. She went on to work on HIV/AIDS in East Africa.

Others that Lawrence-Lightfoot writes about shifted to entirely new mental regions - Charles Watkins, a corporate lawyer, embarked on working on public gardens in the Chinese community, where he discovered the "gladness" of opening his heart to "the world's great hunger." Lawrence-Lightfoot finds that while people engage in new passions, they develop patience, wisdom, and the desire to leave a legacy. These are more important to them than succeeding in a conventional sense.

To adapt and master new engagements, they stretch themselves in body, voice and soul. They learn to trust their bodies, even those who relied on the life of the mind in the past - "thinking with the body" is the way one man who became a jazz musician described it. They discovered their voices, both literally (learning to sing as a previously tone-deaf person) and figuratively by standing up and delivering a message. They discovered changes in their "core being," becoming more soulful, wanting to do something meaningful, to give back.

The author closes with a chapter that recognizes the need to "crack" or remedy the fissures in our infrastructure to make it possible for not only the affluent and educated 3rd Chapter people to have the resources to explore and reinvent themselves, but for more people to have opportunities to go on these anthropological expeditions in their 6th, 7th, and 8th decades. This is a book that echoes much of what LPNers believe in and try to promote.

I'm impressed with this book and the true life stories it contains. I agree with one of the other reviewers that the author might have chosen to interview more regular folks. However, the book is an excellent, inspirational read. There is no doubt that the "over fifties" are pioneers in an age of increasing longevity and The Third Chapter offers the reader insight and choices for making the next years, the best years. Pamela D. Blair, author The Next Fifty Years: A Guide for Women at Midlife and Beyond

I was looking forward to reading this book but found it full of anecdotes, little real analysis, and worst of all, based on statistically few individuals all of whom had zero worries about money. How much can we learn from such folks? Little I think. I was hoping for a serious analysis of aging, but I didn't find it here.

I "enjoyed" reading through this book once, but it's not one I would re-read -- and towards the end it got a little tedious. The basic premise of the book is that adults ages 50 to 75 are still functional enough to learn new and challenging subjects. Sick commentary on this society (not the author's fault!) that folks actually feel compelled to write books to state what should be obvious. The greatest weakness of this book (especially for folks who may be looking for a little inspiration) is that it focuses on older adults who have no immediate financial worries. The discouraging underlying premise (pretty much acknowledged by the author) is that if you are having difficulty making ends meet, you are doomed to brain-dead, repetitious employment with little or no opportunity to reinvent yourself towards a more fulfilling existence in your "later" years.

The Third Chapter by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

After seeing Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot on Bill Moyer's Journal on PBS, I was anxious to read what words of wisdom Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot had to offer in her book, The Third Chapter; Passion, Risk, and Adventures in the 25 years After 50. I was disappointed to receive no additional pearls in her book.
To be fair to Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, she did say who the forty people were that she interviewed for her book. She did disclose the fact that her subjects were not ordinary people of middle class, but rather from the highly educated and privileged upper class with extraordinary wealth. However, I did think I would learn a thing or two by reading the book, but this was not the case.
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is an educational sociologist who spent two years interviewing both men and women living in the third chapter of their lives; their fifties, sixties, and seventies. She wants us to realize this significant time in life where we may want to seek new meaning and greater challenges. The forty people Sara interviewed were lucky enough to be able to take risks and actually seek their new meanings and fulfill their challenges in their third chapter in life. They had the means to change their lives dramatically. Each has a different story and circumstances that precipitated the change they made.
The Introduction to the book shared the most insight and learning tools than did the stories from the forty people. After finishing the book, I had wished there were more revelations from Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot than from the people she interviewed. The stories were a quick read, knowing how most ordinary people could not even begin to relate to achieving these third chapter life changes of the elite.
This is a self-help book the reader will have to modify, as most people living in their third chapter of life do want to seek changes and challenges. However, besides the Introduction, there isn't much for the average person to learn. This is one time where the TV interview was more informative than the book.

Book Review by Mary Crocco

I am disappointed in this book. It is written for upper middle class women who have means. It is not very useful to me. Also the style of writing is more like a doctoral thesis.

The book was a very enjoyable read and was very insightful into the difficult but exciting changes that are available to us in life as we grow older. Going through the process is difficult but I am a firm believer that if you confront your issues ,we all come through it stronger and more vibrant. All journeys take time. Patience w/yourself and those you love ensures we all get there. A Good read!! Helpful to see how other people meet their challenges.Enjoy the ride!!