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Title: What Do You Want to Do When You Grow Up?: Starting the Next Chapter of Your Life by Dorothy Cantor, Andrea Thompson ISBN: 0-316-12798-1 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 03 January, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.57 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: lifesaver
Comment: Dr. Cantor has written a brilliant analysis of the fears of facing retirement, and how to plan for a meaningful life after work ends. I keep giving this book to friends who are looking for more for their anticipated leisure than bridge and golf. Dr Cantor outlines practical ways to figure out our strengths and interests to craft together a blueprint for the last third of our lives.
Rating: 5
Summary: Hits the Nail on the Head
Comment: As a mid-sixties professional who retired about five years ago from my own business,and then found myself in a true depression until I sought help, I found this book remarkably acute regarding the questions that I should have thought to ask myself, the planning I should have done, and the problems that would arise for me when I no longer had the structure of my working life to support me. Doctor Cantor's amazing understanding of the dynamics of retirement has helped me immeasurably to understand myself in what is an exciting but very complicated period, and her practical advice is advice I wish I had had before I retired!! I cannot imagine anyone approaching the later stages of life who would not benefit enormously from Dr. Cantor's insights and help. GET THIS BOOK!
Rating: 2
Summary: Starts out great; doesn't deliver on its promises
Comment: The book "What Do You Want to Do When You Grow Up?" by Dorothy Cantor starts off with some promise. Early she says, "What we are going to talk about can be summed up as the capacity to grow and the need to choose....We will look at what went on before, in order to find some clues for the future." Later in the first section, she adds, "I'll show you how to pull those pieces together to sketch a plan for the next part of your life- the time in which there will be few rules, the time in which the choices will be up to you....Don't just leave the future to chance; do not assume that after you stop working, all will fall comfortably in place....design the years ahead, not wait for them to happen....you have within you, as we all have, the gift for endless self-renewal."
This is good stuff; we are off to a good start. But, in my opinion, the book does not deliver on its promises. Instead, we find that the author, who is a practicing psychologist, builds her book like a therapist who is trying to help someone solve a personal problem, in this case the prospect or experience of an unfulfilling retirement phase of life. This theme is exposed when she tells us, "Many people who have entered the after-the-job stage of their lives find themselves asking if there isn't supposed to be more to it....many such people come to my office for counseling."
So, the author presents four men and four women, "who sketched their journeys for me." My problem with what happens next is that the next 120 pages dwell on the childhood, educational, personal and vocational phases of these people's lives. Five of the eight still work, one retired one year ago, another two years back, and the other 12 years ago. So, a basic problem can be seen here: only one of those profiled has much of any experience with and in retirement!
I'm a firm believer that life, for the most part, only makes sense when you look at it in reverse. The variables along the way are endless: who we end up with as a spouse, what career we end up with, where we end up living, whether we are "successful" or not, etc. I also believe that the variables in the retirement phase can be endless, and, for the most part, are not controllable any more than the variables in our earlier phases were. The point here is that, for me, this lengthy exercise to learn who these working people are now and who they were earlier in their lives does little for me as a guide to my personal success in retirement. I just don't see these people as having much to say that is knowledgeable about the subject of retirement.
What I think the author may be on to is to open the door to the area of specialized retirement counseling for those who might need some "special" help. Folks who enter retirement with histories of having problems making decisions, following through on things, and being comfortable with themselves outside of their jobs might, indeed, need to look at their past to better understand who they can become in retirement. But I firmly believe that most folks do not need to go to the psychologist's couch as an essential step into retirement. So, in that sense, the essence of this book, in my opinion, is not valuable to most pre-retirees or those in their early transition.
Surely there are those who could use such help finding themselves in retirement. Willie Lowman, the central character in "Death of a Salesman" might be a candidate. After his death, one of his sons says of his salesman father, "He never knew who he was." Another candidate would be Mr. Schmidt of the "About Schmidt" movie fame. Talk about a guy that is ill-prepared for retirement! He came into it a mess, and he makes an early mess of it. He didn't know who he was, what he was supposed to be doing, or where he was headed. If someone is a mess before retirement, how could he or she not be expected to be a mess in retirement. And surely some people find success in the workplace in ways that will be difficult to find outside of the workplace. These folks could use some help.
Back to the book, the last 30 or so pages have some tidbits that are worthwhile, like breaking the transition into retirement into three phases: honeymooning, testing new waters, and the second wind. And on the final pages, she says, "Life keeps happening, and transitions are part of it....After all, growing up is never done." Sounds like good advice, but doesn't that mean that we've come full-circle in the book? At the end she tells us that we never grow up? If so, what was the point of the book?
In the end, I found the eight people profiled to be too few and with too little to say about the realities of successful retirement. As for advice about what one might want to do with extra leisure time in retirement, I'd point readers to the Activity Tree in "The Joy of Not Working," by Ernie Zelinski, as a much more practical way to build and to "pull" meaningful activity ideas for an individual retiree.
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Title: 101 Secrets for a Great Retirement : Practical, Inspirational, & Fun Ideas for the Best Years of Your Life! by Mary Helen Smith, Shuford Smith ISBN: 0737304200 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books Pub. Date: 11 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Retirement Sourcebook by Shuford Smith ISBN: 0737300396 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Pub. Date: 11 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: How to Enjoy Your Retirement: Activities from A to Z by Tricia Wagner, Barbara Day ISBN: 1889242160 Publisher: VanderWyk & Burnham Pub. Date: July, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Too Young to Retire: An Off-The-Road Map to the Rest of Your Life by Marika Stone, Howard Stone ISBN: 1932133143 Publisher: Writers' Collective Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: How To Retire Happy: Everything You Need to Know about the 12 Most Important Decisions You Must Make before You Retire by Stan Hinden ISBN: 0071360344 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade Pub. Date: 19 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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