Book: Strength to Strength

A distressing truth about aging is that our deliberately developed patterns of striving and working hard – which once worked so well for building successful careers and giving our lives purpose – aren’t effective in the second half of life. In fact, these carefully cultivated practices can prevent us from finding the meaning and purpose we’re seeking.

The book Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life” by Arthur C. Brooks directly tackles this bewildering transition and is both intriguing and uplifting. Brooks is a social scientist who studies happiness, a writer, and a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. He has also personally navigated this confusing transition and shares advice on what works and what doesn’t.

Brooks’ essential message is that “people who strive to be excellent at what they do often wind up finding their inevitable decline terrifying, their successes increasingly unsatisfying, and the relationships lacking.” Our natural response to this situation – doubling down on trying harder – just makes the situation worse. He offers a different solution. “Instead of trying to avoid decline, you can transcend it by finding a new kind of success, better than what the world promises and not a source of neurosis and addiction; a deeper form of happiness than what you had before; and, in the process, true meaning in life – maybe for the first time.”

A decline in some of our abilities is inevitable due to brain changes that occur with age (specifically in the prefrontal cortex). These include a decreased ability to perform rapid analysis and creative innovation, an increased tendency to get distracted, and difficulty recalling names and faces.

But not all our abilities suffer! There are distinct areas where we get smarter and more skillful. Brooks calls this “the second curve.” Specifically, we develop a richer vocabulary and improve at combining and utilizing complex ideas. This means although we’re no longer great at inventing new ideas, we’re much better at synthesizing ideas (both our own ideas and those of others).

Brooks uses this data to define two types of intelligence, each dominant at different points in our lives. What he calls “fluid intelligence” peaks in early adulthood and diminishes rapidly in our thirties and forties. This is the ability to reason, think flexibly, and solve new problems. The other category, “crystallized intelligence,” increases with age through midlife and doesn’t diminish until late in life, if at all. This is the ability to use all the knowledge we’ve gathered and stored during our life.

Brooks claims people in the second half of life who are happiest and most satisfied have effectively “jumped” from the fluid intelligence curve to the crystalized intelligence curve.

Jumping onto this new curve brings a new type of success. Brooks explains what life on this curve looks like. “Devote the back half of your life to serving others with your wisdom. Get old sharing the things you believe are most important. Excellence is always its own reward, and this is how you can be most excellent as you age.”

I’m particularly intrigued with how well this message meshes with Richard Rohr’s prescription for living the second half of life in his book Falling Upward. Fr. Rohr takes a decidedly spiritual approach, and Brooks takes a secular, science-based approach, but they end up in a similar space.

In fact, one of the chapters in Strength to Strength specifically looks at the spiritual dimension of aging. Brooks notes that many people find a new or renewed interest in religion or spirituality in the second half of life. And he makes the important point that if we view ourselves as static and unchanging, insisting on holding tightly to beliefs that once served us (such as the belief that we’re not a spiritual/religious person), we cut ourselves off from many of life’s possibilities.

Other chapters in the book are devoted to specific approaches and mindsets for transitioning to the second curve. These include topics like “chipping away” at our worldly attachments and possessions that hinder this transition, confronting different dimensions associated with the fear of death, and recognizing that what we may initially perceive as “weakness” or decline can actually be a gift to ourselves and others.

A Closing Prayer

It’s difficult to accept the inevitable decline in mind and body as we age. Even if we try to ignore the changes, we can’t deny them for long. A long life is a blessing, but it doesn’t always feel that way!

God, thank you for providing wise guides to help us along the way and scientific research to explain the changes in our bodies. Help us shift our mindset from one focused on what we’re losing to what new graces are offered.

Give us the courage to let go of the attachments that no longer bring true fulfillment, and the clarity to find new ways of being that bring us lasting joy and meaning.

Amen.