But for those who make the jump, the reward is almost always enormous. In interviewing people for this book, I found that invariably, the people who are happiest and most satisfied in their fifties, sixties, and seventies are those who made this leap. Here are a couple of examples, starting with a fifty-eight-year-old male actuary. Here’s what he

But before you abandon all hope, I have good news: satisfaction is possible—just not with the old formulas. We need to toss out all that bad math and use this one equation instead, which incorporates the wisdom of Siddhartha and Thomas and the best modern social science: Satisfaction = What you have ÷ what you want Your satisfaction is what you

From putting my career before the people in my life, deliver me. From distracting myself from life with work, deliver me. From my drive to be superior to others, deliver me. From the allure of the world’s empty promises, deliver me. From my feelings of professional superiority, deliver me. From allowing my pride to supplant my love, deliver me.

Cicero believed three things about older age. First, that it should be dedicated to service, not goofing off. Second, our greatest gift later in life is wisdom, in which learning and thought create a worldview that can enrich others. Third, our natural ability at this point is counsel: mentoring, advising, and teaching others, in a way that does

Here’s a trick to get started on this: Visualize yourself at a party. Someone asks, “What do you do?” You answer not with extrinsic stuff like your job title, but with what you know will give you the most purpose, meaning, and joy. Involve your spiritual life, your relationships, and the way you serve others. Don’t imagine yourself saying, “I’m a

As the Buddha says in the Dhammapada, “The craving of one given to heedless living grows like a creeper. . . . Whoever is overcome by this wretched and sticky craving, his sorrows grow like grass after the rains.”[22]

You seek the worldly rewards of success, you achieve some (or a lot) of them, and you may be deeply attached to these rewards. But you must be prepared to walk away from these achievements and rewards before you feel ready. The decline in your fluid intelligence is a sign that it is time not to rage, which just doubles down on your unsatisfying

Résumé virtues are professional and oriented toward earthly success. They require comparison with others. Eulogy virtues are ethical and spiritual and require no comparison. Your eulogy virtues are what you really would want people to talk about at your funeral.

A big, strong prefrontal cortex makes it possible for you to get better and better at your specialty, whether it is making a legal case, doing surgery, or driving a bus. In middle age, the prefrontal cortex degrades in effectiveness, and this has several implications. The first is that rapid analysis and creative innovation will suffer—just what we