Synopses & Reviews
Individually and culturally, we are at a crossroads in how we view aging and retirement. The traditional image of a quiet, laid-back retirement is shifting. Many approaching retirement age are realizing they will need to work longer than they had expected. At the same time, many are looking for ways they can offer their gifts and experience in a meaningful way. Marjory Zoet Bankson proposes that, if our older years are to have meaning and purpose, we need to address two key questions: What is my unique gift? and What is my legacy? In Creative Aging, Bankson explores the spiritual dimension of discovering our unique answers and offers creative ways to nourish our calling, particularly where society does not yet have the organizational structures to support these productive energies.
Illustrated by stories of people who have reinvented their lives as they age, the book is organized around Bankson's cycle of call:
Resist: Feeling lost in a new terrain
Reclaim: Discovering gifts
Synopsis
Discover Your Unique Gift
"Creative aging is a choice.... If we remember that transition always begins with endings, moves on to a wilderness period of testing and trying, and only then do we reach the beginning of something new, then we can embrace this encore period of life with hope and curiosity, remembering always that it is our true nature to be creative, to be always birthing new ways of sharing our planet together."
--from the Epilogue
In a practical and useful way, Marjory Zoet Bankson explores the spiritual dimensions of retirement and aging. She offers creative ways for you to share your gifts and experience, particularly when retirement leaves you questioning who you are when you are no longer defined by your career.
Drawing on stories of people who have reinvented their lives in their older years, Bankson explores the issues you need to address as you move into this generative period of life:
- Release Letting go of the vocational identity associated with your career or primary work
- Resistance Feeling stuck, stagnant, resisting change
- Reclaiming Drawing energy from the past, discovering unused gifts
- Revelation Forming a new vision of the future
- Crossing Point Moving from stagnation to generativity
- Risk Stepping out into the world with new hope
- Relating Finding or creating new structures for a new kind of work
Synopsis
Explores the spiritual dimensions of retirement and aging and offers creative ways for you to share your gifts and experience, particularly when retirement leaves you questioning who you are when you are no longer defined by your career.