Becoming an Elder: The Next Step in a Life of Meaning
By Lorie A. Parch
July 26, 2016
“It often seems that our culture neither values the aging or the aged.
Simply put, things aren’t like they were in our grandparents’ era when older folks received a fair amount of respect.. So these days, the idea of becoming an ‘elder’ may not sound like something you’d ever want to do. If so, you’d be missing out on an essential life experience, says Michael Gurian, a counselor and author of the about-to-be-reissued The Wonder of Aging: A New Approach to Embracing Life After Fifty.”
Note: Gurian’s book was re-released in paperback June 7, 2016.
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What exactly is a happy baby boomer?
Scott Hanson, author of Personal Decision Points: 7 Steps to Your Ideal Retirement Transition and “A Baby Boomer’s Four Keys to Happiness”
August 14, 2016
“If you’re a member of the Baby Boomer Generation, study after study reveals that your expectations for well-being in retirement are different from those of any generation that’s come before.
While this may be a deeply personal inquiry, according to the most in-depth study of its kind, (Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study), when you consider what it means to be happy, there are a few common threads by which Baby Boomers are bound. Which raises the question, how can Boomers live well and retire happily?
When it comes to the psychology of happiness, the estimable psychiatrist George E. Vaillant — the Director of the Study of Adult Development at Harvard’s Health Services Center — certainly knows as much as anyone. He has spent much of his career analyzing the happiness of Baby Boomers.
As part of his mission to identify what makes mature people happy, and to better understand the depression that plagued his father, Vaillant has spent 50 years studying aging Americans, including numerous studies focused on the health and well-being of Baby Boomers.
This is what he found: the 4 common traits of happy Baby Boomers:
- Empathy (relating to other people)
- Engagement (continuing to remain curious about life)
- Hope (optimism for the future)
- Gratitude (appreciation for gifts and simple pleasures)
Read more at: Boomer Cafe, A Baby Boomer’s Four Keys to Happiness