Dr. Charles Garfield

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Our society urges us to fight aging rather than to embrace it. We are discouraged from slowing down, implored to keep our wrinkles at bay, and pressured to be “productive” in our retirement.

But, as psychologist Charles Garfield asserts in OUR WISDOM YEARS: Growing Older with Joy, Fulfillment, Resilience, and No Regrets (a Central Recovery Press paperback, on sale June 2, 2020), the later years are not defined by success and self-mastery like they are for young adults. Rather, those entering their sixties find that, instead of anxiously asking, “Do I have what it takes to compete?” they find themselves wondering, “Do I have what it takes to lead a fulfilling life?”

As the founder of The Shanti Project, an internationally honored volunteer organization dedicated to the care of the dying, Garfield is very well acquainted with this shift from “success thinking” to “legacy thinking.” In the later years, the drive to keep accomplishing is usually less pressing than the desire to nurture loving relationships and to contribute something that will live on.

To address this shift in values, Garfield offers an invaluable roadmap to help those entering the later years assess what they truly value, discover latent interests and passions that have been abandoned for more practical pursuits, and invest in the relationships that they value the most. Drawing on his own experience with aging, along with the accounts of several others that he has counseled through the years