You Could Live a Long Time: Are You Ready?
Published April 2010
Availiable at Indigo or Amazon
You Could Live a Long Time: Are You Ready? offers advice on how you can prepare for old age now, so that you get as much life satisfaction as possible from what may well be a long life.
* Money isn’t everything, and won’t cure ill-health or loneliness.
* Cultivate new friendships now.
* To keep your dignity, give up your pride.
* You need a work plan, instead of a retirement plan
* To keep a home, consider leaving your house.
* If you push too hard to stay young you’ll get old faster.
The unique message is that we should not try to avoid old age. Instead of trying to do the impossible to stay forever young, Lyndsay Green comes to the radical conclusion that in order to get as much as possible out of our old age we will need to embrace it.
Check out the Book Club guide.
REVIEWS:
This book is a practical primer on aging whether you are a young senior, concerned about your future or an older senior dealing with current challenges. Review from Advocacy For Your Elder Family Member.
We’re pretty positive at Engage As You Age that her findings in Canada would be found south of the border in the United States and certainly throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Full review here.
This is a very easy read and it offers suggestions on how to age well. She uses role models to tell us how we can live longer better. Her role models are health active and very much engaged. One thing that is very clear is that you need friendships. You will certainly need to make new friends as you age. This is extremely important. You need a social network and you need to keep at this all your life. This very much influenced me. I realized that I had not made a new friend in a long time (I read this book two years ago.) Since then I have joined a couple of meetup club and have made new friends. Full review at Web Site of SPBrunner.
Her clear, common sense "Start now" message hits home with many Canadians. Plan rather than panic and great advice from those who have gone before paint a thoughtful and doable approach to the future. I had the pleasure of meeting Lyndsay and we had a drink on my deck and talked about the importance of community and self awareness as we age. This is a must read! - Donna McCaw It's Your Time
Together, the book brings home the message that planning for one’s future as an advancing-in-age senior has as much or more to do with the emotional and supportive resources you have in place than the pure financial framework created through a traditional retirement plan. It’s good advice and a timely look at the whole-person decision making process residents and their families are in the midst of by the time they come to the conclusion that they are ready to contemplate retirement living. - Dialogue for Retirement Professionals
Her statement that we are not actually living longer as much as we are dying longer caught my eye and caused my heart to blip! Many of us have seen our parents pass on over the last few years - some were blessed with a quick exit while others lingered in various states of being - dying longer. Not really something we can choose but, while we are still in the driver's seat, some thought and planning could make it less harmful and feel less uncharted. Ms. Green's perspective is summed up so well by the name of her final chapter "Embracing Old Age". […] Youth is for the young! Bail off that Titanic - you know where it is heading! I plan on acting my age by being the healthiest, smartest, strongest old person I can be but, I will still be old! - Eileen Hopkins A Journey to Health
I was barely into the book when I realized it was going to change my life. Aunt Jean's proactive ways and enthusiasm for life had me hooked in the introduction and kept me in her grasp right through to the end! […] We would be wise to make plans for ourselves and prepare not only our homes and finances, but our emotions, attitudes and relationship with God, so we can indeed live well in our dying years. (Read the book and that statement will excite you instead of making you feel gloom.) Good books help--and this is one! - Ruth Smith Meyer
This is a positive book, partly designed to take the fear out of aging. [...] You Could Live a Long Time is filled with resources to investigate for additional information. And, while this book was published in 2010, these resources are still current as I write this. [...] Acknowledging the diverse world in which we live, Ms Green brings to her readers’ attention the innovative work and values of groups and organizations around the world who are improving elders’ lives and also suggests that we have much to learn from Aboriginal peoples and communities of persons with disabilities. Is the book worth reading? Yes indeed it is. Ms Green’s voice is enthusiastic. Her book is easy to read meaning its information is readily accessible, especially if you wish to re-read sections later. The table of contents lists the chapter titles, as well as concise summary statements that introduce each section within the chapters. It is rich with interesting stories, practical advice and useful resources. - The Senior Page
I have to admit I tend generally avoid anecdotal self help books. I'm glad I read this one! [...] The book is a light read precisely because it is well organized with a table of contents that allows you to easily find sections of interest to go back to. It was also a holiday gift from a relative. Much appreciated. Recommended. - L. King Amazon Review
Having been a financial planner myself I know living the good life as we age is not about the money. […]The unique message is that we should not avoid old age. Instead of trying to do the impossible to stay forever young, Green comes to the radical conclusion that in order to get as much as possible out of our old age we will need to embrace it. - LifePower Blog
You Could Live a Long Time: Are You Ready? combines [self-reliant seniors] advice with cutting edge research, to arrive at specific suggestions for what we should be doing now to prepare for old age, and includes resources to help us implement the advice, including: Money isn't everything, and won't cure ill-health or loneliness. Cultivate new friendships now. To keep your dignity, give up your pride. You need a work plan, instead of a retirement plan To keep a home, consider leaving your house. If you push too hard to stay young you'll get old faster. - Muskoka Lakes Public Library Book Club
My current book is called You Could Live a Long Time: Are You Ready?, by Lyndsay Green. Her main point is that many of us are going to live longer than we expect. […] My planner is currently assuming I'll live to 85, and I'm aiming for 100. That is a long time by human standards. I certainly won't have enough to retire at 55 and live comfortably for that long. Almost nobody does. Yet there we are. The book talks about some of the consequences of this, and coping strategies. Part of the problem is that many people aren't living longer, they're just dying longer. One of the suggestions boils down to constant renewal, trying new things, meeting new people, going new places, while maintaining current connections. Sooner or later one end of that connection is going to go away, and you'll need all you can get. - Keith Cartmell
Green draws on her own experience looking after the elderly and interviewing elders to help younger readers (anyone under, say, 80) prepare to live a good, long life, with emphasis on the “good”. Green tackles important subjects about aging like ensuring you have a strong emotional support circle, and how to appreciate getting old instead of fighting it. Her book weaves science, statistics and stories seamlessly into a readable narrative unlike any other book I’ve ever seen on the topic. This one is a keeper, and should probably be mandatory reading for everyone who plans on living to a ripe old age. - Lisa Sanson. Read the rest of the review on the Your Workplace blog.
Mature Action Committee feels that every Canadian should be sent You Could Live a Long Time: Are You Ready? as mandatory reading when they turn 50, much as new drivers have to read the rules of the road before they can pass their road tests and be given their driver’s licenses! It truly is a road map to ageing. Sue Lawther, President, Mature Action Committee, Whistler, BC
Lyndsay Green: Smashing Success - On September 30 Kerby Centre hosted two great events in celebration of National Seniors Day. Toronto writer and sociologist Lyndsay Green spoke about her book You Could Live a Long Time: Are You Ready? for audiences in the afternoon at Kerby Centre and in the evening at the Petroleum Club. Both occasions were a smashing success! Check it out.
We’re not just living longer, but we’re dying longer and that fact is the basis for Lyndsay Green’s important new book. If you’re betting you are going to be part of the live-longer and live-better crowd, and let’s be frank, we all want to be, then whether you’re twenty, sixty or anywhere in between you better read this. It’s full of advice, really good advice, that you’ll be grateful you took when you hit those golden plus years. - Peter Mansbridge, The National, CBC
Are you in denial about aging, mired in myths, dodging fears and regrets and still haven’t cleaned out your basement? Lyndsay Green’s calm and generous voice will take you to a clear, sunny place where you can plan instead of panicking. The wisdom she has gathered from serene elders is rich with surprising insights and invigorating challenges to what you thought you knew. This is that rare self-help book that thinks and talks like a grown-up. - Michelle Landsberg, author of Women and Children First
If you, like me, are finally becoming aware of your mortality and are beginning to wonder if the final third of your life will either be a living hell or a fascinating road to the hereafter, then you love the insights this perceptive ‘pollster’ has garnered from her 40 remarkably wise elders mixed in with solid social science and lots of her own common sense. - Michael Adams – author of Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values and president of Environics