Description:
At 75 years old, former New York City mayor Ed Koch is as busy as ever. "I currently have nine jobs," he exults in I'm Not Done Yet! "I've had more, and one day, no doubt, I'll have fewer. But I believe the turns in my professional life reveal an important point: Your career is what you make of it, not what it makes of you." Since leaving city hall, Koch has worked as (among other things) a radio talk-show host, a newspaper columnist, a college instructor, a SlimFast spokesman, and an arbitrator for TV's People's Court. To this day, the city's leaders turn to him for counsel. "I am still relevant," Koch notes. "My opinions count. Even my political adversaries seek my advice, and appear to consider it carefully, and this is enormously gratifying to me--with each passing year, even more so." But the most important thing, in his mind, is that he's kept active doing things he loves to do--an opportunity that he insists is available to everyone as they grow older. It hasn't been all roses, though: Koch writes with perfect candor about the health problems that have plagued him in his later years, including an enlarged prostate (which leads to some potentially embarrassing revelations that Koch turns into humorous anecdotes) and a heart attack. He also talks about the potential costs in the future of his lifelong bachelorhood--no children and no life partner to comfort him in his final years (and no desire to seek a partner out: "I don't believe it was meant to be, and I'm not seeking for it to happen"). Even that bit of gloom, though, can't stop I'm Not Done Yet! from being one of the most cheerful accounts of "life after politics" a public figure has to offer.
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