It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now: How to Create Your Second Life at Any Age

Rating:
Summary: Creating a second life -- at any age
Review: Barbara Sher's honest and down-to-earth style is what makes her the "queen" of "self-help." Sher's easy-to-read and easy-to-understand style turn psycho-babble into common sense. In this book, Sher puts the normal fears of aging into perspective in the humorous down-to-earth style that has become her trademark. Sher is the real thing -- a real person dedicated to helping others build the foundations under their dreams. In doing so, she's not afraid to lead the reader through psychological territory that makes TV's "Survivor!" seem tame.

No doubt, if you actually read the book and do the work, you will achieve amazing results with your life. Sher makes it easy. Of course, if you'd just rather continue to complain, well, Sher would support you in putting on the biggest pity party of your life -- until you finally got sick of yourself enough to change! A more positive way to consider your life and everything in it, is only the beginning of the benefits of reading this book.<...P>Barbara Sher and her message are an American, and International, treasure.

Rating:
Summary: Creating a second life -- at any age
Review: Barbara Sher's honest and down-to-earth style is what makes her the "queen" of "self-help." Sher's easy-to-read and easy-to-understand style turn psycho-babble into common sense. In this book, Sher puts the normal fears of aging into perspective in the humorous down-to-earth style that has become her trademark. Sher is the real thing -- a real person dedicated to helping others build the foundations under their dreams. In doing so, she's not afraid to lead the reader through psychological territory that makes TV's "Survivor!" seem tame.

No doubt, if you actually read the book and do the work, you will achieve amazing results with your life. Sher makes it easy. Of course, if you'd just rather continue to complain, well, Sher would support you in putting on the biggest pity party of your life -- until you finally got sick of yourself enough to change! A more positive way to consider your life and everything in it, is only the beginning of the benefits of reading this book.<...P>Barbara Sher and her message are an American, and International, treasure.

Rating:
Summary: If you are over 40 - don't miss this book.
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I am going through a rough time at my present job and this book helped alot. I would recommend it highly to anyone who is thinking they are over the hill at 40 and to those who have a dream to pursue which has been put on the back burner for years. Barbara Sher really walks you through your past 40 years of life and explains how and why we are where we are. She makes you realize that now is the time to enjoy our lives and make those dreams that we had tucked away come true. If your present job isn't rewarding and you are thinking about a career change - read this book for the inspiration you need now to make those changes.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent....
Review: I respect Sher and therefore hesitate to impugn her good intentions, but there is one huge, fundamental flaw in the book, that, were it written by someone else, I would not hesitate to ascribe to disingenousness. But first, the good part: even though the overall idea here is egregiously faulty, there's a lot of helpful advice sprinkled throughout. If the book's main idea were: do not give up because of your age alone, I'd give it five stars. Indeed people frequently act based on some preconcieved notions, some received, societal "wisdom", rather than being guided by respect for themselves and their real life situation. Iow, they don't, so to say, give it all they have, being hamstrung psychologically by widespread, but in fact, baseless -- or, better put, not necessarily well-founded -- prejudices. To give such people a friendly motivational kick in the pants is a laudable deed. Inasmuch as this book does this, it is good.

Now, onto the bad: Sher proposes -- and endlessly belabours -- a preposterous idea of youth, beauty, vigour, and "the nature's hold on you to make babies" as being somehow bad for you, something actually holding you down and preventing your self-actualization. When, the author tells us, you become truly old and ugly, when this accursed gift of satan -- libido -- mercifully subsides, *then* your life actually starts, *then* you are in the best position to flourish. Well, it surely is what a lot of us want to hear, I'm sure. Life's passing by, we become hoary and wrinkled, we're out of breath, our hair mulishly relocates from its correct position on our heads to other body parts where it serves no purpose, etc., etc. Of course being told that it's all OK, and moreover, the best, is such a welcome news! whew, feels wonderful -- unless... Unless, that is, we fear self-deception more than we're anxious about our age: unless we value truth over agreeable and temporarily pacifying cant.

The simple truth is that not only the drive "to make babies" (us being "enslaved by nature"), but the whole shebang is driven by our libido. For better or worse, this *is* the source of human creativity, that fountainhead of energy that enables everything else; when our libido is gone, *all* is gone, not only this immature, mindless, and clearly harmful desire to enter into sexual relations with attractive specimens of the opposite sex, but every other desire we have. I'm sure everyone, sort of, knows that himself, but if personal experience is insufficient, there's a huge body of confirming evidence from rather respectable sources, from highly creative people who certainly knew what they were talking about, people like Einstein, for example, who said that if you haven't achieved greatness by the time you're 30, it's unlikely that you'll do so at a later age. And he hadn't. Not enough? Take Newton -- all he's known for he did when young; in his later life he was more of a honorary functionary, a technocrat. Not enough? Take Goethe -- now, here's a different twist: he certainly was creative *all* his *long* life, but at the same time he was known to propose (marriage) to 18 year-olds when he was in his 70s: so, whatever it was that enabled his creativity, it was not the disappearance of libido. Not enough? Steiner in his "Philosophy of Freedom" puts it very persuasively: when our drives disappear, there ensues something of a catatonic condition -- in a sense, we can't "outlast" ourselves in that respect, let alone begin to flourish. Therefore I have to say that I found this aspect of the book egregiously, impossibly wrong. No, being driven to "make babies" is not something that impedes creativity; not only that, but exactly the opposite is the case. One can't help suspecting that what Sher proposes here is no more than an attempt to achieve commercial viability by way of giving a more or less typical career guide "a twist" in order to make it attractive to the er... senior-citizen audience. Maybe it's not that, of course... Anyway, be it what it may, the attempt has failed. And by the way, I wouldn't carp on this so much, if this obviously wrong point of view was not feverishly pushed as a main intellectual basis of the argument in this book. It's really huge in there, and yet, it is obviously wrong.

Therefore, my Very Strict Evaluation(tm) goes thusly: if you're able to use your own head and read critically, this is a somewhat helpful book -- there's a lot of, as they say, helpful hints all over. But if you have a habit of taking anything printed on paper as the unquestionable truth, then stay away: the fundamental principle of this book is wholly specious; it will be harmful if taken literally. In fact, doubly harmful -- because it's comforting, because you'll want to believe it.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: I'm a little surprised at some of the lower reviews. Sher is smart and compassionate. I'm twenty-four (yup, not 40+), and I felt nothing but wonder, appreciation, and inspiration while reading this book. The clarity of thinking, comprehensiveness and attention to detail are wonderful. Of course, you need to have some experience and introspection for certain things to "ring true" (or not). This is a book to grow with and critically analyze, in an ongoing way, at any age.

Rating:
Summary: Quite seriously, the polar opposite of inspirational
Review: I've read all of the reviews here, and felt compelled to add my own two cents' worth. While the author might overly-emphasize the "beauty vs. wisdom" theory, and does dwell too much on her own view that dwindling libido = greater creative opportunities, I'd still recommend this book to anyone at a midlife crossroads. Why? Because it's a solidly helpful book in most respects.

When this book was released in 1998, I ordered a copy. I've been a big fan of Sher's for many years. At the time, my career had very unexpectedly stalled. Financial conditions were such that we (my family) had to downsize our home and lifestyle. In addition to those challenges, I had a breast cancer scare with lumpectomy. A few months later, my Dad died. This book was enormously helpful to me at a time when it seemed everything had tilted on axis in my world. Sher truly did help me find answers to the question, "Where do I go from here?"

Chapter 3, "Time Limits", was particulalry encouraging. Slapped hard in the face with the concepts of mortality, I began falling into crisis mode. What if my time is cut short? What if I've already run out of time? Those were haunting questions. Burying a parent in the midst of that crisis only served as fuel to the fear. Chapter 3 was enormously valuable in helping me to take some deep breaths, calm down and really explore what finite time had meant **and could mean** to me.

Chapter 8, "Escape to Freedom", was another wonderful section that had a profound impact in my life. It's a chapter that I feel would be useful to anyone at any age. That chapter alone is worth the price of the book, and I still review chapters 10 and 11 periodically. Those last chapters brough about significant change in my life. They could for you, too.

I only wish Ms. Sher had focussed more on the above-mentioned aspects of her message earlier in the book, because I believe age is something to celebrate, and beauty can glow from the face of a 90 year old. I also believe that most of us hope to enjoy a healthy, active libido right up 'till the day we're planted in the ground.

To summarize? If you, like me, can dismiss Sher's personal opinions about (physically) aging, then I believe you'll gain much from the other, more encouraging, insightful & proactive elements of this book.

Rating:
Summary: Some Parts Excellent, Some Problematic
Review: I've read this book more than once, and I recommend it very highly but with some warnings. I recommend certain chapters very, very highly, as they've changed my perspective on midlife and aging tremendously. Barbara Sher does a masterful job of explaining how and why, if we're willing to be open to new possibilities, we can create lives that are *more* exciting, meaningful and rich after age 40 than before. She does an amazing job of showing how standard ideas of post-40 life are based on cultural propaganda rather than facts, and on skewed perspectives promoted by our youth-obsessed culture. (Quick example: Stereotypes say that after 40 people lose their individuality and creativity and become stodgy, boring old farts whose lives eventually dwindle to nothing more than bingo. She shows that in fact, *teenagers* are far more conformist and self-limiting than middle-aged people, and that age 40 is, for many of us, the age at which we finally get enough sense of ourselves to develop true individuality instead of going with the herd.) She explains how the youthful drive to impress people and "get to the top" may be biologically motivated by the need to impress potential mates, but then shows how, as that kind of narcissism starts to fade away at around 40, we can begin to perceive possibilities for deeper, more meaningful success, based on who we truly are rather than on needing to score points with people. I'm 41 now and I've been finding that a great deal of what she says is dead on.

My only caveat is that, as she's offering sympathy and understanding for some of the difficult aspects of midlife, she sometimes sounds dogmatic about how universal and inevitable some aspects are or the timetable on which they can be expected. For example, in the first chapter she works very hard to convince the reader to come to terms with loss of physical beauty and romantic possibilities. I first read the book when I was pushing 38, and that chapter left me with the impression that I could pretty much mark the date on my calendar when I would be totally unattractive and unable to get a date again in my life. I'm 41 now and still -- in all honesty -- very attractive, with men expressing interest in me frequently, and I know plenty of other people my age who are very good-looking and have lots of sex appeal. But that chapter almost sounds like she thinks that anyone who's pushing 40 and still thinks they can turn heads is just living in fantasyland and they should just "deal with reality." So I think she laid it on a bit thick there, and in a few other places as well, where she's trying to convince the reader "It's no big deal, this aspect of aging happens to everyone and it's not the end of the world" but it may be bewildering or frightening to readers who aren't yet 40 and are wondering whether all these things will happen exactly on schedule, or for people whose experience of being 40-something doesn't precisely match what she describes. So I recommend this book to my late-thirty-ish friends, but I warn them not to take every last bit of it to heart, like the implication that they're guaranteed to look like hell by age 40.

Rating:
Summary: It's Only Too Late If You Buy This Book
Review: If you are approaching or have already reached middle age, and are not feeling gloomy, depressed or despairing about it, you certainly will be by the time you're halfway through this book!

Ostensibly the purpose of this book is just the opposite - to make you feel positive and inspired about getting older. That reminds me of MAD Magazine's feature on the thinnest books ever written - one of them would have to be "All of the Great Things About Getting Old"!

The promise of this book is that if you stick with it, you'll find all of those wonderful things that aging brings. But the book makes a mistake by starting out listing - in lengthy and gory detail - all of the things that are horrible about getting older. So if you haven't committed suicide by the fourth chapter, you're supposed to have faith that the rest of the book will redeem itself - and you - with insights about the advantages of getting older.

It doesn't. And it won't.

This woman has some serious problems. The most prominent evidence for this is that this book contains what has to be the most lengthy, passionate and vicious attack on physical beauty, and all of its accompaniments, that has ever been written. My copy of the book didn't have a picture of the author, and I could only assume that she had to be the ugliest woman in the entire world to have such a hatred for physical beauty in human beings.

So, to give you the basic idea: if you are afraid that getting older will make you lose all of your physical attractiveness - and the author assures you in no uncertain terms that it will destroy any shred of physical beauty you may have ever had (as if there were no such thing as people who get better-looking as they get older - and plenty of people do) - the idea is that this book will make you feel better because physical beauty is a curse and you are much better off without it. Beauty is also a total lie and a device of biology to blindly cause people to reproduce. So, if you're not good-looking, be glad, and if you are, be happy because soon you won't be!

Does this make you feel better? If it does, then this really IS the book for you. But since loss of attractiveness is a very real and frightening concern for millions of people, this book's "solution" is not only inadequate but a virtual slap in the face to those looking for a helpful way to deal with it.

Hey, just because young people of the opposite sex no longer pay attention to you and only to each other, don't feel bad, because they're all stupid automatons blindly driven by biological urges and are in a living hell because of it. You, however, no longer have to endure such torment. You are old enough to know that all of that is just a lie. And so is love.

Oh, did I mention that? Romantic love is a lie. REAL love doesn't have heart flutterings and endless gazes and fireworks and stars and rainbows. As if this idea were entirely new! Even teenagers have at least heard the endlessly-repeated "wisdom" (even though they NEVER pay attention to it) that "real" love is a difficult committment based on deep values and tolerance and nurturing, while all of that romance stuff is actually just infatuation - a short-lived and very superficial illusion. The author goes into depth on this oft-repeated theme for pages and pages, while many of the Four Tops and Supremes songs much more effectively expressed the idea in just a couple of verses and a chorus in two and a half minute pop ditties. So go listen to your old Motown, and skip this book's boring, patronizing lecture.

I must admit outright that I haven't finished reading this book - I only got about two-thirds of the way through. Every time I pick it up again and read more of it, I go away with more of its weird ideas bouncing around in my head and damaging my perceptions of reality until I finally shake it off and swear I'll never pick it up again. But its title's promise is so enticing - a cure for the middle-age blues and hope for a brand new life - that I often go back to it, read more, and again go away to explore its ideas and find them mostly worthless, and even damaging.

Considering the rave reviews of other customers and the seemingly deperate need of so many to believe that this book actually holds all the answers to the very serious problems of what is often called a "mid-life crisis", I doubt that this review will make me one of "Amazon.com's 100 Most Popular Reviewers". But I call 'em like I see 'em. And I honestly believe that this author needs a LOT more help than I do.

Rating:
Summary: Quite seriously, the polar opposite of inspirational
Review: The only thing that I felt like "starting" after reading "It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now" was a suicide note. Being of sound mind and body I decided to kick this one to the curb.

Barbara Sher's alleged guide to the second half of life was truly the most depressing inspirational book that I have ever read. Hoping to find practical tips on how to set about jump-starting my career and pursuing a life-long dream, I found this book (particularly the first half) to be some twisted perspective on evolutionary theory. Sher's major premise seems to be that we are freed up in the second half of our lives to pursue the things we really love because we are no longer viable as attractive, sexually desirable human beings. Once we accept that prounouncement and stop trying to compete with 20-somethings, we can move on to create a fabulous life for our homely, undesirable selves. She goes so far as to criticize those who dye their hair or try to stay physically fit by going to the gym.

I would agree that our culture more than any other in the world is obsessed with youth and that aging gracefully by focusing on expanding one's mind and heart is most definately a worthwhile goal. However, there are far better, more positive ways to communicate that idea. Sher's book reads like very sour grapes from someone who didn't get asked to the prom and who is actually still angry about it.

As a 42-year-old woman who still turns heads and loves her 37 year old fiance both romantically and spiritually. I think one's time and money are much better spent elsewhere. I highly recommend (a solid five stars) Martha Beck's "Finding Your Own North Star Claiming the Life You Were Meant To Live".