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F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said “There are no second acts in American lives.” Jay Gatsby (formerly Gatz) is the iconic example of that claim. Fitzgerald himself is an example, having languished in Hollywood once his novels ceased to draw the praise he had recently enjoyed. His life became a morality tale: Get it right the first time, because self-invention rarely works. Today, that notion still has an effect. Most of us would shrink from radically changing a career, or even from acknowledging that the grass might be greener just over the fence. We find inertia comforting, notwithstanding that we know that forces beyond our control may (at least some day) bump us in directions we would never choose voluntarily. So, it is important that Arthur Brooks's recent book, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life brings us face-to-face with those forces. He identifies their impact on our lives is “inevitable.” He challenges us to make changes that will help us thrive notwithstanding their impact.
Brooks's premise is simple: Somewhere in middle age, our capabilities decline, and we must adapt if we want to be happy. His examples of such decline are legion, and include Bach and Beethoven (Brooks was once a professional musician), as well as athletes, CEOs, professors, and friends. All these people exemplify “fluid” intelligence, the hard, rational ability that society values, that these people admire in themselves, and that shapes the contours of their identity. So, when confronted with decline, such people may at first deny it, then work even harder to outrun it. Since they have always been workaholics, any increase in their workload to shore up their pride seems like time well spent. But Brooks denies that it is. Workaholism, when intended to sustain our pride in the face of decline, is “self-objectification,” where we value our idea of ourselves above our engagement with everyone else. We embrace a type of remedial n