From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

“A word of caution, though: This path means going against many of your striverly instincts. I’m going to ask you not to deny your weaknesses but rather to embrace them defenselessly.”

Brooks speaks to readers directly, using “you,” which is perhaps an attempt to establish intimacy. He acknowledges the uphill battle of embracing a new path, advocating that high-achieving people go against almost all of their instincts to reach a valuable end result. There’s no escaping mental decline; there is only a choice about how to manage it.

“In his last years, Darwin was still very famous—indeed, after his death he was buried as a national hero in Westminster Abbey—but he was increasingly unhappy about his life, seeing his work as unsatisfying, unsatisfactory, and unoriginal.”

Brooks begins Chapter 1 with an anecdote about one of history’s most famous scientists. An anecdote or story is a more personal form of writing; Brooks may have used these to draw readers in. By using Darwin as an example, Brooks is making it clear from the start that no one escapes mental decline, not even the best minds. Darwin’s story echoes that of the famous man on the plane.

“Other knowledge fields follow the same basic pattern. For writers, decline sets in between about forty and fifty-five. Financial professionals reach peak performance between the ages of thirty-six and forty. Or take doctors: they appear to peak in their thirties, with steep drop-offs in skill as the years pass.”

Brooks makes the case that the phenomenon of mental decline occurs across professions, and goes on after this quote to ground his information in research. Brooks will continue to note how widespread mental decline is, discussing research showing the same results for skilled professions that are more hands-on, such as police officers and nurses.

“The decline problem is a double whammy, then: we need ever-greater success to avoid dissatisfaction, yet our abilities to stay even are declining. No, it’s actually a triple whammy, because as we try to stay even, we wind up in patterns of addictive behavior such as workaholism, which puts strivers into unhealthy relationship patterns at the cost of deep connection to spouses, children, and friends.”

Brooks acknowledges the challenges people have when facing mental decline and how they try to fight it. It becomes a downward spiral, as the behaviors used to fight decline are often harmful and lead to putting people in an even worse predicament. His main theme comes into play—Managing the Mental Decline That Comes With Aging.

“If you’re experiencing decline in fluid intelligence—and if you are my age, you are—it doesn’t mean you are washed up. It means it is time to jump off the fluid intelligence curve and onto the crystallized intelligence curve.”

Brooks offers hope by introducing an alternative to the path of striving. Using Cattell’s research showing that a different kind of intelligence does not diminish until much later in life, Brooks establishes the concept of “the second curve.” This is the salvation that’s possible if strivers get off their current path. The trick is getting people to do it, which is Brooks’s task in the coming chapters.

“I am at the point in my career where I am looking forward to retirement, not as a chance to stop working but more as a chance to work on other things that I am finding have become very important to me.”

This is from an interview Brooks conducted with an actuary in his late fifties approaching retirement. In many of the chapters, Brooks includes sources like this, derived from interviews and correspondence. In this way, he gives readers real-life examples of people’s experiences.

“[…] when Bach saw the back half of his fluid intelligence curve, he jumped with both feet onto his crystallized intelligence curve and never looked back.”

Following up on his anecdote about Darwin, Brooks uses Bach to describe how the second curve works. Bach aged gracefully and presumably with more satisfaction by adopting a teaching and mentoring role instead of trying to power onward as a performer. This is an example of how Brooks blends scientific research and biography. Brooks takes information from studies, and applies it to real-world and historical situations. He aims for readers to see the science involved and an example of it in action.

“According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the likelihood of drinking rises with education level and socioeconomic status. Some believe—and I agree, based on my work—that people in high-pressure jobs tend to self-medicate with alcohol, including drinking at hazardous levels, which can turn off the sensation of anxiety like a switch—temporarily.”

Here, Brooks uses a study to support a potentially controversial claim: alcohol addiction is more prevalent in the group of people who comprise his core audience: “strivers.” His claim challenges the stereotype some may have—that people with alcoholism are uneducated and unemployed.

“Perhaps we are evolved for the success addiction. It makes sense, if success enhances our genetic fitness, making us more attractive to others (that is, until we ruin our marriages). But to be constantly noticed, to achieve specialness, doesn’t come cheap. Apart from a few reality TV stars and accidental celebrities, success is brutal work and takes sacrifices. In the 1980s, physician Robert Goldman famously found in his research that half of aspiring athletes would be willing to accept certain death in five years in exchange for an Olympic gold medal today. ‘Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise,’ said John Milton in his poem Lycidas, ‘…to scorn delights and live laborious days.’”

Brooks employs literature to complement the research he presents. In this quote, a 17th-century poem supports the results of a 20th-century study.

“But you are not your job, and I (as I have to remind myself) am not mine.”

Brooks presents a barrier to jumping on the second curve: the self-identification that people’s careers give them. Brooks includes himself among the many who have a hard time distinguishing their identity from how they make their living.

“Note that neither Thomas nor the Buddha argued that there is something inherently evil about worldly rewards. In fact, they can be used for great good.”

This passage identifies another barrier in moving to the second curve. Brooks distinguishes between worldly success and one’s attachment to it. The former is a good thing, he says, essential for making one’s way in the world and providing for loved ones. Too often, however, people see material rewards as being an end in themselves rather than a means to an end. Brooks wants people to live fulfilling lives by following the path to worldly success early on and then using it to take a more spiritual path later in life.

“[…] cancer survivors tend to report higher happiness levels than demographically matched people who did not have cancer. Talk to them, and they will tell you that they no longer bother with the stupid attachments that used to weigh them down, whether possessions, or worries about money, or unproductive relationships. The threat of losing their lives prematurely took a jackhammer to the jade encasing their true selves—the why of their lives.”

The attachment to worldly things often goes unnoticed until a jolt like a life-threatening illness or loss of a loved one. After such an event, reality becomes clear and people typically change their lives dramatically—now seeing what is truly important. Brooks uses a metaphor, where something is compared to something else without using “like” or “as.” In the last line, Brooks compares the artifice of people’s lives to “jade” covering the “true [self].”

“Only when you face the truth of your professional decline—a kind of death—can you get on with your progress to the second curve.”

Managing one’s decline involves the frightening prospect of facing death, at least the figurative death of one’s professional identity. Brooks draws on psychology and how phobias are managed: by exposing the patient to the very thing they are afraid of. The same principle applies here: One’s literal and figurative death may cease to be scary when they are met head on. As Buddhist monks imagine bodily decomposition to remind them of life’s impermanence, Brooks suggests engaging in an analogous exercise regarding one’s career.

“The Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius reminds us that our efforts at posterity always fail, and thus are not worth pursuing.”

This is an example of how Brooks draws on philosophy. The passage addresses how some people want to stay on the first curve to maintain their legacy. Brooks agrees with Marcus Aurelius that such efforts are futile.

“The secret to bearing my decline—no, enjoying it—is to be more conscious of the roots linking me to others. If I am connected to others in love, my decrease will be more than offset by increases to others—which is to say, increases to other facets of my true self.”

The interconnectedness of people helps in taking the focus off oneself and Managing the Mental Decline That Comes With Aging. This passage encompasses all three of the book’s main themes—Managing the Mental Decline That Comes With Aging, Love as the Key to Happiness, and The Importance of Spirituality. One can find solace in the fact that one’s decline is mitigated by the fact that others will grow. There’s spirituality in the idea that we are all connected.

“Just because it is common, however, doesn’t mean loneliness is harmless. Research has established that the stress it creates leads to lowered immunity to disease, insomnia, cognitive sluggishness, and higher blood pressure.”

Brooks reminds readers that an everyday feeling can have dire consequences, citing research. Love is not only the key to happiness, but a contributing factor to good health. This underscores the importance of maintaining close relationships.

“Earlier in this book I mentioned a question I ask my students to get their attention: How many Thanksgivings do you have left? The truth is that it gets my attention as well. If I follow suit with my parents, it’s something like eight. (We Brookses die fairly young.)”

Brooks includes a passage like this to jolt the reader into reality. By calculating how many Thanksgiving get-togethers we have left with our parents, we can see the limits to our lives. Such knowledge can function like near-death experiences, spurring people to change their lives and, Brooks hopes, jump on the second curve.

“For those who embrace faith at this stage, however, it is a joyful epiphany. Mountains of research show that religious and spiritual adults are generally happier and generally suffer less depression than those who have no faith.”

Brooks explores The Importance of Spirituality. Like love, spirituality beneficially impacts happiness and physical health, according to research. Love and spirituality help one transition to the second curve. Brooks spells out the positives, knowing the many barriers that make the transition to the second curve hard.

“I have known people who, after years declaring the stupidity of religion and spirituality, wind up sneaking off to church, as if it were some sort of illicit love affair. That’s Nicodemus at night.”

Pride and an image of one’s identity are barriers to following a spiritual path. Brooks notes that not declaring a religion has the same power over self-identity as declaring one. By relaying the story of Nicodemus earlier in the chapter, Brooks tries to show that it’s okay for strong, confident, and successful people to be interested in spirituality or religion.

“In a more modern analysis in the Journal of Neurology, neurologist David Landsborough hypothesized that Paul’s torment was most likely temporal lobe epilepsy, which would explain the ecstatic personal experiences such as being ‘caught up to paradise,’ as he mentions in his letters, and seeing visions.”

Brooks presents modern, scientific theories for things that the Bible holds out as miracles or acts of God. This is typical of his approach throughout the book; he uses a multitude of sources, perhaps to reach as many readers as possible.

“The lesson is that if you want to make a deep human connection with someone, your strengths and worldly successes won’t cut it. You need your weaknesses for that.”

The chapter this quote is taken from is about making a strength of one’s weakness. Brooks uses examples ranging from Saint Paul to Beethoven to himself to show that this is possible. One of the most difficult things for most high-achieving strivers is to admit weakness; Brooks argues it’s not only okay, but it makes you stronger. Brooks was uncomfortable about his nontraditional educational background until he shared it in a newspaper column and received a torrent of support. His examples show that people can gain positive things and meaning from painful experiences—and relate more to other people.

“I have remembered that day many times while writing this book. There is a falling tide to life, the transition from fluid to crystallized intelligence.”

Brooks describes learning to fish during a falling tide. Somewhat unexpectedly, it is a time when fish bite aggressively. The message is that in flux often lies opportunity. Similarly, as people age and near the period of decline for their fluid intelligence, they have a chance to jump to the second curve before the waters recede too far. They can continue having a fulfilling life, just on a different trajectory.

“I glanced hesitantly at a kid standing next to me who was obviously a veteran of the jump. He grinned and said, ‘Don’t think, dude! Just jump!’”

Brooks’s final bit of advice comes from a personal story, that of volunteering to jump off a volcanic cliff. Here, the reader can see how Brooks uses anecdote and conversational language to add levity and balance out his discussions of philosophers and scientific studies: “Don’t think, dude! Just jump!”