Growing Older Without Fear

What is your greatest fear about growing older? Losing your sense of humor? Losing your looks? Losing your memory? Losing your sense of control? With wisdom and wit,Growing Older without Feartakes a fresh look at the process of aging and gives fear a kick in the rear. Dr. Gary Kindley reveals the nine characteristics that are essential to thriving through all of life's changes. With a variety of coping strategies and cross-cultural viewpoints on aging, he outlines an action plan to help anyone age with grace. He also examines the results of a national survey of people's concerns, successes, and discoveries about growing older, helping to combat stereotypes on aging and the elderly.Growing Older without Fearalso includes interviews with: • Dr. Ronald Peterson, Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's researcher and physician to President Ronald Reagan • Gerontology, Psychiatry, and Internal Medicine experts • Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) experts on new alternative medical approaches How do you want to spend your golden years?Growing Older without Fearwill inspire you to make the most of every moment. 'A book that will inspire and help those facing their senior years without trepidation... [Dr. Kindley's] national survey on aging will be a resource for whoever wants to face the future with enthusiasm and optimism. . . . Mayor Tom Leppert City of Dallas, TX.

‘I have come to think that one of the main causes of trouble in the world is dogmatic and fanatical belief in some doctrine for which there is no adequate evidence.’ – Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory Portraits from Memory is one of Bertrand Russell’s most self-reflective and engaging books. Whilst not intended as an autobiography, it is a vivid recollection of some of his celebrated contemporaries, such as George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb and D. H. Lawrence. Russell provides some arresting and sometimes amusing insights into writers with whom he corresponded. He was fascinated by Joseph Conrad, with whom he formed a strong emotional bond, writing that his Heart of Darkness was not just a story but an expression of Conrad’s ‘philosophy of life’. There are also some typically pithy Russellian observations; H. G. Wells ‘derived his importance from quantity rather than quality’, whilst after a brief and fraught friendship Russell thought D. H. Lawrence ‘had no real wish to make the world better, but only to indulge in eloquent soliloquy about how bad it was’. This engaging book also includes some of Russell’s customary razor-sharp essays on a rich array of subjects, from his ardent pacifism, liberal politics and morality to the ethics of education, the skills of good writing and how he came to philosophy as a young man. These include ‘A Plea for Clear Thinking’, ‘A Philosophy for Our Time’ and ‘How I Write’. Portraits from Memory is Russell at his best and will enthrall those new to Russell as well as those already well-acquainted with his work. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by the Russell scholar Nicholas Griffin, editor of The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell.

Is getting older to be feared or embraced? Is it merely a matter of deterioration and death or is it a platform for a new lifestyle with new opportunities and new joys? This is a story about getting older. The main character, Don, a 73-year-old retired widower is initially confused and depressed about getting older. The book takes him through the fears, the challenges and the merits of being a senior citizen. It does so on three levels of narrative. First, there is the primary story of Don’s sharing in one-on-one counseling to help him resolve his issues with aging. The Epilogue is a surprise conclusion to this counseling journey. Second, there is the presentation of Don’s own internal dialogue regarding getting older with his inner reflections combined with his counseling journal entries. Third, there are five short stories spread out over the journal entries which emphasize the truths that Don is trying to get at with his journal entries. There have been several notable books written about aging, its causes and its challenges. Yet, there has never been a book like this one. Through the art of fiction it gets to the core of the questions haunting the prospects of getting older in a way that readers can personally identify with and use to resolve their own issues with aging. If readers follow the intertwining stories, perhaps they will discover answers for themselves, at least that is the intention of this book.

For fans of David Sedaris and Nora Ephron, here is a humorous, irreverent, and poignant look at the gifts, stereotypes, and inevitable challenges of aging, based on the wildly popular New York Times essay from award-winning journalist Steven Petrow. Soon after his 50th birthday, Steven Petrow began assembling a list of “things I won’t do when I get old”—mostly a catalog of all the things he thought his then 70-something year old parents were doing wrong. That list, which included “You won’t have to shout at me that I’m deaf,” and “I won’t blame the family dog for my incontinence,” became the basis of this rousing collection of do’s and don’ts, wills and won’ts that is equal parts hilarious, honest, and practical. The fact is, we don’t want to age the way previous generations did. “Old people” hoard. They bore relatives—and strangers—with tales of their aches and pains. They insist on driving long after they’ve become a danger to others (and themselves). They eat dinner at 4pm. They swear they don’t need a cane or walker (and guess what happens next). They never, ever apologize. But there is another way . . . In Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old, Petrow candidly addresses the fears, frustrations, and stereotypes that accompany aging. He offers a blueprint for the new old age, and an understanding that aging and illness are not the same. As he writes, “I meant the list to serve as a pointed reminder—to me—to make different choices when I eventually cross the threshold to ‘old.’” Getting older is a privilege. This essential guide reveals how to do it with grace, wisdom, humor, and hope. And without hoarding.

The acclaimed author of What's Worth Knowing reveals the truth about aging: Old age often offers a richer, better, and more self-assured life than youth. From our earliest lives, we are told that our youth will be the best time of our lives-that the energy and vitality of youth are the most important qualities a person can possess, and that everything that comes after will be a sad decline. But in reality, says Wendy Lustbader, youth is not the golden era it is often made out to be. For many, it is a time riddled with anxiety, angst, confusion, and the torture of uncertainty. Conversely, the media often feeds us a vision of growing older as a journey of defeat and diminishment. They are dead wrong. As Lustbader counters, "Life gets better as we get older, on all levels except the physical." Life Gets Better is not a precious or whimsical tome on the quirky wisdom of the elderly. Lustbader-who has worked for several decades as a social worker specializing in aging issues-conducted firsthand research with aging and elderly people in all walks of life, and she found that they overwhelmingly spoke of the mental and emotional richness they have drawn from aging. Lustbader discovered that rather than experiencing a decline from youth, aging people were happier, more courageous, and more interested in being true to their inner selves than were young people. Life Gets Better examines through first-person stories, as well as Lustbader's own observations, how a lifetime of lessons learned can yield one of the most personally and emotionally fruitful periods of anyone's life. As an eighty-six-year-old who contributed her story to the book noted, "For me, being old is the reward for outlasting all the big and little problems that happen to all of us along life's pathway." The collected stories in Life Gets Better provide a hopeful corrective to the fear of aging aggressively instilled in us by the media. Don't dread the future: The best years of our lives just may be ahead.

Debates the role and nature of childhood in the UK. Focusing on the crucial years of childhood between the ages of 5 and 11, this work examines some of the key issues with regard to children's safety: playground design and legislation, antisocial behavior, bullying, child protection, the fear of strangers, and online risks.

A philosopher and a lawyer-economist examine the challenges of the last third of life. They write about friendship, sex, retirement communities, inheritance, poverty, and the depiction of aging women in films. These essays, or conversations, will help readers of all ages think about how to age well, or at least thoughtfully, and how to interact with older family members and friends.

When our children are born, we do everything we can to make sure they have love, food, clothing, and shelter. But despite all this, one in five children today suffers from a diagnosed anxiety disorder, and countless others suffer from anxiety that interferes with critical social, academic, and physical development. Dr. Donna Pincus, nationally recognized childhood anxiety expert, is here to help. In Growing Up Brave, Dr. Pincus helps parents identify and understand anxiety in their children, outlines effective and convenient parenting techniques for reducing anxiety, and shows parents how to promote bravery for long-term confidence. From trouble sleeping and separation anxiety to social anxiety or panic attacks, Growing Up Brave provides an essential toolkit for instilling happiness and confidence for childhood and beyond.