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From Strength To Strength, by Arthur C. Brooks.
“Decline is inevitable”.
Brooks has written a really interesting book about how to manage the career transition between being young and being older.
Basically, young people are much better at what they call “Fluid Intelligence”- the street smart, abstract, think-on-your-feet, “raw” smarts type of intelligence. Whereas older folk- people over 45 say, are much better at “Crystallized Intelligence”- the kind of smarts you get from simply knowing a lot, from having lots of data from experience i.e. wisdom.
Brooks goes on to say, your ability to use Fluid Intelligence (and your ability to come up with new ideas) over time decreases over the age of 35 or so (i.e. decline), so trying to fight it will just make you miserable, the older you get. But if you transition to “Crystallized Intelligence”, to a position of wisdom, you’ll be much happier and more effective, not to mention, much more in harmony with the way things actually are.
The thing is, none of this is that new. Like it says in the Good Book,
"To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, And a time to die;
A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill, And a time to heal;
A time to break down, And a time to build up;
A time to weep, And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, And a time to dance;"
Everything has a window.
But every window is an opportunity.
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