At the age of 40, good days begin: enjoying life starts with reading a good book
[](https ://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyzvn6e8tDjI1iQLy5hDwODl_Bmwj6QpN RhiC5kqrq3M_vVKCQBbWQjOQ7_MdM8BBHUZWPTAb_lqVx-7EVHCHkk7A3BamA7-FyzIhjwuie5uiEQFpJE6xzqA fll5CBdXW9eSUWFd8kuv9x/s1600/40%25E6%25AD%25B2%25EF%25BC%258C%25E5%25A5%25BD%25E6%2597% 25A5%25E5%25AD%2590%25E6%2589%258D%25E9%2596%258B%25E5%25A7%258B.jpg) To put it bluntly, reading is actually a matter of fate. “[At the age of 40, the good days begin: 50 things to do to enjoy the second half of life] (https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010534848)” When this book was first published, I read it in a bookstore, and it left an impression.
As far as the publishing market is concerned, the title of this book will indeed attract people in their 30s and 40s, but this should refer to ordinary people, not me. For a long time, I have actually been disgusted with this kind of book about what to do when you are XX years old - I always feel that everyone’s life is different, so how can I say what it will be like before the age of 30, and what major things should be accomplished by the age of 40?
Therefore, when I saw “The good days begin at age 40: 50 things you should do to enjoy the second half of life” in a bookstore last year, I was actually a little scornful, or even dismissive. I have always been indifferent to this kind of “success science”. I just flipped through it casually because I wanted to confirm my suspicions. Unexpectedly, this book attracted attention.
Page after page, I quickly read the entire book in the bookstore. Although I didn’t buy it home and read it carefully, it left a deep impression on me. A few months later, I came to the blog and placed an order together with another note book. However, if you thought that I would read the book carefully after I bought it, you were wrong again. After I brought it back from the convenience store, I just put it aside and quickly disappeared from my sight.
It wasn’t until I was cleaning up my room a few days ago that I found this unopened book from somewhere. So I put it in my backpack and took advantage of yesterday’s beautiful weather to travel with it, basking in the sun in a corner of the community and savoring it.
Once again, I read “[At 40, the good days begin: Enjoy the second half of life, 50 things you should do] (https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010534848)”, and I was shocked to realize that this is actually a book about “failure experiences”. Due to his past work relationship, the author has interviewed more than 10,000 Japanese office workers working in large companies or small and medium-sized enterprises. These valuable life experiences have been condensed into the so-called fifty things that generations in their 40s should do.
The author, Hisashi Otsuka, said it very well, “Instead of imitating successful figures in history, it is more effective to learn from those who have succeeded or failed.” After reading this book, we may not be able to increase our annual income tenfold as the author claims, but we can learn from the experiences of others.
Although this book contains a list of fifty items, in my opinion, you don’t need to follow them all. You just need to find items that are helpful to you or that you can agree with to learn. For example, the author mentioned not thinking in “dualism”, avoiding black and white thinking, recognizing that a rich life comes from gray areas, and creating more possibilities for yourself. I completely agree.
Make time for “self-reflection”, use commuting time to “review yourself”, and seize the time alone to reflect and think, so as to accumulate strength. This is also important, and I’m still learning it myself.
Last night, I also shared the author’s advice on reading on Facebook: read more “useful books at work” and adopt a “thematic reading method”. If you read more than ten books on a topic of interest, you will be able to master the core elements of the field and become an expert on the topic. If you don’t have that much time, you can adopt the “classical reading method”, find the most classic books in the field, and read them over and over again until you have memorized the content enough to give a speech.
In fact, whether it is the generation in their 30s or the generation in their 40s, there is no guidebook in life that can clearly tell us what age we should do something. But one thing I can be sure of is: enjoying life starts with reading a good book.
There is actually no standard answer to what the 40th generation should do. But the biggest gain I gained from the book “[At 40, the good days begin: 50 things to do to enjoy the second half of life]” (https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010534848) is “learning” and “action”. It is also for this reason that I was inspired to organize a “themed book club”. If you are interested in participating, please feel free to contact me.
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