Second Wind: Navigating the Passage to a Slower, Deeper, and More Connected Life

In this groundbreaking book, one of the most innovative thinkers in medicine explains how to recognize and navigate the most challenging and fulfilling developmental stage of life.

How do you know that you are outgrowing adulthood?

When you begin to feel that the life you have been living is out of balance; when the need to perform, to hurry, and to acquire is no longer compelling. It’s like the moment when your favorite tennis shoes start to give you blisters. The way you’ve been living your adult life doesn’t fulfill you anymore.

Dr. Bill Thomas, one of the most innovative thinkers in medicine, explains that a new life phase is beginning to emerge within our society. When the Baby Boom generation came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, they jump-started a cultural revolution that shaped today’s society. Now, many feel they are living a life of frenzied disharmony. This out-of-balance feeling is a signal that you are ready for your second coming of age, your life beyond adult­hood. Second Wind illuminates how to recognize and navigate the most challenging and fulfilling developmental stage of life.

Life can and should be reimagined. New ways of living and working are waiting to be discovered on the far side of adulthood. Dr. Thomas treats the Baby Boom generation as he would one of his patients, sympathetically exploring its history before recommending a path toward a life rich with developmental opportunities. Predicting that Boomers will choose the path of the Denialist, the Realist, or the Enthusiast, he discusses the behav­iors and attitudes that will provide new and more nourishing fuel for the rest of life’s journey: hope and a renewed sense of all that is possible.

Dr. Bill Thomas is a visionary and internationally recognized expert on aging. He is an Ashoka Fellow and winner of the Heinz Award for the Human Condition. He cocreated The Eden Alternative, an international nonprofit, and The Green House Project, both models to revolutionize nursing home care. In addition to teaching, speaking, and consulting internationally, he is currently a Senior Fellow at AARP’s Life Reimagined Institute. A graduate of the State University of New York and Harvard Medical School, he lives in Ithaca, New York with his family.