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Dear reader,

By the time this book hits your hot little hands, I will have crossed the magical threshold of my 50s. This feels both entirely unreasonable and unsurprising. After all, 49 does come shortly before 50; there were signs this was going to occur. I wonder if, like myself, you also feel as though you are a 25-year-old, trapped in a body that is most definitely not. At face value, this sense of being young is lovely, but also naive. If we buy into the delusion that we are still young, we ignore the next inevitable horizon: our loved, and slightly less loved ones wearing black, waterproof makeup and tissues, with us in an overpriced box, cold and dead.

The realisation that this version of life will not continue eternally can be confronting. To think that perhaps our best work has been done—that our greatest achievements and stories are all in the past—might be starting to hurt a little. Even if you have a proverbial mansion full of gorgeous stories to tell the grandchildren, the idea that you might not create any more stories can feel a little misery-inducing. And the idea that your body might only be getting weaker and creakier as time goes on can also be disheartening.

As confronting as getting older might be, this book is written just for you. Because there are so many rooms in this mansion of life left to explore. Now is not the time to put on a cardigan and slippers; we are only halfway there. And during the first half, we didn’t really know anything. So, I promise you, the second half is going to be exceptional.

If you feel you are not done yet, this book is for you.

You may be under the impression that you are supposed to settle down, supposed to fall into a tidy rhythm, supposed to get a little smaller, a little more beige, a little less vital. And all this might understandably make you feel really uncomfortable. You might even feel you haven’t fully experienced being your own human yet. You can smell it nearby somewhere, but you haven’t quite managed to wrap your hands around it yet. This book is for you.

This book is not a recipe. It is more like a map with a whole bunch of places I recommend you visit, accompanied by a note that says, “You will love some of these places, and curse me for others, and I am ok with that.” My intention is to start you on a journey that won’t be complete until you are dead, and at that point, there will still be places you wish you had been. I won’t tell you how to live, or what is best for you, but I will give you some nudges that will help you work it out for yourself. This is not a book about setting goals, or making sacrifices; this is a book about living richly today.

At this point, we can certainly choose to keep doing the same things we have always done. After all, the habits that got us here haven’t killed us, and they may even have taken us to amazing places. But by reading this book, you are whispering into your life’s ear a gentle but firm reminder that “we are not done yet”. The adventure is not over, the growth is not complete, and the expansion will continue. We will not go quietly and fade into the background. We will be heroes of this journey, and the journey ends when we are dead. With any luck, you will get to the end of the book and well beyond before that happens.

In these pages, you will find a bunch of ideas and science about what it means to live well. Much like zesty dressing on a three-leaf salad, the science will be mixed with enough stories and stupidity to get you through the boring bits.

We will wander through the different rooms of your life, like a real estate agent appraising the value of your house. You may be surprised when we encounter rooms you had long forgotten about. You may choose to leave some doors closed. Though I hope you won’t, because the joy of creating a life of more often lies in discovering the opportunities that sit behind the doors you’ve had nailed shut for years. And there are plenty of opportunities, I promise.

In working through this book, you will try a bunch of new things. Some you won't like, others you will be besotted by. You may be feeling a little stuck right now. By the end of the book, hopefully you’ll feel like you’re sitting in the driveway with a car full of camping gear, a map of the whole country, and no fixed schedule — emboldened by the opportunities the second half of your life holds. Each chapter challenges you to do something, yes I know, demanding. The point of doing something is that life can only change if you do something different from before, so you kind of need to do some things. I have a complementary workbook you might like to use to hold onto your reflections around each of these activities. You can access it here.

Despite popular opinion that those writing books should be firm, confident, and absolute about everything they write, this is not my approach. Despite a level of cockiness, it would be pretty brash of me to suggest that I have my own life sorted completely, to say nothing of yours. As the author of the book that you are reading, consider me to be the provocateur. Yes, I know a few things about psychology and living well, but really, my main skill is asking annoyingly optimistic questions and wondering ravenously whether there might be a better way. I hope you will give me permission to be the kind of guide who stands at the bottom of your mountain and poses the question, “have you ever been up there?” — without having ever been there myself because that would be trespassing.

I undoubtedly hold beliefs that are wrong. These beliefs have likely been useful for me for a time, but they may not be useful for you now. I can assure you though that if I find one of my beliefs is not true, I will be hunting for a better one fast. I ask that you do me the honour of trying on the thoughts I propose for you here, not because they are definitely right, but rather because they might be, and you might learn something new by giving the uncomfortable things a go. But please, by all means, throw them away after a time if they don’t work. Your life is your experiment, not mine.

My hope as your author is that I am amusing enough to distract you through the difficult bits of this adventure, encouraging enough to make you feel like the hero that you most truly are, and foolish enough to say “I dare you” when really, you probably shouldn’t, (but you should, and it will be fun, I promise).

Forever ‘More’,
Dr Brad Hodge