Optimizing Leisure Experience After 40
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/arbor.2012.754n2007Keywords:
Leisure, later life, optimal experienceAbstract
Aging is a natural process that occurs across the lifespan, but to suggest that some people age more successfully than others is to invoke some criteria of living well in later life and then to consider the factors that may contribute. This article puts leisure front and center in the aging process, especially after midlife, and identifies experiential aspects of leisure that may be most influential. But it departs from some of the standard models of successful aging in recognizing opportunities and possibilities even for those with disabling conditions, in reaching back earlier in adulthood for critical incidents that may prove influential, and in considering disengagement as well as engagement as processes and experiences for optimizing leisure and thus aging. Relying more on models of adaptation and selectivity from developmental psychologists Paul and Margaret Baltes and Leah Carstenson, social and civic engagement are considered as well.
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