Advice from My 80-Year-Old Self: Real Words of Wisdom from People Ages 7 to 88

By Susan O'Malley

“The voices gathered here display incredible wit, sincerity, and generosity; we are lucky to be able to listen to them.” —Artforum

If you had the opportunity to meet your eighty-year-old self, what do you think she/he would tell you?

That is the question artist Susan O’Malley, who was herself to die far too young, asked more than a hundred ordinary people of every age, from every walk of life. She then transformed their responses into vibrant text-based images.

From a prompt to do things that matter to your heart, to a reminder that it’s okay to have sugar in your tea, these are calls to action and words to live by—heartfelt, sometimes humorous, and always fiercely compassionate. This stirring celebration of our collective humanity unveils the wisdom we hold inside ourselves right now.

“Everyone, regardless of age, can take something away from this uplifting work.” —Real Simple

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781452146737

Book preview

To Tim,

Today, until we’re 80, and then some.

Copyright © 2016 by Susan O’Malley.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-4521-4673-7 (epub, mobi)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

ISBN: 978-1-4521-3993-7 (hc)

Design by Brooke Johnson

Typeset in Galaxie Polaris

Chronicle Books LLC

680 Second Street

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.chroniclebooks.com

Contents

Introduction 7

Afterword 125

Susan O’Malley: More Beautiful Than You Could Ever Imagine 125

Acknowledgments 128

Introduction

What advice would your 80-year-old self give you?

Imagine you had the opportunity to time travel and meet yourself at 80, to sit down and have a cup of tea with your 80-year-old self. You look into her eyes, which are really your older, wiser

Reviews for Advice from My 80-Year-Old Self

[daniel5estes · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In high school I remember reading about a doctor who cared for end-of-life patients, and he related that if you wanted a glimpse of what was important in life simply spend time with the elderly on their death beds. There you'll hear a lifetime's worth of stories about achievements and disappointments and loves and regrets. And, I should add, there's hardly any mention of being grateful about spending extra time at the office away from family and friends. I immediately felt the need to reevaluate my own priorities. Susan O'Malley's Advice from My 80-Year-Old Self reminds me of exactly this.This book is short and sweet, and you're sure to come across more than one meaningful passage that pertains to you personally. I recommend it. And for fun, try to guess the age of the person giving the quote before peeking. The commonalities between the similar stages of life surprised me.One more thing... you should certainly read the afterword. I guarantee it will blindside you. It also makes what came before that much more special. I won't say more than that.

[lindseyreadsbooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was just what I needed! I loved the advice from people my age, but I can see myself referring back to the book as I grow older. I really enjoyed the afterword from Susan's friend. It was really sweet to read about the "pep squad." This book is definitely a keeper!

[litgirl7 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a collection of mini-posters, more than a book, in my opinion. Lots of advice (mostly things we've all heard before) but I'm not putting it down. I read it in about ten minutes, and kept picturing each page framed, and hung on someone's wall. Just not mine.A pleasant read, and obviously I feel for the author and her loss, and think her friend would be proud of the book.

[pegmcdaniel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, Chronicle Books, via LibraryThing, in exchange for my honest review. Thank you.This is a book of quotes from people aged 7 to 88. They were asked what advice they would give themselves if they were 80 years old today. Each response is on a colorful, separate page. I found the quotes to be insightful, motivational, and interesting.The Afterword gives us information about the artist, Susan O'Mallery, who authored this book. Just as she finished the book, her life was tragically cut short. I feel reading the Afterword before the quotes will help to understand the concept of the book. Every coffee table would benefit by having this charming book on it.

[julieandbeli · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Though enjoyable, it was not what I expected, more of a coffee table book. It's a collection of people's responses to the question "what would your 80 year old self want to tell your self of today?" I found myself reading it in one quick sitting and wishing there were more comments from people who were at least 80 years old. That being said it made me smile and I enjoyed it.

[difreda · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Susan O' Malley in a flash of inspiration gave birth to this wonderful little self-help book. If you could give yourself advice from the perspective of you at 80, what whould it be? So here is the heart of the book, the soul of reason, who and what we are and what we think is really important. All this in less than 100 pages. And each pearl of wisdom is written in BIG FRIENDLY LETTERS of a single page. (Thanks to Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's guide for that pearl!) This book is great - should be in every Dr's office, workplace manager's desk, and on your coffee table. The amazing thing is that this is positivity on steroids. "IT"S NOT A DUMB IDEA" (Page something or elase of the book.) sums up that this work was indead an inspired creation of a very wise person. While meeting many of our lives greatest challenges we loose objectivity only to gain it too late - just a little of this wisdom will gone a long way. This is a book about the meaning of life - sincerest apologies for any thoughts of Monty Python. Yes, these are universal truths about our condition as living sentient people. And remember to GET OUT AND DO THINGS (Written shades of friendly blue and green)!

[sherylhendrix · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is your quintessential coffee table book - a quick read - pithy sayings and vibrant graphics. It was the final graphic work in the career of Susan O'Malley, who unfortunately died a premature death at age 38 just one week short of delivering twins, who also did not survive. As a result, this book is published with a portion of the sales due to be donated to the Susan O'Malley Memorial Fund for the Arts. I enjoyed reading the "wisdom" collected from talking with various people of all ages in public venues around the San Francisco Bay area. Ms. O'Malley took those pithy bits of wisdom and expressed them graphically using different colors, fonts, and sizes of type. This is not your great American novel, nor is it a real "self-help" book. It is a graphic representation by an artist of words of wisdom from people of all ages. I'll enjoy looking at it again periodically.

[tx1955 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was expecting words of wisdom from 80 years or older people as I read the title of this book. As I began to read this book by Susan O'Malley I found it to be quite different from what I was expecting. It was actually a collection of saying from people of all ages. Some I had read before others I was reading for the first time. This will be a book that I will turn to again and again to find a certain page that will be a reflection of what I am needing to hear on a particular day. Sometimes you just need a little extra voice in your head to get through a trying time in your life. What a wonderful idea to put together such a collection of words in one book and title it "Advice From My 80-Year-Old Self.

[timferris_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I loved the colors and the graphic representation of sayings that might or might not be fresh for the reader. The book is a quick experience, to be thumbed through time after time. Reading the Afterword was quite sad. Our older daughter is the age of the author, who died unexpectedly shortly before the book was published.