Does Your Life-planning Go Beyond the Actuarial Tables?  It should.

In my multiple roles as recruiter, retirement coach, and career transition specialist, I have the good fortune to talk with some amazing, talented and successful people who have entered into their “third age” of life.  That’s the new extended and unchartered territory between the end of mid-career jobs and parenting duties and the beginning of dependent old age.

I often ask the question: “How long do you expect to live?”

Typical answers are – –

  1. I haven’t thought about it.
  2. I don’t want to think about it
  3. Oh, probably the average life span.
  4. I guess my genetics will determine that.

A few – very few – will volunteer an actual number.

One exception surfaced recently when I spoke with a 53-year-old business exec who is unwavering in predicting her ultimate demise (as in, dead) at or around 75 because of a collection of infirmities that have beset her immediate family, past and present – cancer, dementia to name the most common.  She has set a firm “full retirement” age of 65 so she can prepare for the 10-year downward slide that she feels is inevitable.

As usual, being the hammer that I am and with her innocently becoming an unsuspecting nail, I opposed her position by burying her in stats, facts, positive self-help clichés and – well, were you to hear a recording of the one-way exchange, you would appreciate why it’s unlikely she and I will have a further conversation.  She was gracious enough to sign off the conversation with a pleasant “so nice to meet you, Gary.  Hope you have a good weekend.”

This was on a Tuesday.

It’s a stylistic blind-spot that I’ve been unable to shake, to which my grown children will gladly attest.  In their 40’s, they still can sense when another “dad lecture” is about to emerge and they remain skilled in evasion tactics. 

They’ve turned out pretty darn good without having to experience the pile of pontifications poised for presentation in that crowded section of my mental hard-drive.

But, I remain undeterred in my belief that the self-fulfilling prophecy still has substance.  We can think our way into almost anything, including an early demise.

Or not.

The field of biocognition,  i.e. the mind and body communicating with each other, is teaching us that when we believe something our biology will comply.

So I guess if I choose to buy into the myth that my DNA is my destiny or if I accept that 80 is about the average age that I should expect to live to, well I subconsciously and subtly start paving the road to that end.

My daily life could get pretty miserable if I bought into only living to the average male life-span in the U.S. which is – yikes –  going backward and now is 78.69 years.

Since I just hit double-seven last month, I’m in fret-and-worry, end-of-life-planning territory if I let the averages guide my thinking.   I should be buying a cemetery plot since that’s sort of expected of my demographic.  But I’m not buying because several grand for a box and the culturally-infused ritual and “celebration” that I can’t attend just doesn’t compute for me.

My progeny have done well enough to pay to convert me to an urn of ashes.  And I’m sure they’ll agree to spread the results, without fanfare, in the Colorado River in the riffled-run 50 feet below the bridge over the at Ouray Ranch in Grand County, CO. That stretch has gifted me with a number of 20” rainbow trout over the years.

So, unlike the aforementioned exec, I choose to be an outlier.  I stay camped on my goal to make 112.5 as the number for the end of my dependent old age.  And, my dependent-old-age period – the morbidity stage – is to be two weeks or less.  Or, ideally, non-existent as in face-down in the previously referenced stretch of the Colorado River having fooled another of those 20” rainbows.

Oh, I get it – there may be a truck out there on the interstate with my number on it that could make this my last blog.   Or some critical organ cells could decide to go rogue.  But what good is there in that visualization?

I believe my biology is following my beliefs.

If I don’t look my age, which I don’t, it’s not my genetics.  If I don’t act my age, which I don’t, it’s about my beliefs.  If I don’t feel 77 – well I can’t say what that’s about because I’ve never been 77 before.   I just know I’m more energized, motivated and purposeful than at any other point in my life and I’m convinced my biology is listening and tagging along.

So, with total deference to all the actuaries in the world (aren’t you glad somebody likes and wants that job?), I’m ignoring their rear-view mirror research and going the outlier route.   I’m out to bend that average life span back up but I need companions to make that happen.  See my earlier appeal here.

Maybe you are up for it – maybe not.  Maybe it’s easier to accept actuarial fate and have your mind help your body check out earlier than necessary.  But maybe you accept the validity of a biocognitive relationship that is the on-ramp to becoming a longevity outlier and feeling good enough to enjoy it.

It’s a choice.  There are very few things in life that we have full control over.  Our thinking is one of those. Any of us can be rebels with a worthy cause that question and challenge the culturally-imposed portals that determine the way to transition through life.

We have the option to step out of that collective reality and make the actuaries look silly.  I suspect they wouldn’t mind.

 

The Case for Not Overusing Our Cheeks.

 

“Sitting for More Than 13 Hours a Day May Sabotage the Benefits of Exercise”

I really didn’t need to see this headline!  Thanks, New York Times, for this ugly reminder.

Then there was this sub-title in the article:

People who sat for long periods and took fewer than 4,000 steps a day developed metabolic problems, even if they exercised.

I took a quick glance at my Fitbit.  It’s 6:30 a.m. and I’ve been on my arse in my office chair now for just short of two hours and amassed a whopping 417 steps (that’s a trip to the driveway for the morning paper, two to the coffee pot and one to the john because of the coffee).

This was not a great way to start my day!

Yeah, the mantra has been around for a while now:  “Sitting is the new smoking!”  Now, this!

Can’t we find something for all these research scientists to do other than to run around revealing the truth about how this transport system/body works?

I’m an ex-smoker.  It was a b***h to quit (June 6, 1979).  I’m thinking this sitting thing might be as tough but in a different way.  I’m not so much addicted to sitting.  It’s just that I’ve got this keyboard-monitor combination thing going that seems to work best from a right angle posture.  Yeah, I know all about the stand-up desk.  No, I have not bought in.  They seem clumsy and you’re still not moving.

The discouraging part of all this, for me personally, is that I work pretty hard at hitting at least 60,000 steps a week, with Sunday a sort of non-exercise/recovery day.  But most of every day I’m in my Office Depot faux-leather chair deteriorating my retinas before two large monitors pretending to make my wife wealthy (on that front, I’m a skilled imposter).

I usually hit my 60,000 steps by lumping it all into daily exercise sessions made up of a revolving combination of elliptical, upright bike, treadmill and some pretty serious weight-lifting. (I can’t run – no knee cap cartilage because of 17 years of pickup basketball).  I try to hit 10,000+ on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday and 7-8,000 on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday.  An active Sunday- not common – can take the pressure off the rest of the week.

I’m sure that was a lot of information that you didn’t need/want to know.

Now they’re saying that my yeoman exercise effort is farshtunken (Google it).

I’ve averaged 59,905 steps/week over the last 50 weeks.  My biggest week: 72,219.  My lowest week: 45,546.  That’s 2,995,265 steps.

It makes me tired just typing that in.

Starting this article incented me to waste some valuable time to determine how I’ve done against my step goal over the last year.  Yes, I confess that my quirkiness includes foldering my Fitbit weekly reports since 2014 and being weird enough to take the time to calculate this average  for your consumption (do you begin to understand how I’m falling short of making my wife wealthy?)

So, if this latest research report is valid, then I’m maybe neutral at best on the health front with my oneness with my chair-keyboard-monitor combo.

My Fitbit Charge 2 lives up to its product pitch – it vibrates every so often and a little figure dances across the screen and reminds me to get up and accumulate 250 steps.  Unfortunately, I treat it the same way I do the flood of offshore solicitation/scam calls that hit my office phone – as an aggravating interruption.

I look at the little dancing figure and tell it to take a hike itself rather than get in my grill.

Maybe if we FTM (follow-the-money) on this research project we’ll discover Fitbit financed it.  I’m pretty much that trusting of a lot of studies.

But something tells me this one is more legit than most of us chair-huggers and lazyboy-lovers really want to accept.

I’m getting off my butt!

So, here it is:  a publicly-stated commitment for which I will expect you to hold me accountable.   I’m taking little dancing Fitbit figure seriously.  I’m getting up and doing something when he/she/it vibrates me.  I’m going to figure out a half-dozen or so 250-step round trips I can take from my chair/keyboard/monitor anchor.

It’s going to have to be quite a change in routine.  My usual trips each day are to the bathroom (28 steps, round-trip) and to the refrigerator (52 round trip). One is optional, one isn’t.  Combined they fall seriously short of the 250-step Fitbit dancing-irritator goal.

On top of the sitting-is-killing-you warning, I’m reminded that I’m amongst the many on the planet who have a Vitamin D deficiency because I don’t experience much sunlight.  Apparently, the 200-watt incandescent in my desk lamp and the constant monitor glow aren’t good substitutes.

So, like so many other things that we can do that we don’t that can positively affect our health, this one is also simple (see below) – but a bit difficult because it calls for – egad – a habit change.  I don’t like all my habits but I dislike change more so they stay put.

This one is going to change – and I have your commitment to hold me accountable, right?

Here it is in its simplicity:

  • Respect the vibrating, dancing Fitbit and find a way to hit 250 steps with each vibrate. It will tell me if I hit 250 with a congratulatory “you’re a winner” type message.  Hokie? Yeah. I’ll roll with it.
  • Get my butt outside a couple of times a day as part of the 250.

There that’s pretty simple, right?  Not an overwhelming stretch to add an important health habit.

We all have plenty of unhealthy habits.  I’m betting that many of them are no more complicated to reverse than this sitting habit.  What are yours that you could reverse?  Can you commit to a simple plan to replace an unhealthy habit – and find an accountability partner to help you stay on track?  This isn’t, as they say, rocket science.

I’ll wrap with an example.  I have a friend in Toastmasters who recently “confessed” to me and a fellow Toastmaster and health advocate following my speech on “compressing morbidity” and “avoiding frailty” that he has a serious addiction to Diet Pepsi – to the tune of a 12-pack a day (yes, you read that right).  He committed to gradually work his way off of this habit, and, three weeks later, is down to two cans per week.  His drink of choice is now becoming unsweetened tea.

That by itself is huge.  But, with his new surge of energy and confidence, he has also begun to swing his diet to more of a plant-based diet.

He acknowledged his habit, committed publicly to changing it and uses both of his witnessing Toastmaster friends as his accountability partners.  His enthusiasm about this new lifestyle change is palpable. And, serendipitously, his wife, who is dealing with her own set of unhealthy habits and has been very resistant to changing any of them, is now getting in step with his lifestyle change.

Consider the simplicity of what he is doing but be inspired by the difficulty of his transformation. His motivation?  A new awareness of the downside of his habits by becoming more knowledgeable and seeing – and feeling – the upside of what his life can become with the habit change.

It’s a track any of us can follow.

 

Why Centenarians Don’t Rely on Doctors.

Photo by Martin Brosy on Unsplash

I did an 18-minute speech recently at my Toastmasters club – the last of 40 “formal” speeches that I’m required to give on my quest to achieve the top Toastmasters achievement tier, Distinguished Toastmaster.

I estimate I’ve delivered half again as many “informal” speeches at the club so I’m probably 60-70 speeches into it since I joined Toastmasters six years ago just because I want to continue to refine the craft and because, well – I admit – the strokes prop up my fragile ego.  And Toastmasters clubs are great at delivering positive strokes, even when you muck up a good topic, which I do regularly.  It’s a beautiful learning and confidence-building environment.

End of commercial.

My speech was about “compression of morbidity” and “frailty avoidance” – probably a real yawner to any other type of gathering.  They all seemed to like it, most likely because they all like me (it’s a Toastmaster trait – they overlook personality deficiencies) and because it was my 77th birthday. There was probably a touch of sympathy factor there as well.

I used my dad’s extended morbidity chronology as the launch of the speech.  It goes like this:

  • Heart attack – age 59
  • Stopped smoking, ate better, lost weight
  • Early ’70s, diagnosed with COPD – began a restricted life of hoses and oxygen tanks
  • Age 77, falls, breaks a hip
  • Hip replacement
  • Sepsis infection following surgery – extended intubation
  • Extended hospital recovery from intubation; no voice, no sleep
  • Rehab facility
  • A short stint in a small retirement home
  • One year stay in a larger nursing home
  • Second heart attack; dead next day at 81

Webster defines morbidity as diseased, sickly, grisly, gruesome. That pretty well described my dad’s final years.

On a simple graph, Dad’s morbidity looked something like this:

The point of the speech was that our incredible advances in medical and scientific technology haven’t done much to compress this morbidity stretch in our culture.  We are still good at “living short and dying long.”  We’ve gotten pretty good at adding years to our lives but not at adding life to our years. So we continue to maintain a life curve that bends like this:

I shared my own planned morbidity curve with the group.

Expecting gasps, I got muted guffaws – I believe my fellow TMer’s are tiring of my “I’m living to 112.5” mantra.

But I forged on, undeterred because it’s the Toastmaster way – finish, no matter how bad it is.

I’ll condense the 18-minutes to this:  bad lifestyle choices lead to insidious morbidity which leads to frailty which leads to death.

I think that would pass a medical scientist’s review for accuracy.

Pretty simple.  We start at zero with a full arsenal of cellular-based weapons called an immune system and we proceed to make it difficult for it to do its job.

I’ll paraphrase neuropsychologist Dr. Mario Martinez: we inherit our health; our culture teaches us to be sick.

Dad didn’t know much about all this.  He grew up when we knew little about how our biology works.  He ate 3-4 eggs for breakfast most of his life; meat and potatoes were standard fare; athletes and actors, dentist and doctors advocated for cigarettes and babies were used to market them (he smoked for 40 years); exercise was whatever physical exertion happened at work.

His extended morbidity was pretty much a given from the start.

So what does this all have to do with centenarians not relying on doctors?

Based on research of healthy centenarians across a multitude of cultures, one of the consistent traits amongst them was that of an “outlier” attitude.  They tend to defy the expectations of culturally-defined life segments or portals (e.g middle-age, old-age).  They don’t succumb to the admonishment that accompanies the failure to comply or fit into the boundaries of a cultural portal.

Wrinkled rebels, with a worthy cause – live long, die short.

Somewhere along the way, they realized that their biology can be adversely affected by the cultural labels and traditions that they lay on it.   For instance, they understand that if you believe you are too old for something, your biology will comply.

In the words of Dr. Martinez, they become “worthy outliers” and enter into “centenarian consciousness: an opportunity to live the causes of healthy longevity.”

So, it follows that a “worthy outlier” with a “centenarian consciousness” is not going to be beholden to a doc that thinks in portals (e.g. “you’re too old for that” or “what do you expect at your age?”) and practices only traditional medicine, rather than mind/body medicine.  Healthy centenarians seem to realize that they are more than just the sum of their body parts and that their mind impacts those body parts.

Resilience prevails

Another trait of healthy centenarians is their ability to not only overcome trauma and travails but actually thrive and find gratitude in the midst of adversity and expect a better future following it.

Again, in the words of Dr. Martinez: “Despite the initial physical and emotional pain of trauma, they maintain a sense of humor and hope for recovery.  More important, their positive expectations enable them to learn from the negative experience.”

I take from all this that being a “cultural outlier” with a “centenarian consciousness” can position us to compress our morbidity, delay our terminal frailty and thus live a longer, healthier and happier life while saving our society billions in late-life healthcare costs.

The tough part is to shake off the cultural expectations and be an outlier.  It takes some thick skin and a strong self-image.

Dad knew nothing about all this cultural portal stuff – it preceded him.  His morbidity started at 59 and grew insidiously for 22 years – not an uncommon timeline in our society despite medical advances.  He wasn’t destined to be a healthy centenarian – few from his generation were.

But we’re smarter now.  At least book smarter.  We know all that we need to know to be healthier and live longer. Yet we don’t act that out.   Our average longevity is now starting to recede after a century of meteoric acceleration and the five major killers continue to hold their position despite us knowing they are all largely preventable.

Perhaps it’s going to take the “centenarian outlier attitude and consciousness” to turn the tide.  There was a time we paid attention to the wisdom of our elders.

Maybe now would be a good time to be an outlier and listen to the outliers.

Keep Working? Or Retire? Consider the Middle Road.

Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash

Where in the handbook of life (you have one, don’t you?)  does it say that career and work have to end by a certain age?

If you do find your handbook, dust it off and look at the publish date.  If your copy is an heirloom from pre-FDR (and the old, non-green New Deal), there isn’t likely to be much said about not working.  The authors from that time pretty much worked until they couldn’t.

In fact, 150 years ago retirement was virtually non-existent.

Maybe we were smarter then and recognized that retirement is an unnatural act and doesn’t happen in nature.  We’re the only species smart enough (???) to come up with the concept of intentionally going backward (look up the definition of retire) and planning it into our lives.

I grew up in rural, agricultural Wyoming where, for most, retirement started a couple of days before the embalming.  My uncles died farming until they couldn’t, physically.  My dad worked until he couldn’t, physically.  That was a big part of the life handbook in my early world.

If you just dusted off a 2.0 version of the life handbook, you’ll find a hard 90-degree turn happened along the way between versions.  You’re not supposed to work after –  well, it’s a moving target.  Thanks to FDR and his corporate and union cronies, age 65 remains the number embedded in most heads.  But it shifts around.  Some like 59, some like 62.  There’s even a F-I-R-E (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement, popular among millennials, that has participants staking claims for retirement before 40.

Well, I had a  conversation this week with a  gentleman who had just experienced an unplanned career inflection point that is happening to a lot of folks these days.

A 68 ½-year-old senior exec in supply chain management, he was unceremoniously terminated via telephone with two hours notice – totally blindsided following fourteen years of exemplary performance as a Senior VP with nary a nick on his performance reviews.

You’ve heard the drill:  your “position has been eliminated” as part of a restructuring.

He didn’t buy it and later confirmed his suspicion that his job was still there but now filled with a younger, less expensive understudy.

Well, Frank (not his real name) is in the second of the four stages any of us would go through dealing with this sort of ego-altering groin kick:

  • Panic
  • Anger
  • Acceptance
  • Seizing Opportunity.

Frank skipped panic, which is understandable in his case.  He proudly informed me that he had exceeded his goal of seven figures in retirement funds several years prior.  Plus, he and his wife are debt free, no mortgage, kids launched.  His wife (we’ll call her Sara) still works 50+ hours a week in a management role in (I’m not kidding) supply-chain/materials management. (Can you imagine the mealtime conversations?  Do you see possibilities for “seizing opportunity” here?)

But Frank has a decades-long fixation on working until he is seventy.  He admits to being a bit anal about it and it still angers him up – how dare his employer ignore this and kick him out 18 months short of his goal?

It didn’t help that, just prior to this happening, he had two experiences that had him questioning the wisdom of not working.

One was his fiftieth high-school reunion where he observed once-vibrant classmates expressing boredom in retirement and sporting 50” waistlines.

The other, his neighbor, who retired at 59 and is relentless in reminding Frank that he is beyond retirement age and should be taking it easy while admitting that his days are pretty much made up of caring for his lawn – and who-knows-what in the winter.

Frank’s self-inflicted dilemma is simple.  He wants to re-enter the job market so he can hit his work-until-retirement goal of 70.

LOL!

Before I stick too hard to my guns, let me do a quick poll – is there an executive out there that could use a $200,000/year, 69-year old materials management exec full-time for 18 months?

I thought so – crickets!!

So, it’s fork-in-the-road-decision-time for Frank:  work – no work.

But wait.  Is there a middle-road?

Another senior exec was just referred to me who I noticed had just changed his LinkedIn profile title to “semi-retired”.

I’m anxious for that conversation because that is a middle-road concept that makes sense.

How about that idea, Frank?

I suggested to Frank that maybe he should give some thought to a “lifetime, lifestyle business” where he could take his exceptional experience and skill set and put it to work doing:

What he wants to do

When he wants to do it

Where he wants to do it

I took it a step further and told him I could envision “Frank and Sara Supply Chain Management Consulting, LLC”. Charge a boatload for it, do it when you feel like it for clients that you like, and pick clients at sites that you’d like to visit (i.e. work/vacation combo).

There was extended silence on the other end.

I have a hunch that our next conversation, if we have one, may have a different tone to it.

I’ll stick my neck out and say that, especially amongst the Boomers, that semi-retirement or unretirement will soon become the new prestige.

It’s an unfortunate reality that re-entering the job market post-60 in a self-directed job search is very difficult.  There’s a general guideline that career coaches and experienced recruiters will invoke when counseling a job seeker in that age range:  plan on one month for every $10k in salary to secure your next position if conducting your own, self-directed search.

That’s a pretty freaky thought for a $300,000/year exec. It’s even freakier for a stay-at-home spouse/partner who would have to tolerate guaranteed mood swings and confidence lapses.

Working with a qualified career transition coaching organization can significantly reduce that span and smooth out the emotional swings.

Ageism, as blatantly demonstrated in Frank’s case, is rampant.

If there is a positive impact of ageism, it would be that it shakes loose the rigid thinking that says end-of-work is expected and entitled and that one is a defective anomaly if they don’t stop working by a certain age.

I’ll wrap by borrowing from my 12/18/17 post “Work Yourself to Death? Not a bad idea!”

It’s a critical fork-in-the-road time of life.  One road gives in to the “social self” that has indoctrinated us into an artificial age-related culture and encourages us to remain a part of the crowd and stay-the-course to a landing called retirement.

The other road acknowledges a long-suppressed “essential self” that is insensitive to age and puts us on a trail that can enable a new takeoff (semi-retirement?) rather than a landing.  Only this time the takeoff is launched through a re-discovery and resurrection of our deepest dreams and desires but applied using our deepest talents and acquired skills.

Warning!

The second fork may mean you will, willingly, work yourself to (until) death.

Second warning!

You may:

I’m betting on Frank to take the second – or middle – road.

 

Aging Doesn’t Need to Be a B****

I hear it a couple of times every week:

“Getting old is a bitch!”

Or the overworked, less profane version:

“Getting old isn’t for sissies!”

Occasionally, someone will resort to an attempt at the comedic approach and borrow the classic:

“If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”

I’m not saying it’s pandemic, but it’s bumping up against it with my demographic peer group.  I’m a septuagenarian (for you Pittsburgh Steelers fans, that means I’m in my seventies).

I know, if I don’t like it then stop talking to the complainers. I get it. But that’s not an option for me.  I’m out to change attitudes in this demographic, so continued engagement is part of my quest.

I’ll admit, however, there are a few in that ever-widening group that merit reconsideration for future conversations.  You know the type – the ones that are so negative about their age-related problems that you come away having a big chunk of the remaining oxygen sucked out of your own dwindling supply of positive about aging.

And then there are conversations about surgeries.

Holy crap, am I the only one that can’t avoid a conversation with a fellow second-halfer that doesn’t evolve into a long litany of completed and/or impending surgeries?

I recently had coffee with a good friend who I hadn’t seen for about 18 months.  My hopes for an invigorating conversation of substantive topics – which we have had in the past – quickly slid into a recap of his knee replacement, impending hip surgery, and his wife’s shoulder replacement and a few other physical infirmity issues I don’t recall because I tuned them out.

To top it off, we ran into a mutual friend and that conversation centered totally on his multiple surgeries since we had last seen him.

I came away with nothing more than coffee breath, two lost hours and 15 more miles on my similarly aged Explorer odometer.

Since my last surgery was fifteen years ago and it was just a thumb ligament repair, I find myself on a bit of an island in a lot of conversations when sexagenarians and above get together – or chat it up by phone.

Should I expect different attitudes?  Perhaps not.  It’s a product of three things, it would seem.

One, our venture beyond middle-age today is putting us into unfamiliar territory.  We haven’t been here before – living this much longer.  One hundred years ago, we checked out around 50, mostly succumbing to what retired Stanford geriatric physician Dr. Walter Bortz refers to as “lightning events” i.e. infectious diseases, injuries/accidents, malignancies, poisonings, wars.

Not so much today.

Second, that same medical establishment that stamped out many of those lightning events now has gotten really good at propping us up when we slump and extending us on into what is, for many, an extended period of agony and reduced mobility.

Third, much of our boomer and pre-boomer demographic have mental hard-drives crowded with outdated and inaccurate perceptions of the aging process.

To appreciate and realize full-life potential calls for a serious defrag.

Here are three myths, models, and messages that we boomers and pre-boomers seem to cling to that hold us back from making the second-half/third act the most productive and fulfilling time of our lives, including my two-cents worth on each:

  • Myth #1:  Aging equals infirmity

I’ve written before about the reaction people have when I tell them of my intent to live to 100 (recently revised up to 112 1/2 because my quest is growing and I need more time).  Repulsion is the prevalent reaction.  The mind’s eye immediately envisions urine-scented nursing homes, degraded function, frailty and loss of independence – at worst, dementia, drool and Depends.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.  A Pew Research Group survey revealed that only 8 percent of us show interest in living to 100.  Sad.

Pew research, however, also tells us that, despite the disinterest, the centenarian population will grow eightfold by 2050.

Neuropsychologist Dr. Mario Martinez, in the research for his book The Mindbody Code, did extensive analysis of healthy centenarians across varied cultures.  His research tells us that we can “ – modify ‘aging consciousness’ in a society that does not support growing older for what it is; an opportunity to increase your value and competence.”

One of the central themes he found among healthy centenarians everywhere was their defiance of disempowering cultural portals (beliefs) and “- a conviction to question what does not personally make sense to them” and to “- choose healthy defiance of the tribe where others opt for unhealthy compliance with it.”

In other words, not going with the crowd while sticking their finger in the eye of automatic senescence.

Our culturally-imbued vision of old age is wrong-headed.  Too often, it puts the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy into play and ignores – even denies – the fact that much of how we age is subject to intervention and under our control.

It’s never too late to put life-extending habits in place; it’s always too early to keep the bad ones alive.

Our bodies will respond to proper treatment at any age.

  • Myth #2: My DNA is my destiny

My wife and I did a simple exercise about 35 years ago that appeared in the Parade magazine insert in our Sunday newspaper (remember those?).  It suggested that we could predict our lifespan by averaging the ages of our parents and grandparents.  Based on the results, she’s been dead for seven years and I’ve been dead for eleven.

Currently, neither of us appear close to dead.

That little exercise spoke to the level of scientific understanding of the role of genetics that existed at the time. The belief that genetics drive our health and longevity continues as a common belief.

I’m surprised at how much it still influences our thinking in the face of overwhelming evidence that our fate is not sealed by our DNA – evidence spawned by the information being yielded through, amongst many bio-scientific discoveries, the sequencing of the genome.  The idea that we can influence how our genes express themselves continues to be a subject that many of those in my demographic aren’t aware of or are unwilling to accept if they are aware.

An important emerging field in genetics is called “epigenetics” which is the “biological mechanisms that switch genes on and off.”

Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician, offers some insight on genetics and epigenetics from his website MercolaTake Control of Your Health :

Epigenetics is probably the most important biological discovery since DNA. And it is turning the biological sciences upside down.

Now that we realize our fate is not sealed at the twining of our double helix, we avail ourselves to a whole new world of possibilities. There are things we can do to change our genetics, and therefore our health.

But beware — these changes can be good or bad. It works both ways.

You can improve your genetics or you can damage it.

In fact, you ARE changing your genetics daily and perhaps even hourly from the foods you eat, the air you breathe, and even by the thoughts you think.

You are the “caretaker” of your genetic roadmap.

Fundamentally, we’ve been called out if we are trying to hide behind genetics as an excuse for bad lifestyle habits.

  • Myth #3: Retirement is a good thing

I’ll be careful – and brief here.  Retirement is so entrenched in our culture and psyche I would be foolish to totally condemn it.  I have enough trouble sustaining relationships with my hermit qualities as it is.

What I will rail against is off-the-cliff, labor-to-leisure, vocation-to-vacation retirement – the traditional model that emanated from a political decision in 1935, and that grew and became deeply embedded with the help of the financial services industry over the past 40-50 years.

The statistics showing accelerated physical deterioration, depression, suicides, substance abuse, and divorce that accompany this traditional retirement model are too compelling to ignore and to say that it’s the smartest, healthiest thing to do.

I advocate for unretirement or semi-retirement where the talents, skills, experience of 30-40 years of life are carried forward and shared with future generations in a way that pays forward while rewarding the “semi-retiree” a balanced lifestyle of leisure with contribution, service, and production rather than a sedentary, greedy, selfish lifestyle of consumption only.

‘Nough said.  Off the soapbox.  Thanks for tuning in.

Let me know your thoughts on all this.  Leave a comment below – and don’t be shy if I’ve offended you.  I grow from your feedback.