Three things a person should avoid once they are past 70 years old. P.S. I’m on the list
I’m being a bit lazy this week.
Actually, that’s not true. I just seem to hit a wall on coming up with something that I felt you fine folks would pay even a hint of attention to.
So, I’m cheating and republishing a post that I put out on Quora.com a few weeks ago. It has become my 3rd most popular post and 10% of the 1,300,000 views my Quora posts have garnered since I started posting daily in December 2019.
It’s a response to the question: “What three things should a person avoid once they are past 70 years old?
At 78 (this month), I guess I can bring a little credibility.
From my experience, here are three things to avoid:
1.Most other 70-year olds. That sounds cruel – and it may blow a big hole in my circle of friends, many of whom are 70+ and who I do love and cherish. I suspect I may have some explaining and repair work to do. But here’s my rationale.
Many, if not most, 70-year-olds are innocently in the “decay mode”, attitudinally and biologically, with resignation to the myths of automatic senescence and accelerating physical decline. Dinner conversations rarely progress beyond the latest knee replacement or shoulder surgery, concerns about memory lapses, or a friend with this or that malady.
I’ve started calling them “organ recitals.”
“Getting old isn’t for sissies” and “aging is a bitch” are common cliches.
Rarely does the conversation swing to how to continue to honor one’s birthright of good health and counter the accelerating decline with good practices that should have been a part of life all along. There is little appreciation for “it’s never too late to start, but always too early to quit.”
As an outspoken advocate for living to 100 or beyond (I’ve set my target at 112 1/2), I’ve learned not to bring it up at gatherings of my 70-something friends as I’ve endured enough derision to know not to put my hand on that hot stove again. The repulsion is deep and wide.
Famed motivational speaker, Jim Rohn said: “You rise to the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Selfishly, as time squeezes in, I ask myself how can I grow through this relationship and is this person open to considering that life doesn’t need to be one of accelerating decline.
I love hanging with a kick-ass 70-year old who is relaunching and not landing. But there’s a lot of chaff and not a lot of that type of wheat in our demographic.
Edith Wharton once said:
“In spite of illness, in spite even of the arch-enemy, sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.”
Maybe it’s just my circle, but I don’t find many that peer into elderhood with excitement or have that “unafraid of change, insatiable curiosity, big thinking” attitude. I’m more inclined to find it existing in the youngers and suggest that, as 70-year olds, we are better served by increasing our efforts to hang with the generations behind us with two thoughts in mind: (1) to grow and learn from their creativity and energy and (2) to help guide them with our acquired wisdom and experience.
If you would like a big dose of the logic behind this and the results of this type of effort, check out Chip Conley and his book “Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder.”
2.The retirement trap. OK, here again, I’m trespassing and entering sacred ground. But the evidence is there to support this heretic suggestion. The traditional leisure-based, “vocation to vacation” retirement that has been pounded into our heads for 5–6 decades is a Trojan-horse that has lead several generations into a lifestyle counter to our biological nature and to a pattern of “living short and dying long” in the western cultures where it exists.
Retirement doesn’t exist in nature nor did it exist anywhere on the planet 150 years ago. It’s a Euro-American concept that doesn’t exist in many countries, some of which can claim the longest-living citizens.
It is a concept constructed for political purposes and has no relevance to today’s world.
Retirement puts us on a path to accelerated biological decline because it implies “winding down” is preferable to staying in the growth mode. We are given only two choices with our bodies and brains – grow or decay. Retirement, which is derived from the French verb “retirer” which means retreat or go backward, can put us on the decay path – and does for most.
What are the fruits of traditional, leisure-based retirement? Here a few that we see that are not-life enhancing:
- Increased isolation – a major killer
- Sedentary living – despite best intentions, most retirees fail to maintain adequate exercise to sustain good health.
- Self-indulgence – we are wired to serve. Retirement says you’ve paid that price and earned the right to be a self-indulgent consumer and to abandon being a selfless producer.
- Removal of work from the lifestyle. Work is a key factor in longevity – retirement takes us in the other direction.
Fortunately, we are waking up to the fallacy and irrelevance of traditional retirement as we find ourselves in the unfamiliar territory of having a 20–40-year longevity bonus. Unretirement and semi-retirement now represent a rapidly developing trend.
3. Drifting. Because, as boomers and pre-boomers, we’ve been indoctrinated to covet the leap from labor to leisure, most of us move into that “third age” space between end-of-career and true-old age without a roadmap or plan for what that now-extended period is going to look like. We are now in new territory with 20–40 more years with limited precedents to guide us.
The result, for many, is entering an extended period of life in a drift, feeling their way through at the expense of the reservoir of energy and drive that exists in the early stages of this phase.
For example, we know that 2 of 3 retirements commence with no semblance of a non-financial plan that addresses the mental, physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual sides of life in this new territory.
Retirement can be like an iceberg, drifting and with little of the realities of retired life on the surface. It can become a purposeless, drifting, unfocused time of life that can put us on the path to accelerated deterioration.
Dan Sullivan, renowned business and entrepreneur coach and founder of Strategic Coach, says:
People die early for three reasons:
- No money
- No friends
- No purpose.
A successful, healthy third-age requires a plan, a sense of purpose, a direction. Without it, we waste the talents, skills, experience, and energy that still reside in us as 70-year olds.
That’s close to being criminal.
Thanks for indulging my lack of momentum this week. These COVID-19 walls are closing in it seems. Hope you all are being safe. Let me know your thoughts about this week’s diatribe with a comment below or an email to gary@makeagingwork.com.
If you haven’t joined our growing list of readers, you can do so at www.makeagingwork.com. Sign up for my weekly blog there and receive my free e-book “Achieve Your Full-life Potential: Five Easy Steps to Living Longer, Healthier, and With More Purpose.”
All of these things described here are not my experience. I am as enthusiastic about life at 70 that I was at 35. I’m active, rarely bored and have more I want to do and contribute than time on earth.
I am thankful for the life God has given me.
Thanks Ben. I think you’re defining the model “third age”. I relate to the part about having more to do than time to do it. Thanks for commenting and being a reader.
Right on brother! Why do people equate age with so much lack, loss, and negativity? I am living it up!!!
To freedom, joy, and good health! Keep going!!!!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart! I couldn’t have said it better. Going on 67, I immigrated from Asia to South America 4 years ago and started a new career. I learned how to create my own website and teach 2 languages online. My synapses grow daily. Unknowingly, I have lived exactly as you described and find life exciting. Retirement? Not in my lifetime! My motto: learn something new every day!
Thanks, Vera. Your story is very inspiring. Keep it up – and thanks for being a reader.
You are “spot on” regarding retirement.
I share your feelings and ideas about the next phase of our lives.
We human beings thrive with meaning,
purpose and significant human interaction in our lives, not living in senior communities interacting only with other seniors.
We need diversity even more as we age.
Thanks, Pamela. I think this ship is turning, albeit slowly. This pandemic sure shines a light on the “wisdom” of warehousing our “elderly”
Interesting. I am 76 and very active, hiking, racewalking, basketball, used to play soccer ..two years ago but tore my hamstring which took 1 1/2 years to heal, golf,kayaking. You are absolutely right about hanging with people our age. It is hard to find people our age who are active and don’t basically act old. In order to do sports I have to play with people who are 10 to 20 years younger. Older people think you are supposed to stop what you used to do for recreation because you might break a bone or hurt yourself. It’s the old saying in my book: ” use it or lose it” ….the biggest problem I have is that as I age I am getting slower and I do not have the endurance I used to. In addition, a hard workout is going to do it for the day. It is much harder to do hard workouts and recover. I have notice this since I turned 75. But that is a fact of aging….you can slow it down but you can’t stop it.
I agree with the retirement trap but I do not want to work full time. In my profession, tax attorney, you are either work full time staying up with the law changes and working with client’s immediate needs or retired. I really don’t want to do anything other than the law so it is retirement or work full time.
As one gets older you lose friends and tend to become isolated unless you meet new younger people or are involved with them in volunteer or social activities. To me the best way to live a long life is to take care of your health…exercise and eat right with exercise being very very important. The next thing is to have a lot of interests and don’t be afraid to try new things. It always amazes me how few interests people have.
Good Read. Exactly my own thoughts but nice to see them validated.
I am very pleased to be given the opportunity to take part in your motivational talk. My contribution is our social networking and the social gathering (covid9) bearing in mind. This meeting is where our seniors are meeting and socialising. At present they are depressed sometime has to be done about this.dont know when they will see one another before one dies of covid. Thanks
Depressing Article! At 71 years old I always figured I’m special doing what I’m doing at my age. Oh Well. . . Only kidding!!! Great article. Thanks Gary.
Thank you, your post is most helpful, and I found the reader’s comments inspiring. I will have to up my game exercise-wise, foodwise, and mentally. I have always been an active person but in the last few years, I have found myself floating without a tether. Fortunately, I have a daughter who would push me to reach my potential and I did resist. Now, I am ready to open my new business, we transformed a boathouse into a vacation rental and I am involved in the local festival promotion. It has not been easy as arthritis set me back on my heels as well as IBS but working through it. I have found my battles are mostly with myself so articles and insights like yours help a great deal. Thank you!
I really appreciated thus article. I don’t have many people as friends in this big city but the people I know like me so I settle for short interactions on my daily errands. Yes the exercise is my battle – mostly fighting inertia to get up and go . Once up and out it’s easy to run errands etc. I also agree that with the youth are the best interactions. I have several foreign students that stay with me while they are in school , as well as one of my daughters. And just watching them makes me remember my mother’s words, “Youth is wasted on the young “ Yet school and study are my favorite source of meaningful activity ( I say it’s because I was born on a college campus). Yes, thank you for putting into words so many thoughts I’ve had in mind since turning 71.. thank you indeed! Suzsnne
Enjoyed reading this.
I’m 72 and pretty active , “I retired “at 50 and moved to another country where everything was new to me , I’m still learning every day.
I love travelling and meeting new people , I have a wonderful husband who keeps me young.
I have a sister who is sixty and is years older than me mentally and physically.
I want to live until I’m at least 100.
Wow! I’ve been feeling this. My church categorizes everyone by age and I hate it. I do not relate with the moo moos, blue hair, aches and pains, and doing nothing. No thank you. I want to live life to the fullest. I’m a successful entrepreneur through and through. Why stop now? The Bible says nothing about retirement, it says to fulfill your calling with no age limits. Abraham had a child and started the Jewish race at 100! There’s so much that I have in experience that I want to pass on to the next generation that has the same fire and I’m doing it! Thanks so much for the confirmation and encouragement. God bless you!
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People say I’m lying about having no physical challenges, they say everyone at our age has a horrible memory, or, “pretty good for us old folks.” I find it curious that people actually think they are old. I find it puzzling that people my age are so far away from who they were physically and mentally just 10 years ago. I often look in the mirror and think am I fooling myself. Good to read that there are other souls that continue to soar.