What Are We Blind To As We Age?
This recently hit my daily feed of questions that I get from Quora.com:
“What are most people blind to in later life?”
I submitted a quick response that kicked up considerable interest so I decided to share it out this week. Hope you’ll find some value. Let me know either way with a comment or email (gary@makeagingwork.com) – or better yet, a suggestion for other things we are blind to that I didn’t consider.
It would seem to me that at the top of the list of things that people are blind to is the long-term effects of short-term thinking, instant gratification, comfort-seeking, and conformity, especially as it applies to their health and self-worth.
In America, for instance, we’ve earned the dubious distinction of having the longest average span of poor health (10+ years) amongst developed countries and a ranking of only #46 of 193 countries in life expectancy, in-between Cuba and Panama. We manage to do that while having access to the most and the best resources and technology.
We are conditioned from childhood to fit in, to conform, and to follow the rules by the “P’s” in our lives – parents, peers, professors, preachers, politicians, pundits. This conformity track succeeds in tamping down the uniqueness, the inclinations, the core talents that we were gifted with at birth in our pursuit of keeping up with and being like the Joneses.
We get our education, our jobs, and then spend half our lifetime building someone else’s dream for the money and in the pursuit of accumulation and the temporal and extrinsic rather than the intrinsic.
We adopt poor pleasure-seeking lifestyle habits being unaware of the slow, insidious damage that they do. Then we wake up at 55 or 65 with a failing mind or body and a realization that those extrinsic pursuits have consequences and there is limited time to right the ship.
In step with this is a blind eye to the potential dangers of retirement and separation from things that give us purpose. Work is an essential component of longevity. However, we’ve drunk the Kool-Aid for over 50 years that has convinced us that we are entitled to retirement, that separation from work is positive, and that rest, leisure, and winding down is a good thing.
We are naive to how our biology works – mind and body. We are blind to the fact that we either grow or decay and, for a host of wrong reasons, are anxious to begin the decay process and accelerate a process that had an early start due to poor lifestyle choices in the first half or two-thirds of life.
We continue to be blind to the fact that continued growth is possible as we move into our 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th decades. Later life, for many, becomes a meandering, purposeless, sedentary, comfort-seeking time where learning takes a back seat, the physical decline accelerates, and regrets accumulate.
We are blind to our susceptibility to prevailing attitudes and platitudes regarding the elderly and adopt the platitudes into our own destructive ageist thinking and self-talk. We may have forgotten the power of “self-fulfilling” prophecy and the words we use.
Heard or used these before?
- I just had a senior moment.
- This aging thing is for the birds/is no picnic/sucks!
- What do you expect at your age? (If this comes from your doctor, change doctors!)
- You certainly don’t look your age.
- When are you going to retire?
- How’s it going, gramps?
- Whaasup, old timer?
- Old dogs can’t learn new tricks.
- You shouldn’t be doing that.
- Good to see you are still up and around.
- You’re still working?
– or laughed at jokes like this?
“At four, success is not needing diapers. At 12, success is having friends. At 17, success is having a driver’s license. At 20, success is having sex. At 35, success is having money. At 50, success is having money. At 60, success is having sex. At 70, success is having a driver’s license. At 75, success is having friends. At 85, success is not needing diapers.”
Most of all, we seem to be blind to the fact that it is never too late to resurrect that innate talent, that uniqueness, that essence that we were gifted with at birth and to deploy it, combining it with accumulated life skills and experiences, to continue to produce in an impactful way instead of just being a self-indulgent consumer.
So we are blind to the idea of working the rest of our lives. I think all of us would like to have time to travel and do other things and work part time. However some jobs don’t lend themselves to such an arrangement. Law being one. As a tax attorney one needs to keep up on new developments and be there when the client calls. It is tough to be a part time attorney. I enjoyed my work and miss the mental challenges but I also enjoy traveling and taking it easy. If I could do a job for 2 or 3 day s of the week I would but it would be hard to find. So I hike, bike, lift weights, socialize, read, and just do what I want to do. I retired at age 68 and am now 77. I miss the mental challenge and interchange with clients but it just would not work. I have challenged myself physically to stay in shape with hiking, racewalking and some soccer. I am in great shape physically but maybe not a sharp tax attorney even though I stay up on the law and read tax blogs and academic tax articles.
I am 58 years of age and due to so much stress at work, I am going to have to take early retirment shortly. Am I mentally or economically prepared? Well I am not too sure to be honest. After reading this article, I realised that I should rather just soldier on in my employment but I am also aware that doing that will make me more and more miserable and physically unwell. So yeah, I have this internal conflict with regards to this decision I must make.
Gordon, thanks for sharing that story. It helps me appreciate that some professions don’t translate well for continuation on a modified basis post career. Most people who continue to work post career stay pretty close to what they did in their career. I can see that isn’t the case for you. Kudos to you for now letting that take you to a sedentary lifestyle. How about something like SCORE?
This is a good reminder about being deliberate about what I want to do in life and brutality honest with myself about what I have to do to achieve that.
Good to hear from you, Ron. Hope all is well in Spokane. I don’t know about you, the first part is not nearly as tough and the second part. Now I’m really feeling guilty about Netflix!
We retired in our mid 50’s, sold our big house, and moved back to near where we grew up. both had experience in administration, and soon held positions with our local Senior’s club, and the \legion Branch. Soon promoted to President of each for over 10 years. Soon the local Senior’s club, and then each had our turn on the Provincial level and delegate to the National. During this time, we started a Sunday Brunch the last Sunday each month from Oct til May, and gaining up to 80-90 customers each week. from most of the communities in the area. Demand for Suppers led to a Friday night supper during the same period for 5 years.from 70-130 to each. Celebrations for weddings, anniversaries, and seasonal suppers were added, and made around $10,000 per year for the legion, with many members and others helping out.
A hobby of Upholstering was continued, and provided cash for travel, and something to do. My hobby of Wilderness travel and canoeing led many outdoor lovers to a lot of wilderness travel, and the introduction to a new life for many. one lake, with a nice beach, had no other visitors seen for over 25 years.easy to get to, but remote. This life continued until Strokes and a heart attack in our 80s slowed things down then covid pretty well stopped social happenings. Hoping for some social organizations to start up again soon.
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