Are you “youthful” or “useful”? (The mirrors at 24 Hour Fitness answer part of that question for me!)
Part of me says it’s unfair to have so many mirrors in an athletic club. They are everywhere – and they don’t lie.
But then if you are part of the tank top, tattoo, tiny testicle, mirror muscle group hanging out with your lululemon-clad girlfriend, mirrors are essential.
For someone approaching geezerdom it’s, well, painful.
Undeterred, I endure the pain ’cause I’ve still got this illusory section in my brain that says that my biceps will grow, the droop over the beltline is temporary, and that the furniture disease wherein my chest has fallen into my drawers is just a myth. (sorry, bad joke!!)
My end-of-day athletic club workouts go 2 hours most of the time. Strength training followed by aerobic. And I usually work in a walk of at least 1-2 miles during the day to make sure I haul my arse out of the chair that keeps me at the keyboard and at 90 degrees too much of the day.
My flesh redistribution plan doesn’t seem to be working too well. No, you can’t fool Mother Nature. Gravity works.
Wrinkles versus wisdom.
Thus, I was challenged recently by a blog post from Chip Conley, entrepreneur, author, and founder of the Modern Elder Academy. I like Chip’s stuff and read most of his daily blogs. In a recent one, he told of reminding a late-middle-aged friend who was lamenting his inability to look younger that “our wisdom is more intangible than our wrinkles” and challenged him with the questions:
“How could you be more useful in the world?”
“Who could use a bit of your wisdom?”
It’s easy to get so caught up in trying to look and feel youthful that we forget that feeling “useful” may be more important than wrinkles in living a well-lived life.
Wrinkles are a given. There’s no stopping them.
Wisdom isn’t a given. It can atrophy and fade away. If couch potato replaces career, wisdom is wasted. It’s one of the traps that full-stop retirement can suck you into.
Dr. Ken Dychtwald of the AgeWave organization reminds us in his book “What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age” that the average American watches 47+ hours of television a week and that less than 25% do any volunteer work.
How can we serve?
Chip reminds us that:
“Ultimately, one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is, “How can I serve?” It’s a question that takes on even greater meaning in midlife and beyond. It is a question that immediately creates a sense of generativity, defined as “the propensity and willingness to engage in acts that promote the wellbeing of younger generations as a way of ensuring the long-term survival of the species.”
That bolded sentence struck home this weekend when I took my 10-year-old grandson to lunch. We hadn’t done the one-on-one thing in a while because of COVID and I was reminded of how quickly time is flying, that we don’t know each other as well as we should, and that my window to help promote his well-being as his “papa” is fleeting. So, too, for his cousins, my two other similarly-aged grandkids.
It was a convicting experience.
Never too late.
As “third-agers”, we all have unlimited opportunities to serve and share our wisdom.
We’re wired to do so.
So instead of riding off into the sunset by retiring, we can ride into the sunrise with a vision and journey to serve.
This sick world needs your wisdom – wrinkles just help authenticate it.
Another winner, Gary. Fortunately, many years ago I made the career choice to pursue teacher certification my intention was to pursue academia but that panned out now k-12 education is in huge demand. As a high school educator I can share my extensive educational experience coaching younger generations on how to navigate our society. I thought I’d be doing something else life is ticking away here but I feel like my education, teaching and training allows me to impart some wisdom to younger generations. I may not be youthful, but I do acknowledge that a useful mission drives my long-term education career.