Recently, a questioner on Quora.com asked me to answer this question:
“For people 55 and older, what would you tell your 40-year-old self? What do you wish you knew then that you know now.”
I’m deep into the demographic so I took a shot at it. I found it hard to keep it short.
So, if you know a 40-year-old that is patient enough to listen to an insufferable septuagenarian, here’s what they would hear from me:
1. Get healthcare literate and take control of your health.
Since you are living in the U.S., there is a good chance that your lifestyle has already done some damage to your long-term health. That is unless you are one of the few outliers that have lived a disciplined life of good diet, exercise, low/no stress, and have chosen to understand how your biology works and how best to treat it.
I grew up in an era in the 50s and 60s where our health habits were marginal at best. We lacked the knowledge, awareness, and access to the healthy living information that we have today. I smoked for 18 years until age 37. In the 1950′s, smoking was considered healthy and promoted by doctors, dentists, and movie stars. Diet was built around meat and potatoes. We knew little and lived accordingly.
Although I’ve been a gym rat for 40+ years since then, I didn’t pay attention to my diet and continued on the S-A-D (Standard American Diet) until into my late 50s.
At age 73, a routine heart scan revealed I was in the high-risk category for cardiovascular disease with significant artery calcification. But, I’m lucky. Mine appears to be distributed because subsequent echo and nuclear stress tests showed normal blood flow (my left ventricular artery – the widow maker – is clear).
My six-day-a-week exercise program continues and I have radically reduced my intake of meat, dairy, and C-R-A-P (calorie-rich-and-processed), the major components of our S-A-D still today.
My point is that if you choose to live a normal American lifestyle, you likely:
- Are too sedentary.
- Are eating badly.
- Are stressed out.
- Have a 65% chance of being overweight, 25% of being obese.
- May be one of the 50% of our American population that is pre-diabetic and one of the 70% that don’t know it.
We know all we need to know to take full advantage of our birthright of good health. But, as a society, we choose to continue to remain naive about how our bodies and minds work and choose to abuse our immune system with poor health habits, failing to appreciate the slow, insidious damage that is being done until, often, it is too late to stop or reverse.
Consider a few important facts:
- We have a food industry that doesn’t give a rip about our health and a healthcare industry that doesn’t care what we eat.
- Our antiquated healthcare system does not spawn practitioners that know or care about nutrition. They are trained in “cure” (as in drug it or cut it out) and not “prevention.” That’s on us.
- It’s also important to understand that the bio-pharmaceutical world is not built with your good health in mind, although they would lead you to believe it. They come forward with few solutions or drugs for “preventative health.” The pharmaceutical industry would collapse if everybody took care of themselves. It’s built on the cure concept, in alignment with the similarly trained physician community.
Once I understood how my biology worked at the cellular level, I began to change up many things in my life: increased my exercise, changed my diet, and radically reduced stress in my life. I recommend you read the source that kickstarted my increased awareness and motivation: the best-selling, transformational book “Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond.”
The authors convinced me that I inherited a magnificent immune system of some 35 trillion cells that works 24×7 to keep me healthy. It doesn’t ask for much to do its job and will reward me if I follow the simple guidelines of what it needs i.e. good glucose, oxygen, fewer harmful stress hormones in my bloodstream, and rest.
Knowledge is power, especially in protecting your health. Take charge on your own, be distrustful of a profit-driven medical, pharmaceutical, and food industry to be doing what is right for your optimal health. Believe me, they are not.
2. Discover/rediscover your strengths and talents.
Most of us “olders” are a product of the 20th-century linear-life model that looks like this:
We were squeezed into a learn-earn-retire model built on conformity and heavy cultural expectations: getta degree; getta job; getta wife, house, kids, two cars and a golden retriever; getta title; getta 401K; getta gold watch.
Here’s where that has ended up happening for many of us from that era:
I’ll confess to having drunk this 20–40–20 Koolaid, spending 35 years operating outside my essence and my deepest talents and strengths in the corporate world building someone else’s dream and doing the “normal” accumulation and conformity thing. While I did OK, it took separation from that and a venture into my own business to slowly begin to reveal that I was wired for something different.
I ignored several personal/psychological assessments and personal experiences that were telling me that my core strengths were in learning, writing, teaching, speaking, coaching.
I’ve arrived where I need to be, but late in my life. So my suggestion to you at 40 is to start, or restart, thinking about what you are really, really good at, what you really, really enjoy doing, and what the world needs and ask yourself if that fits what you are doing now. If not, it’s a good time to start thinking of where you can best use your talents, skills, and experience and fill that hole that I’ll call “lack of purpose.”
3. Plan for a “third-age” with a sense of purpose.
The level of disengaged employees in the workplace is at an all-time high. I was there for years in the corporate world. Few people enter their careers with a solid grasp of what their deepest core talents, strengths, and desires are. Or if they had a sense of what those were, they entered the system that our culture expects of them where those innate inner drivers get shuttled to the background in favor of accumulation and conformity, meeting cultural expectations.
For many, these drivers never resurface. And they plod on through an unexciting, unmotivating career with the expectation of reaching that nirvana stage called “retirement” mostly unaware of the downsides of that decision.
This sense of “lack of purpose or meaning” tends to surface at mid-life, usually in the 40s and 50s when one faces the reality of more days behind than ahead and struggles with questions like “Why am I here?”; “What will be my legacy, what footprint will I leave?”
Here the one that really hit me hard: “Is it really true that the number of people that will attend my funeral will largely be determined by the weather?”
At 40, I suggest it’s a time for serious reflection on where you are, how that aligns with your deepest desires and talents and begin to think in terms of a “third age” and what you want it to look like. And 40 certainly isn’t too early to start. That “third age” is the period between end-of-career and/or end-of-parenting and true old age where we come full circle back to full dependency. You’re “third age” isn’t that far off.
That life-stage today is extending, for many, to as much as 30–40 years. That’s a long time to function without purpose which is where many in the self-indulgent retirement model find themselves discovering that 30 years bingo, bridge, and boche ball isn’t healthy or fulfilling.
Fortunately, we are seeing a rising tide of mid-lifers beginning to grasp the importance of a plan for the third-age that involves continued work, contribution, and sense of purpose as opposed to the traditional narcissistic, self-indulgent, consumer-only concept of retirement.
4. Get rid of the mental junk. Never stop learning.
By 40, you’ve been exposed to – perhaps succumbed to – many harmful, life-inhibiting myths and messages. Such as:
- I will automatically lose cognitive ability as I age.
- Or, my DNA is my destiny.
- Or traditional, leisure-based retirement is good for my health.
- Or work in older age is harmful.
- Or my creativity declines as I age.
- Or my physical decline is automatic and irreversible.
It’s a long list of disproved messages that we allow to entrench in our minds, much of it junk that holds us back. Ignore them – go the other direction.
We’re learning that our creative powers don’t diminish as we age unless we allow it. They may slow, but we can build brain power and create as well as when we were younger. So, don’t buy the line that says senescence is automatic. It isn’t.
We start dying slowly when we allow our dreams and desires to fade in the face of the myths about aging.
Henry Ford had it right:
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning today is young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young. “
5. Get strong, stay strong.
Aerobic exercise should be keystone in your lifestyle. Optimally, from age 40 forward, your week should include six-days-a-week of aerobic exercise of 30 minutes or more with your heart rate in an aerobic zone of 220 minus your age x .65 and .85.
But it shouldn’t stop there. It’s vital to have a strength training component along with your aerobic exercise – at least two days a week.
Here’s why. Beginning in our mid-30s, our bodies begin to lose muscle mass at a gradually accelerating pace. The clinical name for the condition is sarcopenia and it really accelerates when we reach our 50s and ends up becoming one of the major causes of early frailty and premature death in our culture unless compensated for. The only antidote is strength-training – there are no drugs to effectively treat sarcopenia/loss of muscle mass.
Failure to compensate for loss of muscle mass is a major contributor to the “live short and die long” referenced above. Falls and broken hips, which are major contributors to early frailty and premature deaths, are a consequence of lost muscle mass.
Get a gym membership (if they are able to come back after COVID) or build an at-home gym (here’s a photo of my current in-home set up – treadmill, upright bike, Bowflex, weight-bench and assorted free-weights). Boring but effective.
Get with a trainer to get started properly and to avoid early injury that may discourage you from staying with the program. Put heavy emphasis on your core, quads, and ankles – keys to avoiding falls later on and for avoiding back problems as you age.
6. Rethink retirement.
You may have bought into the Euro-American concept of leisure-based retirement and perhaps are convinced that retirement is an entitlement and a nirvanic end-goal filled with exotic travel, golden sunsets, and total freedom. And it can be all that but at the risk of experiencing some of the subtle, hidden downsides of a self-indulgent, leisure-based retirement.
There is an encouraging, but slow, shift taking place in our awareness of the downsides of the traditional, off-the-cliff, labor-to-leisure retirement model that we have cherished for decades and is so effectively marketed by the financial services industry.
Part of it is because we know so much more about what comprises good health and the growing awareness that our biology offers us only two choices, regardless of age: growth or decay. There are many aspects of the traditional retirement model that violate this biological principle and can accelerate our physical and mental decline.
Historically, there has been a tendency for retirees to become more sedentary and move less. Satisfying the dream of spending less time in the kitchen promotes a lifestyle of eating out more where food content is less healthy – 30–40% higher calorie content and generally heavy in sugar, salt, fat.
Netflix, voice-activated remotes, and the Laz-y-boy become increasingly tempting.
Continued learning diminishes.
Social isolation is a major concern post-retirement and is said to be equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
The new trend for this “third age” is away from self-indulgent, leisure-based retirement and more toward continuing to stay engaged with work of some sort, be it volunteer, part-time, full-time, or by starting a new business. The largest number of new businesses over the last decade or so have been started by folks over 50.
In my coaching practice with folks over 50, I encourage them to consider their third age as a time to strive toward achieving a balanced lifestyle of labor, leisure, and learning.
I believe it is a healthier formula and can lead to “living longer and dying shorter” versus our current predominant “live short, die long” model.
7. Connect and commit.
A recent random survey by Cigna revealed that nearly half of those surveyed “sometimes or always feel alone” and that 40% “feel their relationships are not meaningful and that they feel isolated.”
These are alarming numbers because of the health and mental health risk associated with social isolation and loneliness. AARP recently revealed that the health risk of prolonged isolation is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
There is substantial evidence that social isolation and loneliness increases the risk of early death. Social isolation is a threat as many retirees exit from the work environment and lose the major part of their social life. They often find themselves without much of a social network outside of that environment.
We are wired to connect, to be in community.
Let me wrap by quoting Chris Crowley, co-author of the aforementioned book “Younger Next Year.” As a successful attorney, he offers up the following which I feel is golden advice for a 40-something that is considering “what’s next.”
“It was nuts to immerse myself so completely in my old professional life before retirement. In particular, it was foolish not to have other hobbies, communities and commitment – things I care about and people who care about me- when my work life ended. If you’re going to do well in this country, you have to make a massive commitment to your job. No question about it. But don’t make your job your only commitment, because it will go away. You need to get a life that will last a lifetime. It makes sense to start on that project as early as you can. Today would be good.”
Your comments are important. They help us stay on track. Scroll down and let us know your thoughts about this.
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.”
OK, you’re over 60 – what do you know now that you’d like to tell your 40-year-old self?
Recently, a questioner on Quora.com asked me to answer this question:
“For people 55 and older, what would you tell your 40-year-old self? What do you wish you knew then that you know now.”
I’m deep into the demographic so I took a shot at it. I found it hard to keep it short.
So, if you know a 40-year-old that is patient enough to listen to an insufferable septuagenarian, here’s what they would hear from me:
1. Get healthcare literate and take control of your health.
Since you are living in the U.S., there is a good chance that your lifestyle has already done some damage to your long-term health. That is unless you are one of the few outliers that have lived a disciplined life of good diet, exercise, low/no stress, and have chosen to understand how your biology works and how best to treat it.
I grew up in an era in the 50s and 60s where our health habits were marginal at best. We lacked the knowledge, awareness, and access to the healthy living information that we have today. I smoked for 18 years until age 37. In the 1950′s, smoking was considered healthy and promoted by doctors, dentists, and movie stars. Diet was built around meat and potatoes. We knew little and lived accordingly.
Although I’ve been a gym rat for 40+ years since then, I didn’t pay attention to my diet and continued on the S-A-D (Standard American Diet) until into my late 50s.
At age 73, a routine heart scan revealed I was in the high-risk category for cardiovascular disease with significant artery calcification. But, I’m lucky. Mine appears to be distributed because subsequent echo and nuclear stress tests showed normal blood flow (my left ventricular artery – the widow maker – is clear).
My six-day-a-week exercise program continues and I have radically reduced my intake of meat, dairy, and C-R-A-P (calorie-rich-and-processed), the major components of our S-A-D still today.
My point is that if you choose to live a normal American lifestyle, you likely:
We know all we need to know to take full advantage of our birthright of good health. But, as a society, we choose to continue to remain naive about how our bodies and minds work and choose to abuse our immune system with poor health habits, failing to appreciate the slow, insidious damage that is being done until, often, it is too late to stop or reverse.
Consider a few important facts:
Once I understood how my biology worked at the cellular level, I began to change up many things in my life: increased my exercise, changed my diet, and radically reduced stress in my life. I recommend you read the source that kickstarted my increased awareness and motivation: the best-selling, transformational book “Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond.”
The authors convinced me that I inherited a magnificent immune system of some 35 trillion cells that works 24×7 to keep me healthy. It doesn’t ask for much to do its job and will reward me if I follow the simple guidelines of what it needs i.e. good glucose, oxygen, fewer harmful stress hormones in my bloodstream, and rest.
Knowledge is power, especially in protecting your health. Take charge on your own, be distrustful of a profit-driven medical, pharmaceutical, and food industry to be doing what is right for your optimal health. Believe me, they are not.
2. Discover/rediscover your strengths and talents.
Most of us “olders” are a product of the 20th-century linear-life model that looks like this:
We were squeezed into a learn-earn-retire model built on conformity and heavy cultural expectations: getta degree; getta job; getta wife, house, kids, two cars and a golden retriever; getta title; getta 401K; getta gold watch.
Here’s where that has ended up happening for many of us from that era:
I’ll confess to having drunk this 20–40–20 Koolaid, spending 35 years operating outside my essence and my deepest talents and strengths in the corporate world building someone else’s dream and doing the “normal” accumulation and conformity thing. While I did OK, it took separation from that and a venture into my own business to slowly begin to reveal that I was wired for something different.
I ignored several personal/psychological assessments and personal experiences that were telling me that my core strengths were in learning, writing, teaching, speaking, coaching.
I’ve arrived where I need to be, but late in my life. So my suggestion to you at 40 is to start, or restart, thinking about what you are really, really good at, what you really, really enjoy doing, and what the world needs and ask yourself if that fits what you are doing now. If not, it’s a good time to start thinking of where you can best use your talents, skills, and experience and fill that hole that I’ll call “lack of purpose.”
3. Plan for a “third-age” with a sense of purpose.
The level of disengaged employees in the workplace is at an all-time high. I was there for years in the corporate world. Few people enter their careers with a solid grasp of what their deepest core talents, strengths, and desires are. Or if they had a sense of what those were, they entered the system that our culture expects of them where those innate inner drivers get shuttled to the background in favor of accumulation and conformity, meeting cultural expectations.
For many, these drivers never resurface. And they plod on through an unexciting, unmotivating career with the expectation of reaching that nirvana stage called “retirement” mostly unaware of the downsides of that decision.
This sense of “lack of purpose or meaning” tends to surface at mid-life, usually in the 40s and 50s when one faces the reality of more days behind than ahead and struggles with questions like “Why am I here?”; “What will be my legacy, what footprint will I leave?”
Here the one that really hit me hard: “Is it really true that the number of people that will attend my funeral will largely be determined by the weather?”
At 40, I suggest it’s a time for serious reflection on where you are, how that aligns with your deepest desires and talents and begin to think in terms of a “third age” and what you want it to look like. And 40 certainly isn’t too early to start. That “third age” is the period between end-of-career and/or end-of-parenting and true old age where we come full circle back to full dependency. You’re “third age” isn’t that far off.
That life-stage today is extending, for many, to as much as 30–40 years. That’s a long time to function without purpose which is where many in the self-indulgent retirement model find themselves discovering that 30 years bingo, bridge, and boche ball isn’t healthy or fulfilling.
Fortunately, we are seeing a rising tide of mid-lifers beginning to grasp the importance of a plan for the third-age that involves continued work, contribution, and sense of purpose as opposed to the traditional narcissistic, self-indulgent, consumer-only concept of retirement.
4. Get rid of the mental junk. Never stop learning.
By 40, you’ve been exposed to – perhaps succumbed to – many harmful, life-inhibiting myths and messages. Such as:
It’s a long list of disproved messages that we allow to entrench in our minds, much of it junk that holds us back. Ignore them – go the other direction.
We’re learning that our creative powers don’t diminish as we age unless we allow it. They may slow, but we can build brain power and create as well as when we were younger. So, don’t buy the line that says senescence is automatic. It isn’t.
We start dying slowly when we allow our dreams and desires to fade in the face of the myths about aging.
Henry Ford had it right:
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning today is young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young. “
5. Get strong, stay strong.
Aerobic exercise should be keystone in your lifestyle. Optimally, from age 40 forward, your week should include six-days-a-week of aerobic exercise of 30 minutes or more with your heart rate in an aerobic zone of 220 minus your age x .65 and .85.
But it shouldn’t stop there. It’s vital to have a strength training component along with your aerobic exercise – at least two days a week.
Here’s why. Beginning in our mid-30s, our bodies begin to lose muscle mass at a gradually accelerating pace. The clinical name for the condition is sarcopenia and it really accelerates when we reach our 50s and ends up becoming one of the major causes of early frailty and premature death in our culture unless compensated for. The only antidote is strength-training – there are no drugs to effectively treat sarcopenia/loss of muscle mass.
Failure to compensate for loss of muscle mass is a major contributor to the “live short and die long” referenced above. Falls and broken hips, which are major contributors to early frailty and premature deaths, are a consequence of lost muscle mass.
Get a gym membership (if they are able to come back after COVID) or build an at-home gym (here’s a photo of my current in-home set up – treadmill, upright bike, Bowflex, weight-bench and assorted free-weights). Boring but effective.
Get with a trainer to get started properly and to avoid early injury that may discourage you from staying with the program. Put heavy emphasis on your core, quads, and ankles – keys to avoiding falls later on and for avoiding back problems as you age.
6. Rethink retirement.
You may have bought into the Euro-American concept of leisure-based retirement and perhaps are convinced that retirement is an entitlement and a nirvanic end-goal filled with exotic travel, golden sunsets, and total freedom. And it can be all that but at the risk of experiencing some of the subtle, hidden downsides of a self-indulgent, leisure-based retirement.
There is an encouraging, but slow, shift taking place in our awareness of the downsides of the traditional, off-the-cliff, labor-to-leisure retirement model that we have cherished for decades and is so effectively marketed by the financial services industry.
Part of it is because we know so much more about what comprises good health and the growing awareness that our biology offers us only two choices, regardless of age: growth or decay. There are many aspects of the traditional retirement model that violate this biological principle and can accelerate our physical and mental decline.
Historically, there has been a tendency for retirees to become more sedentary and move less. Satisfying the dream of spending less time in the kitchen promotes a lifestyle of eating out more where food content is less healthy – 30–40% higher calorie content and generally heavy in sugar, salt, fat.
Netflix, voice-activated remotes, and the Laz-y-boy become increasingly tempting.
Continued learning diminishes.
Social isolation is a major concern post-retirement and is said to be equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
The new trend for this “third age” is away from self-indulgent, leisure-based retirement and more toward continuing to stay engaged with work of some sort, be it volunteer, part-time, full-time, or by starting a new business. The largest number of new businesses over the last decade or so have been started by folks over 50.
In my coaching practice with folks over 50, I encourage them to consider their third age as a time to strive toward achieving a balanced lifestyle of labor, leisure, and learning.
I believe it is a healthier formula and can lead to “living longer and dying shorter” versus our current predominant “live short, die long” model.
7. Connect and commit.
A recent random survey by Cigna revealed that nearly half of those surveyed “sometimes or always feel alone” and that 40% “feel their relationships are not meaningful and that they feel isolated.”
These are alarming numbers because of the health and mental health risk associated with social isolation and loneliness. AARP recently revealed that the health risk of prolonged isolation is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
There is substantial evidence that social isolation and loneliness increases the risk of early death. Social isolation is a threat as many retirees exit from the work environment and lose the major part of their social life. They often find themselves without much of a social network outside of that environment.
We are wired to connect, to be in community.
Let me wrap by quoting Chris Crowley, co-author of the aforementioned book “Younger Next Year.” As a successful attorney, he offers up the following which I feel is golden advice for a 40-something that is considering “what’s next.”
Your comments are important. They help us stay on track. Scroll down and let us know your thoughts about this.
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.”
COVID Message: “No More Parking Lots!”
Image by xaviandrew from Pixabay
“We have bigger houses but smaller families; more conveniences, but less time.
We have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicines but less healthiness.
We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble in crossing the street to meet our new neighbor.
We built more computers to hold more copies than ever, but have less real communications.
We’ve become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are times of fast food but slow digestion; tall men but short characters; steep profits but shallow relationships.
It’s a time when there is much in the window, but nothing in the room.”
Authorship unknown.
I borrowed that quote from a chapter heading in a new, thought-provoking book I’m plodding through entitled “Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition” by Charles Eisenstein. It’s not a book – or author – that offers up much in the way of conventional thinking. I guess that’s why it appeals and keeps me plodding.
As near as I can tell from being through only a third of the book, Eisenstein is saying we are at, or rapidly approaching, the end of the money system that we’ve become enslaved to over the last several centuries.
My good friend, smart business guy, and Tuesday morning mastermind/accountability partner, Bryan Peck, turned me onto Eisenstein with an article entitled “The Coronation” a 9000-word, 35-45 minutes read that’s worth the time and effort. The article inspired Bryan to buy the book which he has finished and is encouraging me to continue my plodding.
Here’s just a snippet from the article to give you a taste of where Eisenstein comes from which I offer up realizing it may or may not inspire you to read the entire article:
“When the crisis subsides, we might have occasion to ask whether we want to return to normal, or whether there might be something we’ve seen during this break in the routines that we want to bring into the future. We might ask, after so many have lost their jobs, whether all of them are the jobs the world most needs, and whether our labor and creativity would be better applied elsewhere. We might ask, having done without it for a while, whether we really need so much air travel, Disneyworld vacations, or trade shows. What parts of the economy will we want to restore, and what parts might we choose to let go of?”
Will COVID help us come to our senses, finally?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been conflicted for some time now having been a staunch, life-long advocate of capitalism but trying to square it lately with the glaring exploitation of the planet.
At the risk of sounding like an environmental whacko, I confess to a growing concern of how much more we can exploit in the interest of supporting a global economic system driven to achieve never-ending growth and consumerism. That’s a core question that Eisenstein tackles.
I’ll know, I suppose, when I finish the book where he comes down. It’s clear, from what I’ve read so far that he’s headed for a suggestion of something to replace the money/interest/usury system that we know and love (maybe a “not” on that love part).
One thing seems certain – and foundational in Eisenstein’s position. A global economic system based on taking the common (or divine, if you wish) “gifts” of the planet, extracting them, repackaging them, and selling them back to us on a never-ending growth platform has to have an endpoint. What happens when we have no more fish to catch, trees to cut down, oil to extract, clean water to drink, molybdenum to mine, topsoil to destroy, etc., etc., in order to sell “stuff” back to ourselves?
Are we close to that endpoint? Big questions, tough answers.
Is COVID-19 – or the one that follows it – going to accelerate our awareness of this?
For sure, 19 is laying open more awareness of the gap between the haves and have-nots. One has to wonder if we haven’t been close to a revolution tipping point even before COVID and if this might be the spark that lights the tinder.
If I were Matt Damon, I’d maybe rethink coming out of hiding to reveal being “forced” to quarantine with family in a palatial seaside estate on the coast of Ireland. Or maybe I’d think twice before insisting publicly that I’m entitled to my $7 million a year even though MLB is shut down and I can’t throw my fastball like Tampa Bay’s Blake Snell did this week. Or, certainly, Nancy’s classic ice cream collection and well-stocked royalty-class refrigerator demonstration didn’t help (other than to confirm that Washington is not a drawer full of the sharpest knives).
Take a gander at this photo:
This is hole #10 at Arrowhead Golf Course, one of the more notable golf courses in the Denver area. The view is from the patio deck of the clubhouse.
Now, envision some 50 yards or so above and to the left of this patio deck, the construction of what has to be a 10,000 SF home that has this view every day. I discovered this as I was searching for my usual wayward drive on this fairway last week and heard what sounded like a nailgun. I turned to discover this house which is not visible from the clubhouse or the drive to it.
Secluded, separate, isolated, magnificent, palatial, incredibly expensive.
A “haves” expression of “I’ve got mine.”
I’m happy for the owner – honestly. A testimonial to hard work, creativity, no doubt some good breaks in the capitalist system. I feel no resentment or jealousy Just the thought of what it takes to maintain properties of this magnitude convinced me long ago that modest digs are more sensible for us. If there is truly a hell, I’m sure it would have to be an eternity of doing home maintenance and yard work.
But the irony of the situation stayed in my head throughout the rest of the round. While this house is being built, chances are high there is a single-mom, bartender/waitress at the same club that is out of work and in constant fear. It didn’t escape me, as well, that I was playing on a $100/round course (a friend gifted me or I wouldn’t have been there) while these same people struggled.
Do we really want to get back to “normal?”
We’ve been faking sustainability and socially-conscious capitalism for some time now. It all makes for nice PR, but scrape all that off and we are still pillaging this mudball at a rate that may have caught up with us.
Subdue means to ” to conquer and bring into subjection; to vanquish.”
I suspect, as the author of all this, God really meant “sustainably subdue” and wishes He had been a little clearer and taken it beyond just the animal realm. Obviously, lacking that and in light of our “fallen nature”, we’ve taken it beyond “every living thing” to include every non-moving thing and to “unsustainably vanquished” – or close to it.
So maybe God now says: “Here’s COVID-19. Chew on this for a while and start rethinking. Oh, BTW, I’ve got a series of these COVID-like things lined up until y’all come to your senses and start treating my creation sensibly and come back into community. Bottom line? I don’t like the long-term ROI I’m seeing with these gifts I granted you. Enough with the concrete parking lots – try a community garden and get rid of those food deserts!”
Can we afford to keep up “the normal?” Do we really want to go back?
I’m open to a cogent argument that says there is no peril to us continuing to open the “have and have not” gap.
Doesn’t your mind go a little crazy with this extra time to think about what might be next?
Couched in the context of our current political climate and an interest-based money system, it’s pretty hard to depart from a “what’s next” that isn’t further exploitation.
I’m confident (at least, this morning) that our eyes are being opened a bit to this and that some modicum of change will happen that inches us in a different direction, hopefully without a revolt.
I expect we will be hearing from more thinkers like Eisenstein – and that might be a really good thing. Maybe that thinker is you.
I’d like to know. Leave a comment.
Change Your Four-letter-word Selection to Get Through This Mess
I’m watching more movies these days than ever. I suspect you are too.
We’ve never been movie-goers/watchers. Watching a half-dozen movies a year is a busy year for us.
I’ve watched more than that just this month. End-of-day, late-night surfing the wasteland of HBO/Showtime/Epix, etc. and settling on one from the endless selection of mind-numbers.
Occasionally Shawshank or an equivalent will be available and I’ll ride it to the end, for the umpteenth time.
More times than not, it’s falling asleep to today’s’ fare of incessant gunfire, explosions, and f-bombs.
F-bombs are no longer bombs – it’s now just regular dialog mixed into virtually every sentence. I hope I never get comfortable with it.
I’m also continuing to read a lot during this crazy time -keeping my daily commitment to read at least an hour each day.
I decided to save the expense of buying more books and have gone back to my bookshelf and re-reading – in some cases for the third or fourth time – books I consider to be five-star in terms of impact.
Thus it is that I’m into the third reading of another of Steve Chandler’s many books, this one entitled “Time Warrior: How To Defeat Procrastination, People-pleasing, Self-doubt, Over-commitment, Broken-promises and Chaos.”
Whew! Any of those energy-drainers resonate with you? They all do with me. So it’s back into the book looking for that life-changing magic pearl.
Chandler is a long-time favorite. He’s a renowned business and life coach, coacher-of-coaches, author of over 30 books, sought after speaker, and a recovering alcoholic now over 30 years sober.
Chapter 24 in Time Warror (his book chapters are rarely more than 2-3 pages) jumped out at me where Steve encourages “risking your identity” and “letting your cherished, built-up personality fade away“, suggesting that egos and personalities “are finished being made up for most people in junior high school. Therefore, they are just full of adolescent fear, worry, and anxious hope.”
See those two four-letter gems in that last sentence – fear, hope.
Is there more than a little of both of those around right now?
Well, yeah. Huge doses of the former, too much of the latter.
Too much hope? Really?
I side with Chandler on this. I put “hope” and “wish” in the category of useless, harmful four-letter words that are a wasted response to the most damaging four-letter word of all – fear.
Here’s why – and I’ll quote Steve again:
“Here’s the problem with hope. Hope is always producing a longing .. a longing for external circumstances to change while ignoring the beautiful internal resources already there.” He quotes another source, attorney and high-performance business coach, Fernando Flores, who once wrote: “Hope is the raw material of losers.”
Yikes – pretty strong, counter-culture, contrarian, anti-religious stuff.
But does that make it wrong?
Not when you think of where “hope” and “wish” take us. They take us to a place that doesn’t exist – the future. They take us to a place over which we have no control other than what we do today – the future. They take us to a place where fear is the main resident – the future.
“Hope” and “wish” and “fear” are made-up words that keep us from the two four-letter words that will render all three of them invalid and useless.
Drum roll, please.
WORK & LOVE
If I’m hoping and wishing, I’m also fearing. And I’m stuck, frozen.
If I’m working, I’m moving. And I’m in the only place where fear can’t exist.
Drum roll, please.
THE PRESENT
We have hope and fear, fear and hope. Back and forth.
Interchangeable.
Unsustainable.
But when we take some form of decisive action, right here, right now, fear has no place to reside. That’s called living in the present moment.
The regrets of the past and fear of the future cannot exist in the present moment.
One of the other five-stars that came off the shelf this last month was Steven Pressfield’s quick-read classic: “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.” The book is about an unwelcome but always present companion we all have – the “Resistance”, that thing that freezes us, the author of procrastination, that small voice that questions us at every turn.
In his chapter entitled “The Ego and the Self”, Pressfield believes “angels make their home in the Self, while resistance has its seat in the Ego. The Self wishes to create, to evolve. The Ego likes things just the way they are.”
To Pressfield, the Ego believes:
The Self believes:
All the great religions of the world encourage us to bring ourselves to the present moment. Jesus reminded us that “today has enough problems of its own.”
These times will test the theory.
Will we freeze in hope or will we create in love? Will we wait and hope for the revealing of a “master plan” or will we create one of our own.
Making good use of hard times
That’s the title of Chapter 36 in Time Warrior. Chandler reminds us that “sometimes hard times and recessions can return us to the principles we always wanted to live by anyway. The principles that give us pride and satisfaction. Like this one: a penny saved is a penny earned. Or, self-reliance.”
It’s been quite a ride over the last 10 years, hasn’t it – riding these multiple rising tides? And now comfort, complacency, convenience, conformity have been interrupted faster and deeper than ever in history.
What are we left with? Simple. The same things that got us here before: work, love, creativity, self-reliance, principles.
Donald, Nancy, and Mitch are not coming to save us – let’s stop waiting for them.
Let’s climb back into the present moment, create, work, and resurrect the uniqueness God gave each of us and shed the barnacles that accumulated on that uniqueness as we “enjoyed” the aforementioned four C’s.
And leave hoping and wishing with their sidekick, fear, in the devil’s toolbox.
Your comments are important. They help us stay on track. Scroll down and let us know your thoughts about all this.
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.”
The Only Sensible COVID-19 Solution – We Gotta Get Sick!!
Aren’t we all wishing for a clear, sane voice in this COVID-19 wilderness?
I hope you’ve given up on trying to find it on either Fox News or MSNBC or CNN (or the Comedy Channel which I consider an upgrade from the aforementioned). I’m thinking answers are somewhere other than Trump news conferences and the ridiculous media stone-throwing that follows.
In my April 6, 2020 blog post (click here to read), I posited that there seems to be nary a mention of our best defense against this pesky little monster – our own immune system which, by the way, we are masterful at ignoring and abusing.
On April 20, I shared with you that our New York City COVID experience has revealed that obesity is nearly as high a predictor of COVID-19 morbidity as age.
Last time I checked, obesity is an acquired condition, a product of choices, not time. And a violator of the immune system.
Simple solution then, huh? Let’s isolate and protect the old and – pardon my bluntness – the rotund among us. Maybe we reach so far as to isolate those with asthma. We should have enough disease management data in our healthcare system to be able to identify that population.
I won’t belabor the point but must restate that 65% of the American population is overweight, 25% is obese. Just as with old people, they are pretty easy to pick out of a crowd. Asthmatics, not so much.
Given that backdrop, the “sane voice” I’ve heard recently is that of Dr. David Katz, whom I have referred to and quoted repeatedly in previous articles.
This is likely to be old news to many of you, but I want to throw it out for those who haven’t heard the idea and to reinforce the sensibility of it for those who have.
Dr. Katz says we’ve got to get big-time sick if we are going to defeat this virus.
Dr. Katz has considerable cred and his profile is rising, as it should, as an outspoken and very articulate advocate of “lifestyle as the best medicine.”
Here is a link to an article that contains links to two interviews Dr. Katz had with gentlemen at polar opposites of the political spectrum: Mark Levin, Fox News, and Bill Maher, he of profane, comedic, informed liberalism espoused on his own HBO show. (NOTE: Be sure to click “Read more” on the page to get to both interviews if they don’t load on first click. They will take a few seconds to load).
Dr. David Katz explains how the US can reopen safely and why the lockdown is dangerous
Although chided by Maher for appearing on Fox News, Dr. Katz maintains a very diplomatic, apolitical position and stands firm on his message that we will only defeat the virus by resorting to “herd immunity.” In other words, let’s let the non-vulnerable – which is the vast majority – get sick and build massive immunity while protecting the aforementioned vulnerable until the virus fades away.
It’s being done in other countries. Why not here?
Well, we would have to move Trump and crew and nearly 50 governors out of the way – and, get (oh, horrors) non-political.
I’m all in. So is my wife. We’re in the vulnerable group (the “old” segment, not the “rotund” segment, thank you very much).
I’m preaching to the choir
Hey, I get it. You are probably all in now that we are 6-8 weeks into the intentional collapsing of the world economy. It’s hard, isn’t it, to not at least give an ear to one or more of the proliferating conspiracy theories swirling around this. Like the one about this being the last leg of the plan for a world-wide totalitarian government.
I’ll pass on those time wasters. But, I don’t think Dr. Katz and “herd immunity” fall in line with any conspiracy theory. I do think it makes sense NOW so we can get people back to work.
I say, go ahead and keep the fence up around my wife and me. (NOTE: my daughter did that several weeks ago and marches it like a soldier on guard duty, God love her and we do).
Now the issue of your “fat” brother-in-law? That’s a tougher deal. But maybe with an awareness of his vulnerability, he will concede and (don’t hold your breath) maybe even change his lifestyle.
Let’s get rollin’.
We’re cutting too deep – I think we all sense that. It’s time to get back. Build a fence around me and my age counterparts, hog-tie us through the herd immunity if you must, but let’s get the rest of the world back onto some semblance of our former life, imperfect as it is.
The fence for me is tolerable. I don’t need to be shoulder-to-shoulder in a noisy watering hole. I (‘er, my wife) can live with senior hours at King Soopers. I can still do the sensible and not go stir-crazy.
I played 18-holes of golf this week – first time in weeks. I admit it was outside the fence a bit, but sensible. I’m almost a week past the experience and the only thing that hurts is the front-nine number on the scorecard. I felt perfectly safe with the safety measures the course put in place to shield patrons.
How tough was all that, really? Not so much. The golf game felt the same. And the course is staying alive.
The way I play golf, it was easy to always be 6′ or more from my playing partner.
We are all experiencing a wake-up call – mostly healthy. There’s some major “flushing” going on. Won’t it be interesting to see how much of it stays permanently flushed? As in two-hour commutes and new parking lots. As in promising careers in commercial real estate. As in small independent colleges and universities. As in the imbalance between work and family life.
Personally, I shudder to think that this may become our standard response to every virus that emerges – and we all know another one will emerge.
Can we, at some point, acknowledge that this has been going on forever and that we’ve managed to survive each mutation because we have a thing called an immune system? Maybe the biggest flushing from all this – we can only hope – will be the culturally-induced naivete we have about our bodies, how they work, and the nature of that very system that ultimately defeats the viruses.
It’s crazy to envision that swirling drain carrying large swaths of our food industry (especially Carl’s Junior, Dominoes Pizza, and their ilk), TV remotes, motorized scooters, Roombas down with it. But maybe we will start inching in that direction and begin to acknowledge the abuse we render on our birthright of good health that has been defeating these pesky microbes forever.
Let’s give our cells the best chance to do their thing. They’ve been doing it forever. And they don’t ask for much – good glucose, oxygen, less cortisol.
And some plain ‘ol common sense. It seems that may be in shorter supply than masks and ventilators.
As always, your comments are encouraged – even if barbed. Scroll down and let me know your thoughts about all this.
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.”
So, You’re Over 60 and COVID Sucker-punched. Now What?
We’re alike right now, I’m guessing.
Lots of time to think. Thinking like we’ve never had to think before. Maybe even thinking about our thinking.
What now? What if? What’s next?
Can things possibly ever be the same again? (Can we say a collective “no” on that?)
There are some who say that this is just accelerating things that were already in motion and inevitable. Like changes in how we do healthcare and education, the two industries where costs have zoomed up while the quality has gone down and the two most in need of disruption.
Because it’s where my heart is, I think a lot about what happens now for those of us who are at or past mid-life point and still healthy. What is this final stretch run going to look like? What are we going to (have to) do differently?
We had enough uncertainty dealing with a possible longevity bonus of 20-30 years before this hit. Just as we were beginning to develop some roadmaps for this “third age”, the territory gets changed.
Financially, we weren’t going into this “post-career” phase in great shape to start with. Nine months ago Yahoo Finance claimed “64% of Americans Aren’t Prepared For Retirement — and 48% Don’t Care”. Forty-five percent had zero retirement savings.
But what about the more fortunate, the better planners?
Most have taken another nasty hit after a great run following the 2008 crash.
More folks are going to have to re-think retirement; many will be forced to make mid-life career pivots.
I dropped and shattered my crystal ball at birth, but this one isn’t too hard to predict.
Some jobs just aren’t going to come back. Some industries will be unalterably changed. Skillset requirements were already changing rapidly. This will accelerate that change and hasten the elimination of many that were just hanging on.
If you saw this coming and planned for it, go to the head of the line while the 99.999999% of us behind you sort this out and try to figure out “what’s next.”
How do you pivot at 60?
Maybe you are being forced into a pivot because your job isn’t coming back.
Or, maybe you see that you are unfortunately ensconced in an industry or business that won’t survive in the long term or will never have for you what it has had for you in the past.
Or maybe, this is a wakeup call that’s telling you it’s time to be “rethinking” your post-career plans and to plan on working longer.
Regardless of where you are, here’s a suggestion for three things to consider doing right now:
Do these things even if you are gainfully, securely positioned. Protecting your health speaks for itself. But, don’t get caught having to do catch up with your resume and networking. I see it a lot, especially in the healthcare space where I spend much of my time. It’s smart to have your resume professionally done and done in a form that enables you to update it with each change.
Networking is a big differentiator. Folks who end up in protracted career pivots have typically failed to build a network or to keep their existing network alive. Effective networkers make it a weekly objective to connect with people in their network or to connect and add someone new.
Meet Steven Pressfield
I just reread Steven Pressfield’s highly acclaimed book “The War of Art” for the third time. You might consider it if you are feeling overwhelmed with doubt and with worry taking the front seat. I needed his reminder that the “Resistance” we are feeling is powerless against our boundless imagination. The last page says this:
“Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end, the question can only be answered by action.
Do it or don’t do it.
It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”
Creativity doesn’t die at midlife. I’m thinking COVID is going to help us prove that.
Let me know your thoughts with a comment below. Also, I am making my resume service available to subscribed readers at a huge discount ongoing. If you are interested, email me at gary@makeagingwork.com to set up a free 15-30 minute consultation. Or call me directly at 720-344-7784
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.”
Wait! Don’t Open That Restaurant! We’re Getting Healthier. Well, maybe.
“The mythology of nutrition is immense and confounded by culturally acquired eating habits and prejudices. For our hunter-gatherer ancestors, nutritional supply and mobility were tightly linked. Today we have uncoupled this relationship.”
That’s a quote from one of my favorite virtual health and wellness mentors, Dr. Walter Bortz, retired Stanford geriatric physician. At 89, he is still “out there” pounding the drum in favor of sanity restoration regarding lifestyle habits.
The quote came from one of the seven books he has written: “We Live Too Short and Die Too Long: How To Achieve and Enjoy Your Natural 100-Year-Plus Life Span.”
What a coincidence. Front-page Denver Post today features this headline and story from the New York Times:
“Obesity tied to severe coronavirus, especially in young.”
A “new” study now says that obesity may be one of the more important predictors of severe coronavirus illness, second only to “old age”, whatever that is. Always quick to CYA, the report is based on “anecdotal reports” from doctors who have been shocked by how many seriously ill younger patients are obese.
Anecdotal or otherwise, I’ll bet showing up at the ER with a dry cough, fever, body aches, carrying 30 pounds of extra weight and being over-60 won’t put one high on the ventilator wait-list.
The article then proceeds to explain why obesity may have compromised respiratory function with a list of what I would call “duhs” that aren’t exactly revelatory but still cautiously called anecdotal.
Things like: ” – abdominal obesity, more common in men, can compress the diaphragm, lungs and chest capacity. And obesity causes chronic, low-grade inflammation and an increase in circulating, pro-inflammatory cytokines” which they now think may contribute to fatal COVID-19 outcomes.
I think we’ve known most of this for a long time but are hesitant, for some reason, to confront. We don’t seem to like to admit that we Americans are getting really fat. It’s a trend that has continued and is now endemic.
According to the American Medical Association, with most of our population overweight, 50% of the U.S. population is pre-diabetic and 70% don’t know it.
I’m not trying to put that on all restaurants but for many of them, if the shoe fits – – -. Truth is, it’s mostly on us.
I’m gonna try to link some things up here, so bear with me.
Calculate BMI by dividing weight in pounds (lbs) by height in inches (in) squared and multiplying by a conversion factor of 703.
Example: Weight = 150 lbs, Height = 5’5″” (65″”)
Calculation: [150 ÷ (65 x 65)] x 703 = 24.96
Underweight = <18.5
Normal weight = 18.5–24.9
Overweight = 25–29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater
Confession time: I’m at 26.4 – and embarrassed. This “fat” thing is easy – and we don’t eat out. I’ll blame it on the virus if that’s OK.
There’s a good reason we abbreviate standard American diet to S.A.D. The Standard American Diet leads to standard American diseases that lead to standard American deaths.
Here in Denver, our brown cloud of air pollution has been absent for several weeks now as the highways have emptied. Grocery stores are booming. People are rediscovering their cookbooks, spice shelves, and cooking utensils. We seem to be outside, moving more.
People might just be getting healthier. And, for sure, saving money. That is if they don’t resort to delivered food.
This is a pipe dream.
OK – I know this isn’t going to happen. We love our little favorite, secret restaurant haunts -and the convenience – too much to ever think of giving them up. Plus, what normal red-blooded American woman today would redon a Donna Reed apron to prepare three squares?
Red-blooded American male stepping up? Yeah, right!
The restaurant business is a tough business run by a lot of great people, and sustaining livelihoods for a lot of hard-working people. I’m not intending to rag on restaurants in general but more on our own individual lack of awareness of how we eat impacts our endemic obesity. It’s a rare restaurant that hasn’t taken note of the increase in health consciousness and modified their menus to accommodate the more health-conscious.
I’m guessing, however, those “healthy” meal options aren’t the big sellers. Our sugar-salt-fat cravings ignite at the first step into the restaurant – clogged arteries be damned.
But, just suppose this forcing of families together for home-prepared food puts us on a healthier track for the long run. If we knew what we were doing to our systems insidiously with each undisciplined restaurant visit, we probably wouldn’t be doing it. But lifestyles are hard to change, taste-buds hard to retrain. And the food manufacturers have been incredibly clever and successful in capturing ours. Restaurants are their most effective medium.
Over 60% or early American deaths are due to poor diet, pandemic or no pandemic. Will we take advantage of this “new” awareness of how vulnerable our lifestyle decisions leave us when the next virus rolls around?
P.S. It will roll around.
We’ll all be older when it does. But we don’t need to be rounder. Let’s hope we pay attention and learn something about waistlines while we keep our six-foot separation.
Like getting reacquainted with the perimeters of our local grocery store – or selecting the salad option at your irresistible restaurant.
Perhaps we could even go neanderthal and get back to the ELMM diet:
Eat Less, Move More.
Leave a comment below or email me at gary@makeagingwork.com. We’d love to know how you are doing through all this mess.
Thanks for tuning in. If you haven’t joined our growing list, trip on over to www.makeagingwork.com, sign up and receive a copy of my free ebook “Achieving Your Full-life Potential: Five Easy Steps to Living Longer, Healthier, and With More Purpose.”
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:
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:
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.”
You May Be Ignoring Your Best COVID-19 Defense. Our “Leaders” Certainly Are!
I don’t get it.
In all of the recommendations we are getting to avoid contracting COVID-19, have you ever heard one utterance suggesting consideration of “immune system competence?”
You know, like, putting your body in the best position to ward it off naturally before it can get a foothold.
I watch more Fox News and MSNBC than I should admit to. I flip back and forth between the two when I’ve become bored with Comedy Central and need a stronger hit of comedy.
Never, with all the Fauci’s and Birx’s and Pence’s that are building quite the brand for themselves have I heard one utterance like “folks, get your ass in shape. That’s the first and best front line defense against dying of this nutty stuff.”
Nothing from the CDC or WHO or AMA either.
It’s all about “duck and cover” – no prevention talk from this prestigious circle.
Well, I guess that would be too much of a shock for a culture looking for a quick fix, a drug, a magic elixir, and a nanny state to come up with one or all of the above.
Yep, my needle is stuck
If you’ve endured my articles for very long, you know I’ve kinda railed on this a few times. Look, we are walking around in an incredible 24×7 immune system of 35 trillion cells – give or take a few trillion – that has somehow been kludged together into a wondrous system fighting to keep us healthy.
We do a magnificent job of mistreating it.
The cells don’t ask for much – adequate oxygen and some good glucose and less adrenaline/cortisol/norepinephrine coursing through the bloodstream is good for starters.
Treat ’em right and they are inclined to return the favor with more energy, fewer infections/illnesses and, ultimately, a longer life without extended morbidity and early frailty.
But, shoot, that’s too easy.
It doesn’t fit our lifestyles. Or our healthcare system ’cause all it knows is cure -trying to catch the horse after it’s left the barn. Mop up the water but don’t turn off the spigot. If we can’t medicate it, well, there’s always the scalpel.
What’s that, your PCP asks? You’re asking if more exercise, sleep, less processed foods, more leafy greens/beans/avocados/nuts, meditation make sense? Where’s the reimbursement in all that, he/she says? Here, try this (fill in here with the Fox News miracle drug of the day _________________) and call me if it doesn’t work.
OK, I’m 78 and I’m hallway-gurney-triage-fodder if I get this bug based on my age. Screw the good physical condition – you’re toast, gramps. Can’t waste a ventilator.
I’m nuts and arrogant enough to believe my physical condition would prevent that from happening. Nothing I’d like better than to be an example for immune system competence for septuagenarians should I get it. No, I’m not that ego-saturated that I’m going to come out of my “stay-at-home” and take the risk.
But, I am just a little miffed that we can’t mix in just a little bit of monologue or dialogue about the basic, no-cost/low cost/always available tools that can front-end this rascally bug.
Get-less-sick, need-less-care, get-back-to-work formula (these are copied – see below for attribution):
Now, that didn’t hurt, did it?
If these aren’t or haven’t been a part of your life, it’s probably too late to start today and expect it to build instant immunity to COVID-19. But how ’bout protection against the regular viruses that will continue to assault us or against the next pandemic (and there will be one).
Plus, what’s not to like about just flat feeling and looking better. And not having to unscramble the messages from our government and it’s media “friends.”
Oh no – another YouTube.
Yes, like you, I have some time that I’m filling with things I normally wouldn’t be doing. Like following some media trails I haven’t followed before.
I know you are getting besieged with tons of COVID-19 related info and, if like me, wondering what’s real, what’s fake, what’s politically motivated and shaky, what’s carrying more profit motive than not …….
Here’s a YouTube link to further clutter your inbox presented by a highly credentialed physician under the Singularity University banner that I found particularly informative because it succinctly covered (if you can call 40 minutes succinct) so much ground and touched so many different aspects of the coronavirus impact.
It’s also where I got the immune competence list above.
There’s stuff in here that I’d never heard before or would have ever thought about. You might find it worth the 39 minutes (or less at 1.25 speed).
Let’s renew our commitment to getting in shape.
Here’s a picture of my crowded “basement gym” which is getting lots of attention now as I continue my six-day-a-week aerobic and strength-training routine. It’s boring as hell and not the highlight of my day. But, you see, I’ve got this immune thing going that craves competence and has a big payoff. It’s the least I can do.
I realize that’s not duplicatable in many homes, but you don’t need it. Get reacquainted with that lost art of walking and use your own body-weight for resistance work until the rec centers and athletic clubs reopen.
Let’s stop being an easy, non-resistant target to the virus world. Perhaps this will be one of the many lessons we will have learned when we spin out of this.
And we WILL spin out of this!
Be safe – GET IN SHAPE.
Let me know your thoughts below with a comment or drop me an email to gary@makeagingwork.com.
I trust that you are being safe and sensible during these challenging times. 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.”
The Okinawa Diet – and Living to 100
Some time ago – April 30, 2018 – I introduced readers to Dr. Michael Greger, American physician, author, and professional speaker on public health issues. Dr. Greger is a clinical nutritionist. I’ve been following him for several years by subscribing to his NutritionFacts.org blog.
As a very vocal critic of our food industry and our American eating habits, he provides an incredible amount of helpful information each week. His insights are always backed by lots of research and documentation.
His video and written blogs are short with lots of punch. Consider taking advantage of his free information to stay better informed.
This week, I simply wanted to share what I consider to be one of his best video blogs. It’s just one more eye-opener to the destructive nature of the American diet, using Okinawa as the centerpiece for his ongoing argument in favor of a change in our dietary habits.
Click on the video above. I think you will find it very informative – perhaps even inspirational enough to consider an audit of your diet.
Enjoy – and let me know what you think below.
Don’t Let Yourself Become a Senior Citizen. There’s a Better Alternative.
Is a senior citizen in their 60s or 70s, and at what point is one considered elderly?
My answer (augmented from the original Quora post):
It’s in the eye of the beholder.
I find “senior citizen” to be outdated, pejorative, ageist, and unnecessary.
I’m 78 (this month) and refuse to put myself in that category. This is not a denial that I am not older than most or that I’m not getting older. I just don’t need another moniker to remind me and to plunk me into a category that has a negative tone to it.
Culturally, we have this need to categorize people by age. It’s a by-product of the creativity of the American Psychology Association and corporate marketers.
For instance, until 1904, we had two age categories – adult and child. Then, in 1904, G. Stanley Hall, President of the APA, invented the term “adolescent.”
Since then, we’ve grown to seven categories: newborn, infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adult, middle age, and old age
Each one is a lucrative market for psychologists and clever corporate marketers.
It’s not surprising that we really don’t know what name to use for folks in that now-extended period between middle age and old age. We’ve never been here before with 20-40 years ahead of us, most of it in good health. Senior citizen probably made sense when you were automatically there at 65 in the eyes of the government, financial industry, the general public and were facing just a few years before checking out.
It doesn’t fit anymore. And I, and many in my demographic slot, take umbrage with the term.
So, if you don’t mind, I’ll step over the “senior citizen” moniker and just consider myself a fully-functioning septuagenarian with more gas in my tank than I had when I was wandering in the haze of corporate life at age 50.
I don’t much like hanging with those who consider themselves “senior citizens” since conversations tend to become “organ recitals” about the latest surgery, colonoscopy, memory lapse, knee/hip/shoulder replacement, back pain or about someone they know who just went through all of the above.
I love engaging other “kick-ass” sexagenarians/septuagenarians/octogenarians who refuse to participate in the ageism that terms like “senior citizen” represent.
“Kick-ass defined”
How do you know if you are “kick-ass”? You are:
Equally important, I like to engage “youngers” be they millennials or GenXers because I have so much I can learn from them. And there’s a chance it will help break down the stereotypes they have about older people, a stereotype we have created ourselves by looking and acting like senior citizens or, worst case, geezers.
“Modern Elder” is the right replacement for “senior citizen.”
I like where Chip Conley, successful 50-something entrepreneur and author of a book entitled “Wisdom at Work: The Making of the Modern Elder” has gone with this. He’s coined the term “Modern Elder.”
Conley states that Modern Elders exhibit wisdom in the following ways:
I think I’ve got most of these in me to bring out, polish up and do something meaningful with. I’m guessing you do too – unless you choose to be a senior citizen instead – and attend a lot of “organ recitals.”
Conley goes on to say:
“In fact, Modern Elders experience an emancipation from others’ expectations that allows us to transcend needless conventions which means we may appear more youthful and innocent. ‘Neoteny’ is a quality of being that allows certain adults to seem childlike and leads people to remark about how these elders seem so young at heart and timeless.”
See, doesn’t that sound and feel better than carrying a “senior citizen” bullseye on your back.
I can be a Modern Elder as long as I want and make a strong statement against ageism along the way. There’s really no reason I, or anyone over 50, shouldn’t be a Modern Elder until the universe decides to take the parts back.
We can slow down that inevitability, ditch the monikers and use each day to share the gifts we’ve been given.
And leave the tags for the psychologists and marketers.
I hope this resonates. Let me know below with a comment or drop me an email to gary@makeagingwork.com.
I trust that you are being safe and sensible during these challenging times. 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.”