Open Letter to Someone Who Needs to Be Rich to Avoid Suffering.

August 2, 2022

Someone, somewhere, popped this question recently on Quora.com. I had to respond.

How can I be rich? Am I suffering too much?

May I ask – are you talking intrinsic riches or extrinsic riches?

The difference?

Extrinsic = external, materialistic, possession-based riches such as money, houses, cars, clothes, etc.

Intrinsic = internal riches are unbound to possessions and include self-image, self-satisfaction, feeling valued and needed, knowing and using your core talents and strengths selflessly.

Extrinsic riches fade.

Intrinsic riches endure.

If you are suffering, perhaps how you feel about yourself is too bound to the cultural influence and imagery that surrounds and pushes us onto a hedonic treadmill to try to keep up, to cast an image of outward success, to compare favorably.

That’s a trail full of potholes that typically ends in more suffering.

Teddy Roosevelt said it best:

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

We were not put on this planet to accumulate. We were put here to serve. Our capitalistic society is built on continuous accumulation, and our culture pushes comfort, convenience, and comparison. It’s a perfect storm, and the end game can be unnecessary suffering.

You’ll find true riches in:

Relationships
Understanding and being true to yourself
Swimming against the destructive culture of accumulation and extrinsic pleasures
Taking your innate talents and strengths and using them to help make the world a better place.
Avoiding time travel into the past and the future, seizing each day, and staying in the moment.
Doing something that will succeed you.

There will always be suffering in our lives. It’s part of what moves us forward.

You’ll find your riches in the gifts within you.

Use them to drive positive change based on intrinsic values.

As Someone Who Is Over 80, What Advice Would You Give To a Younger Person Who Is Worried About Growing Older?

July 12, 2022

Image by Harpreet Batish from Pixabay

I post answers every day to questions on Quora.com. I’m amazed at the number of questions that come from young people, in their 20s and 30s, expressing angst about getting old.

Here’s my answer to a recent one that is the headline for this article.

Simple.

Get over it!

Embrace it!

Remember this:

“Life is a fatal disease. Once contracted there is no known cure.” Dr. Walter Bortz.

You are going to grow old and die.

Mike drop!

You have no control over the eventuality of it.

You have considerable control over how soon it happens and the quality of the time and life leading up to it.

Save the worry time and use it learning and working toward making the trip healthy and fulfilling.

Become a student of how your body and mind work and give them what they need to last the longest possible.

Worry?

Think this through.

What is worry?

The most egregious misuse of imagination possible.

I just turned 80. I stopped worrying about a number a long time ago.

I may be 80 by the calendar, but still a teenager in my mind.

The joints? Well, that’s another story!

If we didn’t have clocks and calendars, how old would you be?

You could be any age you wanted. But you live in a culture that’s obsessed with numbers. I suggest you get over that obsession early – it serves no purpose.

Maybe this will help. Guess where the lowest point of happiness is for most people?

Age 47!!

The highest?

The 70s, 80s, even 90s.

There you have it.

It starts between the temples.

Worry is a choice.

Set your sails now with a sense of purpose. Stay the course. Enjoy the ride.

Happy 4th!

July 5, 2022

Happy Independence Day! Thanks for being part of our growing tribe.

Please Tell Me You Didn’t Do New Year’s Resolutions Again!

January 18, 2022

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

OK, I’m betting they may not be on paper, but you plan to:

Lose weight
Eat better
Exercise more
Watch less TV
Spend more time with family
Read more
Go to church regularly
Get more sleep
Take up a hobby
Quit smoking
Volunteer more
Drop Facebook

In other words, become a New You for the New Year.

I know you are exceptional – you’ll make all of that happen. All in the same year and a New You comes out the other end toasting another new year on 12/31/22 and the start of a new list the next day.

We can only hope!

For most people, 13 of those 12 won’t happen.

Just imagine if we were all able to keep that sort of annual momentum year-upon-year-upon-year.

We could own the universe with all that compounding.

But then, who would want to own today’s universe?

I’ll pass.

I don’t remember when, or if, I’ve ever set New Year’s Resolutions. Certainly don’t remember ever putting them to paper. Maybe if I had I would be more of something. I don’t suppose it’s too late but as I prepare to start my 9th decade on this mudball, somehow it seems a little superfluous.

It fits better for me to do the three most important things I can think of today. String enough of those all together and the year should turn out OK.

Why don’t they work?

Setting goals is generally a good idea and is the rationale behind New Year’s Resolutions – except they also generally don’t pan out. It’s kind of a running joke that these resolutions are an exercise in futility. They usually run out of steam about April.

The classic seems to be the exercise resolution. (C’mon – you’ve been there!)

Need proof? For a few decades, I frequented an upscale athletic club daily for basketball and weight-lifting. But I always worked out at home for the first few weeks of each year because it got so overrun with well-intentioned, deer-in-the-headlights new patrons set on a “new me” in the coming year.

By the first or second week of February, the decks were pretty well cleared and things were close to normal again – certainly full-on normal by March 1.

The “January Bloom” is the only way an athletic club can make it. They convince people their membership will be “fun” and get their $39.95 on monthly recurring concealing the fact that exercise – especially as a newbie – is anything but fun and knowing that the combination of pain, inconvenience, and lack of immediate results will soon keep people at home. But still paying their monthly.

Who’s gonna admit they flunked exercise?

I don’t mean to throw water on the entire goal-setting process just because New Year’s Resolutions don’t work.

But maybe, just maybe, there’s something that works better than goal-setting – and eliminates the frustration of unachieved New Year’s Resolutions.

I’m trading goals in for “themes” that are on the path to mastery.

Niklas Göke is a writer on Quora and Medium.com who offers a different twist on goal setting perhaps worthy of consideration:

“-goals were never the reason you didn’t “make it” this year. Goals don’t help you create long-term happiness, let alone sustain it. They never have, and they never will.

From a rational perspective, goals seem like a good way of getting what you want. They’re tangible, trackable, and time-bound. They give you a point to move toward and a nudge to help you get there.

Until we reach them, all goals do is exert pressure from afar. Even worse, when we finally do achieve them, they disappear.

But on a day-to-day basis, goals often lead to anxiety, worry, and regret rather than fulfillment, pride, and contentment. Until we reach them, goals exert pressure from afar. Even worse, when we finally do achieve them, they disappear right away — like a baseball in a home run, zipping out of sight. The burst of relief is fleeting, and we think it must be happiness. So we set a new, bigger goal. Once again, it seems out of reach.”

Goke and James Altucher, bestselling author, entrepreneur, angel investor, and former hedge fund manager, advocate for themes instead of goals.

Altucher suggests creating a theme of how you want to live your life and then do the next thing that is important to you.

A theme might be a single word — a verb, a noun, or an adjective. “Commit,” “growth,” and “healthy” are all valid themes. So are “invest,” “help,” “kindness,” and “gratitude.”

A goal asks “what do I want?” but a theme asks “who am I?”

Altucher’s position is that our overall life satisfaction isn’t determined by singular events but rather by the average of how we feel at the end of each day. According to him, when you have themes, “you build unbelievable intuition on what is the next thing you should be doing in your life. You’re no longer trapped by a long list of tiny inconsequential things you feel you have to do.”

So, I’m continuing to simplify it for 2022 by envisioning myself on a path to mastery of what I’ve chosen and love to do using today to advance that in some way, fully aware that true mastery is always out of reach.

It’s the goalless journey that matters.

I’ve stolen and adopted this theme from Dr. Ken Dychtwald, psychologist and founder of AgeWave:

Breathe – Learn – Teach – Repeat

It fits who I am. If I stay true to that, on December 31, 2022, I will be smarter, healthier, and maybe will have touched somebody. And I will not be bound up or worried about having missed a goal or having to set another one.

A theme or goalless journey is immune to anxiety and fear of failure.

Here’s a meaningful quote from Niklas Goke:

“A goal splits your actions into good and bad. A theme makes every action part of a masterpiece.”

Here’s to you and I making 2022 a masterpiece – of our choosing – one day at a time.

How do you feel about this argument? Are you a committed goal setter – or do you have themes working for you? We’d love to have your feedback on the topic. Leave a comment or drop an email to gary@makeagingwork.com

Happy Holidays!

December 21, 2021

Happy Holidays from Makeagingwork.com

Thanks for being a reader and for your support and feedback over the last 4 1/2 years. Our very best to you and yours for this holiday season.

Stay safe. Stay well.

See you in 2022!

Are You Inviting the “Pity” of Younger People?

November 23, 2021

“Worrying about getting old makes us old. Being terrified of aging ages us perhaps more swiftly than anything. Research shows time and time again that our attitudes about how we age have a huge influence on how we age. When we constantly complain about how old we feel, how decrepit we are, we bring those truths into being. We stoop, slow down, give up, and talk ourselves into an early grave.”

That’s a quote from a recent article written by Julia Hubbell, a prolific and talented writer and 68-year-old self-proclaimed “bad-a**” who lives life continuously messing around at, or just beyond, the far edges of her mental and physical comfort zone. I’ve followed her on Medium.com for a couple of years, from when she was a fellow Coloradoan to now as she’s “escaped” to Oregon.

I guess I enjoy her edgy writing style because she doesn’t suffer fools, sorts out truth better than most people I know, and isn’t afraid to deliver a gut punch.

Hence, this article caught my eye: Terrified of Deteriorating and Dying Young? How to Avoid Early-Onset Elderly

How does the word “pity” resonate with you?

Julia references a study of Princeton students that found that “the students, by and large, clung to common stereotypes about the elderly, most notably those pertaining to the elderly being incompetent and less ambitious. Although their findings were mixed in regard to general discrimination and prejudice toward the elderly (e.g., both positive and negative feelings were present), they found that although most students felt a sense of warmth toward the elderly the most common sentiment involved feelings of pity toward them.“

Sorry, but I don’t think “sense of warmth” is an adequate offset to pity.

Pity gets my 80-year old hackles up!

Just don’t, please.

Why didn’t I think of that?

I don’t know if Julia originated the term “early-onset elderly” (I’ll give her credit for it) but I’m stealing it. Writers do that a lot.

It’s a perfect description of a self-inflicted condition that is still way too prevalent in our culture.

We of advancing age are often guilty of bringing on the ageism we are so quick to condemn.

We can point at our youth-oriented society, media, advertising agencies, the entertainment industry, and legitimately claim that we’re up against formidable forces to gain respect. But we mustn’t forget that when we point, we have three digits pointed back at us.

Given that, then what are three things that we overlook that contribute to making it easy for our youngers to drag out the pitying attitude.

1. Our physical appearance.

There’s nothing that says “geezer” or “biddy” more clearly than bad clothes hanging on a body that has been allowed to deteriorate. And nothing sets one apart amongst our demographic better than a fit body appropriately attired with clothes that are properly fitted and fashionably current.

One of the physical traits that become prevalent as we age is poor posture. Our age group tends to become “commas” instead of “exclamation points.” Stooped shoulders, slouching – traits that belay our age. But these are traits that are addressable.

We weren’t born with poor posture – we’ve trained ourselves into it. And we have to work hard to get our good posture back.

Dr. Walter Bortz, in his book “Dare To Be 100” puts it into a good perspective:

“Some of the bad news about aging derives simply from the way many older people look. They look bent and spent. Their posture seems to tell the story of their lives, as drooping slowly to the grave. Or course, almost all of this is preventable, and much of it is reversible. The dowager hump comes from decades of conceding to gravity – and just plain laziness. You have to work hard to have good posture.”

2. Our isolation and failure to engage.

We don’t disengage because we are old. We become old because we disengage.

Fifty years ago, disengagement was the dominant theory of the psychology of aging. Aging people were expected to loosen their bonds with society, falling away from the environment and the environment falling away from them.

Retirement and other social cues and institutional practices still come into play that pull us away from engagement with those younger. We isolate and escape to “elder warehouses” where we congregate, commiserate, and commune with only those like us, failing to engage those younger.

Younger people aren’t going to seek us ought. It’s on us to be proactive in engaging younger people, share our wisdom, listen to their concerns, and learn from them.

3. Our rigid thinking.

Are we listening to the concerns that the 2-3 generations behind us are expressing? Do we demonstrate “I’ve got mine, so don’t bother me with your whining about climate change, planet destruction, income inequality, unaffordable housing, et.al.?

We pre-boomer, boomers, early GenXers have been pretty harsh on the late GenXer, millennials, Gen Y’s.

It’s time we listen and be open-minded.

Oops. I Screwed Up!

November 9, 2021

Well, I screwed up.

This week’s post is going out next week. I hit the wrong send button in Mailchimp at midnight last night, obviously in a fog from a long day.

So, I’m filling in this week with a funny (as opposed to the usual run of unfunny stuff you are so kind to read).

I just wrapped up a season of golf playing in a senior men’s golf league. This is a seriously geratric league and, on Wednesday mornings, is the largest concentration of artificial knees, hips, and 55″ waistlines in the Denver metro area.

Good group of guys. No serious golf prowess is demonstrated between 7 a.m. and noon on league day.

I’m a poster child for poor golf. Despite playing over 30 rounds this summer, practicing a couple days a week, I didn’t move my handicap one iota.

Clubs are in timeout – and I’ve got my Wednesday’s back.

I’m admonished by my wife (and some friends) for being too serious about wanting to get better.

You know, the bit about “just enjoying nature and being in the outdoors.” To which I say, if that’s your thing, try bird watching.

Golf is intentionally designed to weed out the bird watchers and drag in guys like me with the ridiculous notion that they can get really good at the game.

I remain undettered in my commitment to shoot my age. I know it’s achievable but it means I will still need to be able to swing the club at age 100 because that’s where my score has been stuck for years now.

So, as a goodbye to the golf season and to fill in for my posting mess-up, I’m sharing this collection of exchanges that have been detected between golfer and caddy.

Enjoy. I don’t think you have to be a golfer to laugh a little at this.

Number:10
Golfer: “I think I’m going to drown myself in the lake.”
Caddy: “Think you can keep your head down that long?”

Number: 9

Golfer: “I’d move heaven and earth to break 100 on this course.”
Caddy: “Try heaven, you’ve already moved most of the earth.”

Number: 8
Golfer: “Do you think my game is improving?”
Caddy: “Yes . . . You miss the ball much closer now.”

Number: 7
Golfer: “Do you think I can get there with a 5 iron?”
Caddy: “Eventually.”

Number: 6
Golfer: “You’ve got to be the worst caddy in the world.”
Caddy: “I don’t think so . . .that would be too much of a coincidence.”

Number: 5
Golfer: “Please stop checking your watch all the time. It’s too much of a distraction.”
Caddy: “It’s not a watch – it’s a compass.”

Number: 4
Golfer: “How do you like my game?”
Caddy: “It’s very good – personally, I prefer golf.”

Number : 3
Golfer: “Do you think it’s a sin to play on Sunday?
Caddy: “The way you play, it’s a sin on any day.”

Number: 2
Golfer: “This is the worst course I’ve ever played on.”
Caddy: “This isn’t the golf course. We left that an hour ago.”

And the Number: 1 . . . . Best Caddy Comment:
Golfer: “That can’t be my ball, it’s too old.”
Caddy: “It’s been a long time since we teed off, sir.”

Living a Regret Free Life

April 13, 2021

I recently came across this post by my friend Susan Williams of BoomingEncore. As we emerge from this scourge, I felt its message was appropriate as we adjust to the new reality of a changing world. Be sure to check out the TedX YouTube at the end – a powerful 10-minute message.

Enjoy!

BY SUSAN WILLIAMS

Over the last year or so I have talked with many people who shared with me that how they currently were living was not what they really wanted to do.

Whether it was pursuing a different profession that would allow them to be more creative or wanting to help other people more or even a desire to feel that they were making a bigger difference in the world – they all had one thing in common.

They were talking about doing something different but were not actually taking steps towards doing anything about it.

It made me wonder – what stops us from pursuing what we say we really want to do?

Here are just some of the things that I think stops us;

1. Fear

Fear of failure, fear of what other people would think, fear of changing relationships, fear of not having enough time are just some examples of the fear that can stop someone from making a significant change.

2. Financial

In some cases – especially changing careers – I think that facing a potential financial impact may sometimes be even a bigger challenge than facing fear.

As we get older to think about changing from a comfortable lifestyle to possibly something less secure can be a real challenge. It may not only affect you – in many cases, it can affect an entire family.

3. Easier Just to Talk About It

Let’s be honest. It’s easier to just talk about what we would like to do in our lives rather than actually doing anything about it.

If we think about all the people who talk about losing weight, getting more exercise, seeing friends more often – but don’t – this is the same type of thing. It takes time, work, dedication, and commitment to actually pursue something new.

4. Support

To make a significant change can often require support – family, friends, colleagues – especially if your decision could impact others.

So why bother? If we have to get over some of these hurdles is any significant change really worth it?

As I thought about this question, I was reminded of a TED video I watched a while back presented by Kathleen Taylor, a mental health counselor who worked with people in their final days of life.

In her presentation, Kathleen shared what was discovered as the number one regret at the end of a person’s life. She shared the following thought that was voiced by many in their final days;

“I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself and not the life that others expected of me.”

Based on this thought I think the answer to make a change or not make a change is truly a very personal decision.

The “follow your passion” or “pursue your dreams” advice looks great on Facebook and Twitter images but any significant change is a very personal decision with many different facets to consider.

I think the really big question is to ask ourselves how we think we will feel at the end of our lives – will the choices and decisions that we have made allow us the opportunity to live the life we really wanted to live?

I think if we can answer this question honestly and have made decisions based on this question then the choices as to whether we decide to undertake a significant change becomes easier.

Our lives will then be something to look back on with both joy and satisfaction – and without any regrets.

Here is the TED Talk given by Kathleen Turner – Rethinking the Bucket List;

This article originally appeared on Booming Encore and was reprinted with permission.

Susan Williams is the Founder of Booming Encore , a site that has grown to become a globally recognized social media influencer and expert for baby boomers on retirement and aging and is ranked as one of the top baby boomer blogs worldwide. As a baby boomer herself, Susan was interested in doing something that really made a difference and has dedicated herself to overcoming the limited dedicated resources and information to support this unique time of life for baby boomers. Booming Encore also partners with some amazing contributors who generously share their experience and expertise.

I’m On My Next-to-Last Mattress – How ’bout You?

March 23, 2021

In 2019, we moved from our golf-course home of 19 years to a smaller home, deciding to rent for a while. It became a major purging event, including getting rid of our saggy 20-year-old Sleep Comfort mattress. I believe the mattress we slept on before that one lasted about 15+ years.

The other day, I completed the “Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator” that was developed years ago by Dr. Thomas Perls, MD. It’s a pretty “cool tool” and it’s free. Click on the link above and your there. It asks 40 questions, takes about 10 minutes to complete, and in a matter of minutes returns a prediction of how long you will live based on the information you provide. I recall stumbling across it and completing the questionnaire a few years ago but couldn’t recall how I had scored.

Dr. Perls is no slouch. He’s a professor of Medicine and Geriatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine and is a geriatrician at Boston Medical Center. He also is among the international leaders in the field of human exceptional longevity and the founder and director of the New England Centenarian Study, the largest study of centenarians and their families in the world.

I’m pretty sure I took the calculator before I went public with my hare-brained goal of living to 112 1/2 so I decided to take it again. Not surprisingly, I came up 17 years short of that number with a prediction that I’ve got 17 years left to get to the endpoint of 95 that the calculator predicted. Considering that 112 1/2 is classified as “super-centenarian” terrain and that there are less than a thousand of them worldwide, I guess I shouldn’t expect it to come real close to my goal.

Oh, yes – about the mattress.

I’m now using this as my answer when someone asks my age:

“I’m on my next-to-last mattress.”

The facial expressions are worth the risk of being permanently cast as deranged.

But, wait, Dr. Perl’s tool says I’m on my last mattress.

I refuse to accept it. There’s that denial thing again.

On one hand, I guess I could take some pride in being told I’ll beat the average lifespan for the American male (78.9) by 20%. But that’s not good enough.

I’m holding out for at least 100 which would validate my insolent response. That makes the current mattress my “next-to-last.”

Dr. Perl’s calculator sends a report with a list of suggested lifestyle changes that may help you beat its prediction. (No, choosing healthy parents and grandparents isn’t one of them – he’s serious).

My list of recommendations was pretty short and included a few things that don’t fit for me. Such as:

Try to work fewer hours. The tool doesn’t understand that when you are pretty much a hermit and work and play mostly intersect, a 60 hour week isn’t a threat. His recommendation speaks to the fact that most people don’t like what they do and do it too much and too long for the wrong reasons.
Less caffeine. Really? I believe that coffee-as-a-problem has been solidly debunked. Coffee and I are one until noon at least.
More dairy to fight osteoporosis. NOT! I don’t do dairy and get enough calcium elsewhere.

Try the quiz. There may be a pearl or two in the suggestions that come back with the report. On the other hand, if you are in the large majority that considers the idea of living to 100 as repugnant, maybe just stick with Netflix or Facebook. This won’t light you up.

I’d love to hear how you respond when someone asks your age (NOTE: the mattress response does not work well at the DMV). Who out there has the most creative non-number response? Leave us a note below with your creative (insolent) response.

Let’s Give This Loser the Boot!

December 28, 2020

It’s gotta be better!

It’s gonna be better!

Time to move on and give this loser of a year the boot!

I had a rough morning thinking about what didn’t happen this year that I wanted to happen.

Some highlights, a lot of lowlights.

But, there was one big highlight:

YOU!

I pushed out 51 articles in the 52 weeks. And you stuck around.

A flattering percentage of you actually read the articles – and many offered encouraging feedback.

With this last post for 2020, let me share links to the three most popular articles in 2020. You voted with the most “opens” and “clicks” for these articles.