 By Shae Hadden | Bio
Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love
contains an interesting perspective on aging. For the Balinese, it is
more important what day of the week you were born on than the year you
were born in. One of the characters, a Balinese medicine man named
Ketut, knows only that his birthday is on Thursday and that he was an
adult in WWII. His estimates of his age vary daily, depending on how
tired or upbeat he's feeling. Imagine what life might be like if you didn't know what year you were born in.... [ Read More]
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 By Jim Selman | Bio
The word “Elder” is becoming the vogue term
for people over 60 or, in some cases, even younger. I think it is a
mistake as well as inaccurate to make “Elder” synonymous with having
reached a certain age. First of all, being an Elder is a role, not a
fact of biology. Moreover, it is a role that exists in the context of
community. The word itself distinguishes a relationship between the
Elder and members of their community. More than that, I see several
criteria that must be met before one can assume the role of Elder.[ Read More]
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By Jim Selman | Bio
I don't think that age is personal. I know
it feels like it is 'me' that is getting older, but I don't experience
myself as older. If anything, I experience my 'self' as being 'better'
than at any time I can remember over the past 66 years. I feel more
'alive', more engaged, more present and more satisfied than ever. It is
true that my body can’t run, wrestle or climb as easily as in the past.[ Read More]
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The Journal of Positive Psychology recently published the
results of a multi-year study of 818 people between the ages of 18 and
94 into the origins of life satisfaction throughout adulthood. The
research team's findings indicated that:
- The key components of successful aging are not cognitive or physical functioning (older people tend to rate their happiness as high or higher than young people, in spite of medical concerns)
- Self-reported health is not a key predictor of satisfaction
- Knowledge, skills and experience required in life are not significantly associated with satisfaction
- The capacity to reason abstractly and draw inferences was a key predictor of satisfaction in younger and middle-aged adults (intelligence is highly valued when one is still in the workforce)
- Things that dissatisfy us the most remain constant
Lead author Karen Siedlecki, a post-doctoral research fellow in the
cognitive neuroscience division at Columbia University, stated that,
"The really key components of successful aging may be how happy you are
and how satisfied you are with your life, and these factors don’t tend
to decline with age.”[ Read More]
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By Jim Selman | Bio
I
heard someone remark that the best thing about getting older is they
don’t have to be afraid anymore. While I think that is one of life’s
‘truisms’, it falls into the same category as your mother telling you
“not to worry”—it doesn’t help much to know that when you are worried!
From what I can see, most people get more fearful and anxious as they
age. This anxiety takes various forms: fear of not having enough money,
fear of being homeless, fear of being alone, fear of becoming dependent
or of losing one’s faculties. The list could go on.[ Read More]
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The idea that our brains decline as we age is in itself in decline. Studies reported in a new edition of the neurology book Progress in Brain Research
suggest that for most of us as we age, our attention widens in focus.
This, combined with the fact that we have more information to remember,
makes it more difficult to recall small bits of information like a
phone number or name. Yet it is this very accumulation of information
that helps us become "wiser" as we age: by transferring what we've
learned in one situation to another, we can more readily clarify what
information is useful in solving or avoiding problems. We effectively
and assimilate data and more easily put it into a broader context. For
example, an expanded focus means we can 'read' the indirect messages in
someone's body language and conversational tone and wisely conclude the
real impact of what they are trying to communicate. Or we can interpret
a detail in a letter that may seem irrelevant, but which, given our
experience and understanding of a similar situation, we know will
directly impact our strategy or plans.[ Read More]
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I don't think that age is personal. I know it feels like it is 'me'
that is getting older, but I don't experience myself as older. If
anything, I experience my 'self' as being 'better' than at any time I
can remember over the past 66 years. I feel more 'alive', more engaged,
more present and more satisfied than ever. It is true that my body
can’t run, wrestle or climb as easily as in the past. I make love more
often than in the best moments of my youth and, best of all, I am
experienced enough to enjoy it more. While age is always relative, I
can't really think of anything about being my age that isn't wonderful.
Moreover, I am looking forward to every day being the best yet.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
Tagged with:
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I have written about resignation on several occasions. I think we need
to remember this is a condition in which we give up, but do so in a way
that hides the fact that is what we are doing. Resignation is a big
part of what we think of as the ‘human condition’ and, in my opinion,
it can become more pervasive as we age. I frequently speculate on what
will happen if enough of us become resigned about something at the same
time. My view is that the resignation becomes the reality when this
happens. I am in Buenos Aires this week.[ Read More]
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I was having a conversation today with the Board of a not-for-profit
organization and one of the participants noted that they “needed to
have more younger people” on the Board. I asked “Why?” Her response
was that she was at an age (which I judged to be around 60) when she
had a lot of commitments, she needed to keep earning money and just
didn’t have as much time and energy to give. She went on to say that
younger people had more time, less need for money, and lots more energy
for the kinds of projects that needed doing. Now I don’t know who she was thinking about but almost all of the
younger people I know are very busy, don’t have enough time and money
and little extra energy for other projects.[ Read More]
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"When you find the right person, age doesn't matter." Intergenerational
relationships are not a thing of the past. They are actually alive and
well in North America. There is good coverage of the many people who
work and volunteer helping seniors. However, reports like this one out
of Tennessee show that women developing friendships across generations
can create a future not possible without intergenerational
collaboration. Common interests, mutual respect, and caring are the
foundations for invaluable friendships like these: relationships that
cross the generation gap, embrace differences and accept each person as
they are. [ Read More]
Written by admin at News
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