The third age is no longer a brief intermezzo between midlife and drastic decline ... (instead, it) has the potential to become the best stage of all, an age of liberation when individuals combine newfound freedoms with prolonged health and the chance to make some of their most important contributions to life. - Mark Freedman, author of Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America.
Old age can truly be the most liberated, and liberating, time of a person's life. Free from the responsibilities of parenthood, and retired from the 9-to-5 routine, many seniors find challenge and exhilaration in the opportunities available to them. One of the calf-roper contestants in the Senior Pro Rodeo Association, age 86, said, "If I quit and sat down in my rocking chair, I'd be dead in a year!"
A 75-year-old client once told me that he was golfing with some recent acquaintances and was expressing amazement that a golfer in the party, who said he plays every day, was 86. The other golfer, to whom my client addressed the remark said, "Well, I'm 85!"
Many seniors participate in the Senior Olympics, travel with Elder Hostel and other such groups, and volunteer helping other seniors who are not as fortunately healthy. In fact, more than half of the people attending the national political conventions are AARP members. That means they are over age 50. That is a generation that was raised to be politically active; they understand the thrill of being able to participate in the political process and view voting as a patriotic duty. They know that the best way to lose your right to vote is not to use it.
In an online article, Aging in America: Coming to Terms with the Inevitable, Diane Wagner, a therapist at the Midwest Institute for Rehabilitation at Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Illinois, writes: "Unfortunately, some older persons are unable to reap the full benefits of their golden years. ... Some may become disabled ... (but) a growing problem relates to the leisure values of older adults. Some people do not value leisure as an important aspect of their lives. They do not realize the physical and emotional benefits of healthy leisure and that recreation involvement can help make a senior's life healthier and happier."
True. Senior Moments knows at least one senior who, having worked very long and hard during her working years, was horrified when she visited friends living at a West Coast Leisure World and realized they enjoyed playing cards and games during the daytime! She never learned to value leisure as an important aspect of life nor to appreciate the physical, mental and emotional benefits of healthy leisure time. It is very difficult for people who viewed work in that way to learn to value anything that might not be considered "work." When these individuals are unable to "work," and unable to make good, full use of any leisure time, they have a difficult time remaining physically well. The focus is on what they are unable to do (work, drive etc.), not on those positive things they can actually do. Negative focus is not healthy for anyone, but it can be mentally and physically devastating for a senior.
Soon, for the first time in history, there will be more Americans over age 55 than those under age 18. In less than a century, approximately 30 years have been added to our life expectancy. Old age has become, says Laura Cartensen of Stanford Today Online, for the first time in human history, a usual stage of life.
"Yet," says Cartensen, "old age is a time that few people look forward to. We have come to associate old age with dementia, poverty, physical frailty, depletion of Medicare funds, indeed, bankruptcy of the federal government." Senior Moments believes that such a list encompasses the most pessimistic way of looking at aging. People have not been living to really high ages for very long, and science, medicine and the culture itself still have much to learn about aging and its effects on the individual. Part of the reason the elderly were so revered in cultures of the past is because there were so few of them. The challenge before all of us is to transform and translate the wonderful news of increased life expectancy into actually maintaining meaningful, enriching and productive life during those extra years.
Senior Moments does not intend to belittle the many challenges of old age, nor the fact that it can often be downright depressing. Still, think of the comment from Linda Ellerbee, popular journalist and author, "Look at my face. See the lines, especially the ones around the corners of the eyes. They speak of laughter, including the best of all laughs, the one you have at yourself. The wrinkles? Honestly earned, every one of them. The lips? Thinner, but the smile is still wide, and nothing is as beautiful as joy in an old face." Keep smiling.
By Jackie Byrd
Source: http://www.bowieblade.com/
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
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