Most people are taken in by anyone claiming the fountain of youth exists in their product...instant non-surgical face lift, lengthen your penis, augment your breasts with implants or lifts, get rid of what you don't want on your body, take fat off with liposuction, and on and on the list goes. However, telling people how to grow old satisfied and happy doesn't sell...no one seems to want to grow old, as inevitable as that is for us all.
Just as the infant has to learn there is a time to give up the breast and replace it with a bottle, then give that up for a glass or cup, seniors need to learn that they, too, have to learn that you never stop growing beyond what might have been comfortable and possible earlier in life. While the child outgrows many needs, observing a child being toilet trained makes it clear that it is very difficult to give up even that part of yourself they will later learn not to want to claim as it gets flushed 'to feed the fishies'.
Just as the boys in Peter Pan refused to grow up, seniors refuse to accept the inevitable growing old. Elders need to understand that no matter what they do to themselves, they will never be or look young again. Witness more recent pictures of Michael Jackson, Joan Rivers, Zsa Zsa Gabor, or many others who may no longer have wrinkles, but they don't look young, either. It is not difficult to understand why men on TV want to wear toupees but off TV they are more difficult to maintain as a real enhancement. Vanity plays a large part in the resistance to growing old gracefully. If your identity was wrapped up in your appearance, sadly for you, it may be a greater demand for accepting change.
To grow old gracefully is simple. Accept what was as in the past and accept the limitations of the present whether they are physical, financial, or mental. The older driver whose vision is impaired but insists on driving is as dangerous as the drunk on the road. Denial does not belong during an assessment of current abilities. Just because you used to be able to do something doesn't mean you can or should do it today. If you need proof of that, play those electronic hand-held games with a child under 12 years of age. Reaction time is important to driving; reacting in an unanticipated situation; and whether your brain can quickly process information. It determines whether you can even follow the TV, since we are fed at a very rapid rate with no pauses, to get as much info to us as is possible, even if people can't read fast enough to follow the running tape feed on the bottom of the screen while listening to the newscaster speaking a totally different subject.
Accept the inevitable. Use whatever senses you have working. Keep modifying your life style to fit your current abilities. Sixty five years ago there was a postcard that read, "Don't be the old maid who waited so long for her ship to come in that her pier collapsed." Grab life where you can but don't try the impossible. Give up regrets, it takes wasted energy, as does plotting revenge. There are positives in most things....look for them.
Showing posts with label growing old gracefully. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growing old gracefully. Show all posts
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Monday, June 23, 2008
GRACEFUL AGING
There has been little I have found useful that has been written about aging. It is a process that starts at very different chronological times for each of us. Just as 'Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder', so is 'Age reflects how you think and behave.' This said, let me explain what I meant by graceful aging in the title.
Years ago when mini skirts first came out, they looked wonderful on young women with slender bodies. Often, their middle aged mothers who refused to see themselves as pudgy, began to wear them and looked grotesque. Middle aged men began to wear dungarees but did not fill them as fetchingly as slim, athletic, young men.
While we have Senior Olympics and sports, there are too many who try to keep up with all the physical activities of their youth, with frustration their reward. Recently, speaking with a friend whom I have regarded as a Renaissance Man, he told me what he has added to the list of hobby equipment of which he has divested himself. He sold his grand piano when arthritis in his hands made it impossible to play as he wished any longer. However, he has an electronic piano connected to his computer where he can still compose and play. He has rid himself of all his woodworking equipment and wood but had kept his frame making miter as he now does more oil painting. He used to have metal lathes and other tools for his clock repairing. When he developed enough of a tremor to make the results less than his standard, he sold all that, too. While his driving has become limited to necessity shopping and hospital trips and he can no longer climb the stairs easily to get to the jazz venues he loved so much, he contents himself with recordings.
Graceful aging is the ability to live in the reality of one's physical and mental capacities. No chronology can be put on this since it varies so much for everyone. Thus, graceful aging centers on one's ability to adapt to their own reality. Our human ability to sublimate was a gift of Nature to allow us to adapt. We read about the adventures of those with youth and strength. The Internet has given us the ability to travel anywhere in the world without leaving our homes. We can see great paintings and inside many museums; statues and wonders of the world and there for us to view; learn about other cultures, news of the world; and we can vicariously ski board down steep peaks via YouTube. We can catapult, or hear about our politics from people unafraid of telling it like it is. We can even see places that we wouldn't personally want to go to. How wonderful it is to live in this period of time and place when we do not have to go out alone to freeze on an ice float when we can no longer prevent being a burden to our family. Those of us lucky enough to have loving families who help allow us to stay as independent for as long as possible, make some of those difficult years of raising them less painful in retrospect. But, while we no longer need offspring to carry on the farm or business, we were setting up systems to care for our elderly until our current Administration decided elder care need not take precedence over greed, thus the rebuilding of Iraq is more important than a domestic budget to offer medical care to all and the ability to grow old gracefully rather than disgracefully.
Years ago when mini skirts first came out, they looked wonderful on young women with slender bodies. Often, their middle aged mothers who refused to see themselves as pudgy, began to wear them and looked grotesque. Middle aged men began to wear dungarees but did not fill them as fetchingly as slim, athletic, young men.
While we have Senior Olympics and sports, there are too many who try to keep up with all the physical activities of their youth, with frustration their reward. Recently, speaking with a friend whom I have regarded as a Renaissance Man, he told me what he has added to the list of hobby equipment of which he has divested himself. He sold his grand piano when arthritis in his hands made it impossible to play as he wished any longer. However, he has an electronic piano connected to his computer where he can still compose and play. He has rid himself of all his woodworking equipment and wood but had kept his frame making miter as he now does more oil painting. He used to have metal lathes and other tools for his clock repairing. When he developed enough of a tremor to make the results less than his standard, he sold all that, too. While his driving has become limited to necessity shopping and hospital trips and he can no longer climb the stairs easily to get to the jazz venues he loved so much, he contents himself with recordings.
Graceful aging is the ability to live in the reality of one's physical and mental capacities. No chronology can be put on this since it varies so much for everyone. Thus, graceful aging centers on one's ability to adapt to their own reality. Our human ability to sublimate was a gift of Nature to allow us to adapt. We read about the adventures of those with youth and strength. The Internet has given us the ability to travel anywhere in the world without leaving our homes. We can see great paintings and inside many museums; statues and wonders of the world and there for us to view; learn about other cultures, news of the world; and we can vicariously ski board down steep peaks via YouTube. We can catapult, or hear about our politics from people unafraid of telling it like it is. We can even see places that we wouldn't personally want to go to. How wonderful it is to live in this period of time and place when we do not have to go out alone to freeze on an ice float when we can no longer prevent being a burden to our family. Those of us lucky enough to have loving families who help allow us to stay as independent for as long as possible, make some of those difficult years of raising them less painful in retrospect. But, while we no longer need offspring to carry on the farm or business, we were setting up systems to care for our elderly until our current Administration decided elder care need not take precedence over greed, thus the rebuilding of Iraq is more important than a domestic budget to offer medical care to all and the ability to grow old gracefully rather than disgracefully.
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