Growing Older

When we are young we assume that being old won’t happen to us. Old age is so far away we think it doesn’t matter, or maybe the event will forget us when we get there. Getting old happens to us in spite of ignoring it. It’s not an easy process, either, and is not usually done gracefully. To compound the biological problems, there is the pervasive and ignored ‘ism’ of our day, ageism, where the elderly are essentially ostracized. (More on this later.) It’s a tough row all of us must hoe one day. The actress Bette Davis summed it up like this: “Growing old is not for sissies.”

Not only do physical capabilities ebb with the years, but mental skills do as well. The elderly can cycle back to the physical and mental incapacities of being an infant. The time in the center of life when we are fully capable is but a brief window. Our problem is that in this window of the middle years we think old age is way off in time. So we don’t store up health treasures to be redeemed later on in life. Living for the moment, adopting an if-it-feels-good-do-it attitude, and traipsing through life under the mistaken assumption that the wonders of medicine will fix anything that breaks, is the formula for health disaster in the golden years.

To harvest health in the latter years requires cultivating it in the early ones. As previously explained, most of the chronic degenerative diseases that rob life begin in childhood. The good news is that most of them are preventable with proper lifestyle and diet.

We hear reports of how science will extend life to 150 years and even beyond. Aside from the fact that science has not extended life at all, and is nowhere near that capability (proof of this follows), in the state many people find themselves at even 50 or 60, who would want more time of that? Life in a nursing home crippled, demented, incontinent, breathing tanked oxygen, or on life support is not particularly attractive.

Although I discuss at length whether death is really The End in the companion book, Solving The Big Questions, let me here say that there is a time for the end of life on Earth and that is not necessarily bad or something to fear. When life brings more pain than pleasure, death is surely a welcome relief. In fact, when you think about it, all of life is filled with a series of deaths. The innocence of childhood, the thrills of the high school years, the security of life at home with parents, young love, children of our own, the excitement of a new career, a first car and home, the ‘stuff’ of boats, clothes, tools, furniture, etc., is temporary. They all, in effect, die because they pass or lose their glamour. My daughter recently remarked to me as she was moving through young adulthood, “Everything is becoming more real, less fantastic.”

If these deaths in life are not offset with new adventures they can mound up as only memories to make life a very depressing ordeal in the later years. The trick is to not let life degrade to nothing except an accumulation of memories. Life is a participation sport requiring that we fill it with new challenges, never stop growing, and that we make a point of becoming a better person. That is the only way to make growing older worthwhile—yet another beginning chapter to look forward to, not a final one we wish would end.

Aging is, in part, self-imposed because as we get older we convince ourselves we’re supposed to slow down. We don’t grow old; rather we become old by not growing. We are not an exception to the rule that all things like to take the route of least resistance. It’s easier to not learn more, not be creative, not develop a new skill, not become fitter, increase strength, or develop athleticism. Being ‘too old’ is a convenient excuse to not apply the force to life to improve it and prevent its slide downhill.

Our body and mind rise to the challenges we place upon them. If we do something, we will be something. Do nothing and we become nothing. Be increasingly inactive and we will achieve the ultimate inactivity—death. The best life of all is to not permit the decrepitudes of old age and die old as young as possible.

Forget the numbers attached to life. Don’t assume that forty means easing off, fifty means retiring, sixty means incapable, and seventy means being just an observer. Life is about pushing ourselves mentally and physically, always seeking new horizons. That’s what can make life fulfilling to the end. If we plan to live forever every day, we can always say, “So good, so far.”

This is not to say that age does not slow us down and decrease capacity. At age 80 we can’t run the same time in the 100-meter dash that we did at 25. Nor should we try since the inherent strength and resiliency of an older body is less and thus more prone to getting broken. We’re like rubber bands in that regard. Stretch a new one over and over and it doesn’t matter. Get one out of the back of the drawer that’s been there for a few years and try the same thing and it will break apart. But that’s okay. We can still stretch our lives; we just have to be more careful.

Also consider that what we lose due to physical attrition we gain in experience and savvy. It’s pretty satisfying to get to the point in life where there’s nothing much left to learn the hard way, and most everyone around you is younger and therefore less experienced. With age we don’t have to guess so much about things or embark on time- and energy-consuming adventures that are fruitless. Having been there and done that gives us confidence, even smugness, with respect to the frenzied and dead-ended activities of all the young gaffers.

Living a full life means deferring less and less to teachers and mentors. We become the teacher and mentor. It is no longer necessary to be in awe. We can discern, be critical, and perhaps even make better sense of things than most of the supposed experts out there—if we have lived as if thinking matters. Although humility and learning are always in order, shifting roles from life’s student to teacher and leader—from taking to giving—is something to welcome as one of life’s wonderful rewards. It is a reward only possible if we grow older.

(Originally published at GoArticles and reprinted with permission from the author, R.L. Wysong).