Healthy Aging: Good Choices

September  is “Healthy Aging Month.” I was glad to discover that because “healthy aging” implies that we have some choices about how we age. In fact healthyaging.net suggests the following:

• If you don’t exercise, start.
• Be easier on yourself.
• Find some way this year to put your gifts and talents to work.
• Build richer relationships with loved ones.
• Celebrate your spouse.
• Let the people you appreciate know it.
• Forgive someone who has wronged you.
• Become a giver. Happiness is not about how much you make; it’s about how much you share.
• Take a “baby step” toward finding some faith.
• Make 2012 a year of gratitude.

Since only the first suggestion above involves physical activity, and none of them have anything to do with age, maybe healthy aging is less about bodies and years and more about perspective and choice. Could it be that aging is largely a function of how we choose to think about time and identity?

Here is some playful wisdom about healthy aging from a famous Supreme Court Justice who sat on that court for three decades and retired when he was almost 91 years old, making him the oldest sitting Supreme Court Justice ever.

“Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.” ---Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

And here’s some equally playful wisdom  from a beloved British playwright who lived to be 94.

“You don't stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.” ---George Bernard Shaw

My own role model for healthy aging is not a famous person, at least not until last week. Her name is Rosa Finnegan. She passed her 100th birthday this year and is an honored employee at the Vita Needle Company in Needham, Massachusetts, where she helps to make and package stainless-steel products in custom batches.

She is featured in a recent The Christian Science Monitor cover story. According to the article, Rosa “still has willing hands and a nimble mind. And she has no desire to leave her job.”

You gotta love that. Rosa's story reminds me of a Bible verse:

“Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age.” Psalm 92

I don’t know if Rosa is religious or not. The article didn’t say. My guess is that she is. Either way, she must have made a lot of healthy choices in her long, productive life.

By the way, the healthy aging website mentioned above describes itself as being, “...designed to focus national attention on the positive aspects of growing older and to promote taking personal responsibility for one's health... be it physically, socially, mentally or financially.”

Healthy aging doesn’t start when we get old; it starts now, regardless of age. Learning to make healthy choices will go a long way toward helping us to flourish and "bring forth fruit" at any age.