Aging: It's Gonna Happen, People

That we’re all getting older is hardly an Earth-shattering revelation, or it shouldn’t be.  From birth on, aging is a constant in everybody’s life.  The problem, apparently, is that although we know that we’re getting older—it’s tough to ignore birthday after birthday—we are amazingly slow to recognize the necessary changes in the way we live that should occur as that process relentlessly progresses.  And even if we do realize that we can’t blithely continue living as if we were thirty forever, we tend to fool ourselves about when the inevitable living arrangement changes need to take place.  Instead, we pretend that nothing needs modification until some crisis motivates someone else to determine that something has to be done. 

At that point, we’ve abdicated our responsibilities and dumped them on those we supposedly love more than anyone else—our families and friends.  Given the myriad of choices for senior citizens, the high costs of most of them, and the time constraints a crisis can impose; is it any wonder that our loved ones have a difficult time agreeing on what would be best for us?  The bitter divisions our lack of planning can cause often leave permanent scars on our families as our children and friends are forced to face the avarice, stubbornness, and biases  which come out in all their ugliness when what to do about Mom and Dad (and their resources)  becomes a contentious issue.

Hence the need for this frank, perhaps even brutal, challenge to everyone who plans on living a long life:  Get your act together before the preceding scenario takes place, and you can adapt to the inevitable changes age will bring more easily while allowing your loved ones both more opportunities to interact with you in positive ways and the security of knowing you’re safe.  Forego your responsibilities, postpone making any plans, and you run the risk of needlessly hurting those you love most, or at the very least, adding significant stress to their lives that could have been avoided.  Most Baby-Boomers’ parents didn’t have the examples of how lack of planning works out since their parents didn’t live nearly as long; let’s hope that we Boomers learn from our long-lived parents and plan for our old age now, while we still can. 

Most of us ignore the signs that we’re approaching senior citizenship even though we are quick to point out the age-related decline in others.  The truth, of course, is that nobody can escape the impact of getting older.  If your body doesn’t get you, your memory will; or maybe an illness will come after you; or your emotional health will become more erratic and difficult to control.  A few can avoid all of the ravages of time and quietly slip away in their sleep at the age of 99, but that is very rare.  Most of us will experience some issues that require changes in lifestyle and living arrangements whether it is our own physical/mental deterioration or the problems or the loss of our spouses.  There are a multitude of resources for us to tap when it comes to treating our physical/mental health, managing our legal/financial futures, and transitioning to our children’s taking over for us; but nobody seems to be advocating that we take matters into our own hands before anything happens, making plans to be instituted when they become necessary. 

Instead of a proactive approach to aging, we tend to use a reactive, haphazard, chaotic, stressful method.  We can change this approach, but we have to accept that at least some of our planning will be necessary someday.  So first and foremost, we have to face that we are getting older, that we won’t be able to do all the things we did ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.  Of course, there are important, vital things we can do to make this process happen as gradually as possible; but even eating well, exercising regularly, maintaining strong social networks, and enjoying new learning experiences to the maximum can’t prevent at least a few changes as one ages.   The pace of that change will vary widely from individual to individual and from lifestyle to lifestyle, but to ignore that some adjustments will have to happen is to dump a load of trouble onto somebody else, most probably your children or friends.  You are getting older, and as you age, you will have to make some compromises in the way you live.

Another way to think about it is to imagine your life in thirty-year chunks.  Remember all the life-altering choices and situations that came up during the first two of those spans?  You grew up, selected a college, moved constantly, and established your career during the first thirty years.  You changed jobs several times and might have begun raising a family.  Your circle of friends went from your pre-school gang to your work crew to your neighborhood homies.  Nobody assumes that things won’t change during the first three decades of life because that would be idiotic.  Growth and modification are constants during this period of our lives. 

Then comes “middle age,” for our purposes, from thirty to sixty.  We raise our families, we rise to whatever level our skills and luck permit in our careers, and we make significant financial decisions like buying a house or investing in the stock market.  Ironically enough, we have to deal with illness and death with our own parents.  Our children go through the tumultuous growing up experiences we did, but in much different ways and with varying degrees of family stress, triumph, and anguish.  Perhaps most challenging, we wrestle with learning to accept how our lives have turned out—that we’re not going to be the superstar we envisioned when we were eleven, that despite the flaws and disappointments, we’ve done pretty well so far.  Maybe it’s this philosophical shift that leads to the short-sighted inertia that often sets in as we move to the last portion of our lives.

Over and over again, you will see people in the last phase of life who simply assume that growth and change are over, that they’ve reached the summit of their lives and all that remains to be done is to sit back in their easy chairs and enjoy the view.  And like all effective deceptions, there is some element of truth in that belief:  Your career is winding down, your children are moving out, and your schedule is emptying.  There isn’t as much to do, and what there is doesn’t seem nearly as significant as the “important” things you did in the first two phases of your life.  But marking time or remaining static simply can’t be done.  You’re either moving forward or you’re slipping back—you cannot just sit there, view all that you have done, pronounce it good, and withdraw from the world. 

Of course you’re tired and no longer as interested in taking on any more projects or challenges as you were when you were twenty-five.  Yes, the rapidly changing world seems to have left you behind, and you regard most of the current practices as decidedly inferior to the ways things were done when you were younger.  Time has polished your memories, leaving them gleaming with a perfection that never existed, which makes the present seem tawdry and tarnished by comparison.  You’re ready to close your door, to travel some, to turn on the TV, and to say goodbye to the brutish rush of the modern world as you retreat into the hazy world of your reminiscences.  And that’s why you need a swift kick in the ass.

Objectively, it’s completely absurd to assume that you can cash in your chips and check out of the game just because your seventieth birthday is only a few years away.  The changes that you took as a given in your younger years don’t stop just because you’d like to rest a bit, so buck up and accept that living means growing, growing means change, and change can be either good or bad—but it will happen.  Of course the changes will be different than they were twenty or forty years ago; c’mon you clown:  that’s what change means, something different.  As our brains slow down with age, we seem to forget that basic component of life and demand that somebody press the pause button on the remote control of our lives to freeze us in a static state. 

Although this desire is understandable, we need to recognize that it’s no different from our desire as a seven-year old to have sixteen houses all over the world, to be president of the world, and to star in a Spider-Man movie and the Superbowl in the same year.  Yeah, it’s fun to fantasize like that, but just because you’ve got six or seven decades under your belt doesn’t make it any less of a fantasy.  The first sixty years of our lives have been constant change/growth; the last twenty or thirty won’t be any different.  So, repeat after me:  “My life will continue to evolve and change even though I’m beginning my ‘retirement.’  I will accept this reality and do what I can to recognize the need to keep growing and changing.”  However you beat this into your head, it’s crucial that you accept (and maybe even look forward to) the inevitability of change coming your way.