How To Be Old: Lessons In Living Boldly

It's the same but different I guess those are the words I would use to talk about every part of being older. It's the same as any other age I've been, but different because it's the same problems that you know, you know how? support myself how can I be in a relationship how do I take care of my health how do I address family concerns family issues how can I remain meaningful in the world and relevant so those were all things I asked myself in every decade once I became a thinking human being when he was 20 years old.

You always ask me where we are going to live, how I am going to work, what we should have for dinner tonight, these things stay the same. Here I am, at 70 um, publishing my first creative writing book. my childhood and my life when people said what do you want to be they always said writer but life happens you're raising families you're making a career you're thinking okay how am I going to get child care today because I can? Don't miss this meeting and my son is sick and you know all that stuff and I wish I had a vision in that moment of who I wanted to be when I grew up because I could have stopped and said like Consuelo, it's okay.

You are in this place now you will get over it and there will come a day when you will be able to take that deferred dream off the shelf, dust it off and make it a reality and I think that is because we have such a lack of imagination when we re Young about what a vision of the future could be. life older than almost Our lives as older people happen by default rather than being created in a planned way yes, realistically, I'm 70 years old. I don't have the same amount of energy I had when I was 60, my priorities have changed.

I have ringing in my ears. I'm stiff when I wake up, but I take steps to deal with all of those things so they can be mitigated in a way that I can live the life I want to live. but if we're not honest about those challenges, then we're not going to inspire people to be creative about how we design right for them, so it will be if you look at innovation in the senior tech industry, a lot of this is about medication management and managing your healthcare and all that kind of stuff and you don't really know how I still paint as an artist when I have arthritis in my hand, so I think it has to be a lot more, how do we support people to live a creative and fulfilling life, although in reality there will be challenges that you cannot control as you get older, but you can control how you think about it and that brings us to the area of ​​​​the attitudes and beliefs about age of people who have negative feelings.

Beliefs about age begin to affect your health because there begins to be underlying stress that may or may not be conscious, but people with more positive beliefs about aging actually add seven years to their life expectancy. Positive beliefs about age protect you against hypertension and heart disease. and all types of cognitive decline, so it's more than just a way of thinking, it's a critical component and shows you how much control you can have over healthy aging just by staying in touch and controlling your attitude and beliefs. I never had any fears about aging for most of my life, the reality is that I finally realized my dream.

You know, I become a writer and unlike if this had happened to me when I was 32 and had the luxury of a lifetime of being a writer, this feels the same. I think I need to do it now because at the end of the day I don't have all the time in the world. You know my mother was 995 years old. I'm hopeful, but once you really accept age, it has the wonderful benefit of putting you in the present moment and appreciating what you have in the here and now. I'm still future-oriented. I'm like you're daydreaming what I'll be like when I'm 80, but then there's a realistic part when the time comes.

What hit me was when my mother was about to die. I thought she's okay, my generation is next in that and, for me, you know, that evokes a kind of urgency about how I live my life today and how to live it to the fullest. fuller and again you contain all the ages that were ever inside you so I really try and I always have my whole life to really be in control of how I think about something because when I went off the rails before in my life was when I gave myself over to this type of negativity and obsessive thinking and it never leads you to the result you want.