Are You “Getting” Old or “Growing” Old?
Aging is inevitable but how you age is within your control. We can let life happen to us and get old, or we can grow and choose the life we desire. Choosing requires ongoing learning so we can optimize the best choice for our circumstances. You don’t stop learning just because you stopped working. We can choose our purpose, values, friends, and financial situation.
Choosing purpose requires introspection and evaluation. Purpose doesn’t just happen, it is pursued. If you don’t pursue your purpose, you will be following other people’s purpose. Many feel their purpose has changed as they aged but really it hasn’t. How it “looks” may have changed but the internal values that drive purpose have been there all along. The problem is that we have had our purpose and values driven out of us by family, friends, work and even social media and entertainment. By the time we reach retirement age we become tired of ignoring what we want out of our lives and finally have the “permission” to chase our dreams. The challenge is that we haven’t exercised our “choose” muscles in a very long time and for some of us, we have never exercised our choose muscles.
A good start is to identify our internal values, the driver for what makes us happy. There are many values exercises online, and it is worth your time to sit down with a cup of coffee and take an hour to complete this exercise. My favorite is https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_85.htm Once you identify your driving values, many of your past decisions will provide clarity. Many of your bad decisions or the ones you never made will provide clarity as well.
Once you’re clear on what your internal drivers are you can begin to plan your retirement, so you experience joy each and every day. Plan your day the way you did for your work years, or the two week’s vacation every year. Put the energy into your happiness the way you did for the benefit of your company’s success. When we retire, we can either come from something, our job, or move to something better and more satisfying, our new life. This won’t happen unless we consciously and deliberately make choices for our happiness.
Choosing personal happiness is not a one and done thing…it is a journey. Each day we choose, each day we can create joy in our lives. Retirement is liberating but not without some difficulties. Aging brings physical changes. Aging brings loss of loved ones. Aging brings financial uncertainty. How do you navigate these difficulties and still choose joy?
For starters, you can focus on health optimization. Older adults may experience weight and hormonal changes upon retirement for a number of reasons, such as being less physically active; having less structured meal times; and consuming food in response to losing personal identity, the potential for social interactions, or the sense of accomplishment derived from working⁴.
The most important part of being a vibrant human is your health and well-being. If you don’t have your health, you cannot pursue joy no matter how wealthy you may be. A favorite quote from Roger Landry, MD, MPH, is “live long, die short” and he has written a book with the same title “Live Long, Die Short: A Guide to Authentic Health and Successful Aging.” Dying is inevitable, but quality of life is largely controllable. Living longer is great if you feel good but dreadful if you don’t.
What we eat, our diet, becomes even more important as we age than it was when we were young and burning the candle at both ends with few negative impacts. As we get older, our pancreas gets tired and unable to process sugar or carbohydrates as efficiently as when we were younger. This can lead to hormonal changes, diabetes, pre-diabetes, or insulin resistance that can cause us to feel lethargic and even confused. Whatever diet or way of eating you choose, you may want to consider lower- carbohydrate foods and make the carbs you do eat count by choosing healthy vegetables, legumes, and fruits that are nutrient rich. Eliminate processed foods as much as possible by sticking to the outer isles of the grocery store. You may also consider adding supplements or a multi-vitamin to your daily routine. I’m not a doctor, so I always recommend consulting your physician before taking any supplements or implementing any dietary changes. Your doctor will know your health conditions and be able to recommend the best supplements and way of eating for your optimal health. Getting regular physicals can reveal hormone deficiencies that can creep up with age. Women as well as men may develop a sluggish thyroid requiring medication. Women may need progesterone or estrogen supplementation, and men may need testosterone supplementation and/or medication, which can make a world of difference in energy and mental acuity.
Lose the Belly, Not the Belly Laugh
How often have we heard the phrase “laughter is the best medicine”? Maybe it never gets old because it is a timeless universal truth. Think about how great you feel after a good belly laugh. Laughter makes us happy. Happiness keeps us healthy. Did you know that research has shown that individuals with a deeper sense of happiness possess lower levels of inflammatory gene responses and higher levels of antiviral gene responses? Yes, laughter increases your immune response. Who couldn’t use that in a post-Covid-19 world?
Choose to Be Where You Are Celebrated, Not Tolerated!
Personal relationships may change since you finally have the time to address them. Work relationships will change since you no longer have the daily work happenings to discuss. Are you shoulding your relationships? Social connection is a key ingredient to your joy and wellness in retirement. Research has proven that our relationships can impact our health as much as or more than diet and exercise. Stressful and draining relationships have a profound effect on our body chemistry yet we rarely, if ever, re-evaluate our circle of friends. Determine whether we feel full or empty after spending time with your friends. Relationships change over time, after all, we are ever evolving so it makes sense that our relationships may need to evolve along with us.
Some relationships start out great but develop into unhealthy, lopsided attachments. Have you ever noticed that some people bring out the best in you and some, well, not so much? You can’t have a healthy relationship with an unhealthy person. Just as some foods can be healthy for one person and cause an allergic reaction in another, my belief is that people can also have this effect. This doesn’t make them wrong or a bad person, it just means you may have outgrown each other. Taking the time to evaluate your relationships will provide awareness of your motivations for your alliances as well as insight into your behavior.
No one ever says “get old gracefully” they say GROW old gracefully. Growing always involves a level of discomfort and change. Growing requires effort. Growing requires learning. Growing demands action. Stay curious. As long as you are curious you have a learning mentality. As long as you are learning you are growing. Growing requires planning and planning earlier is better than reacting later.
Citation:
⁴ Valerie L. Forman-Hoffman, Kelly K. Richardson, Jon W. Yankey, Stephen L. Hillis, Robert B. Wallace, Fredric D. Wolinsky
The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Volume 63, Issue 3, May 2008
