Live Long, Die Short (26 page)

And there’s something else going on here. Years of playing roles as parent and child have left an indelible mark on both you and your children. There are expectations that come with those roles. Even as you age, your children expect you to be the solid, responsible, think-of-others-first person you were during your parenting years. Drift from this expectation, make efforts to grow or explore undeveloped areas of your personality, and you risk a family in chaos, and even suspicion that you are heading down the road to dementia! This can easily limit spontaneity and growth and therefore is potentially deadly to successful aging, even outweighing the social-connection benefit provided by the family.

So, whether we blindly adopt an unenlightened society’s view of aging or the risk-averse view of those close to us, we short-change our growth and potential, and “act our age” all the way to decline and “usual” aging. In childhood we heard the admonition to act our age. In adulthood childish or adolescent behavior could have severe consequences, such as loss of job and relationships. But as an older adult, it’s time to reconsider. The difference here is that acting our age for older adults is too restrictive and based on faulty assumptions. To age successfully in our current society, then,
requires
us to
never act our age
. It is not acting childish, but childlike. It is to do what Margaret Mead told us she did on her own aging journey: “I was wise enough to never grow up, while fooling most people into believing that I had.”

It’s not easy. As we age, we settle into comfort zones made very hospitable and inviting by our experiences. We’ve learned the “right” way of doing
things, which quickly becomes the “only” way of doing things. We are more aware of the consequences of taking chances and easily adopt a conservative approach and attempt to eliminate all risk of failure, embarrassment, or criticism. We forget that to have a pulse is to be at some risk, that victory is sweeter when more is wagered.

Don’t misunderstand. In Tip Five, I spoke about reducing your risk of disease and injury. And we should do that. But to avoid risk altogether is impossible and, when the most likely negative outcome is only embarrassment, avoiding risk is selling yourself short. Taking calculated risks, taking risk where the potential outcome is growth, joy, increased competence, and reduced risk of decline—that is an acceptable, even recommended, risk. In fact, I strongly recommend to my presentation audiences that they do something that scares them every day. It doesn’t have to be bungee jumping or parachuting (although if that is where your heart is, go ahead—find a way to minimize the risk and go for it!). It must, however, take you out of your comfort zone. Remember,
we cannot grow if we don’t change.
Change involves fear, especially if we take on too much. When you challenge your physical, mental, and emotional self, you grow. Your immune system, your brain, your muscles cannot help but respond to the challenge. You will be better and you will feel fulfilled. The challenge is clear: act your age and you risk suspension of growth. No growth equals decline as we age.

Dr. Ellen Langer, a Harvard University researcher, conducted a now famous study back in the late seventies. Using older men as subjects, she immersed them in an environment from twenty years earlier. Room trappings were from the fifties. Conversation about fifties-era topics was in present tense. Recorded radio programs were fifties vintage. This immersion resulted in the men acting in ways similar to their twenty-years-younger self: walking more, carrying their own luggage, doing things that had previously been done for them. The results after
only one week
were stunning: vision, hearing, cognitive skills all improved. Even photos of the subjects before and after the study improved, with subjects looking younger. What were Dr. Langer’s conclusions? This work and a large body of research since this initial study convinces her that when we are aware—mindful of what we are doing and what expectations we have for ourselves—our bodies will follow; that is,
our bodies will attempt to align with those expectations.
²

To the extent we think of ourselves as more capable, or healthier, or growing, our bodies will attempt to reflect that view. Our bodies reflect our minds. The words of famous motivational speaker Brian Tracy—“You are what you think about”—reflect Dr. Langer’s research conclusions. Her research has moved us way beyond euphemisms about being better if we try. We become better when we think of ourselves as younger, or more active, or more capable. Our brains begin to rewire to be consistent with a younger person. So, again, if we “act our age,” within a context where being old is defined as declining, it’s more likely that that is exactly what will happen. If, on the other hand, we act younger, more optimistic, more confident about what we are capable of, we will indeed grow and limit decline.

As I explained in the introduction to this book, Chuck Yeager taught me this many decades ago. Grandma Moses knew this when she began her painting career in her late seventies; Frank Shearer knew it when he celebrated his hundredth birthday by water skiing in Acapulco; Nola Ochs shouted it out to us as she received her undergraduate degree at ninety-five and master’s degree at ninety-eight!

Perhaps F. Scott Fitzgerald was telling us much the same in his 1922 short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” the basis for the 2008 movie of the same title, which starred Brad Pitt. Benjamin Button is born an old man and ages backward. Fitzgerald’s powerful ability to articulate his sharp social insight provides us a story that holds our society’s sclerotic views of aging up in sharp relief. Benjamin Button’s experiences as a withered child and a robust older man challenges us to question our most entrenched concepts of aging.

You remember Ethel. She is the theatrical dynamo we met earlier, who still writes a column for a New York publication targeted to older adults, and is involved with the Ms. Senior America pageant. When Ethel tells me “I never use a script,” she is referring to her television talk show she hosted for many years in New York City. Hearing her story, however, I believe the words characterize something more significant. Ethel doesn’t use a script for her life. Not society’s script for an older woman, not her friends’ script for their peer group, not anyone’s. She follows her bliss, as Joseph Campbell told us to do. She does this spontaneously and fearlessly. How else could she have agreed to compete for Ms. Senior America at age sixty? Why else
is she singing and directing a Broadway-type show at age ninety? How can she want to help others and to try new things after being widowed twice, surviving cancer, and being the caretaker for her husband? Yes, Ethel shows us how to age in a better way as she fully accepts her chronological age while raging against what she “should” be doing at ninety.

Masterpiece Living Pearls for Never “Acting Your Age
”

1. OK. Get back into your most comfortable chair. Think.
   What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
   It’s an important question. The answer is something dear to you. Something that you no doubt have thought quite a lot about over the years, but most likely had let go when you became “too old.” (I find it difficult to even type the words.) So what is it? Whatever it is, it’s time to dust it off and consider doing it now.
   a) Maybe you wanted to swim the English Channel. Well, most of you wouldn’t try it now, but how about doing it with a little adjustment? It’s twenty-one miles from Dover to Calais, so why not set a timetable to accumulate twenty-one miles of swimming? Say, swim twenty-one miles in a month, or two weeks, or a week?
   b) Always wanted to run a marathon? Train for it and do it. Or walk 26.2 miles. Or set a timetable to walk the marathon distance.
   c) Always wanted to go to Antarctica? Well, go. Or take a course on it. Or listen to a lecture from someone who’s gone. Or read more about it.
   d) Always wanted to learn to play the guitar or piano or flute? Do it. You won’t make Carnegie Hall, but do it anyway. Even if no one ever hears you. A new language? So many new ways to learn a language. No barriers but in your head.
   
2. What scares you? What have you avoided most of your life but would secretly like to have? Once you admit to what this is, decide that you will take my advice and scare yourself by beginning to take steps to decondition yourself. John Wayne said, “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” Afraid of public speaking? Try speaking while in front of a mirror. Try saying a few words the next time you are at a gathering of friends. Afraid to fly? Commit to a short flight. Speak to the person seated next to you and tell them you are afraid,
   and they will most likely talk you through the entire flight. Whatever it is that frightens and therefore limits your growth, you must identify it, realize that it presents an opportunity for substantial growth, and then begin taking baby steps to face your fear without having to fully face it until you’re ready.
   
3. Consider traveling without making all arrangements and therefore leaving a few details to spontaneity. Looking back, some of the most memorable moments of my travels were unplanned. Yes, it might make you uncomfortable, but you will be proud when you pop through unscathed and more competent.
   
4. Just make a commitment to grow—to get a little better physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually. Just baby steps (see
   chapter 3
   ). Then build on that. More baby steps. That alone breaks with the stereotype of aging as decline. Remember, age is a number—worth celebrating, then forgetting. It matters not so much where you end up, only that the journey is one of striving for growth.
   

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN

Nothing can give you joy. Joy is uncaused and arises from within as the joy of Being.… It is your natural state, not something that you need to work hard for or struggle to attain.
—ECKHART TOLLE

W
hen I was in my medical training, I was taught that if I could not bandage it, sew it up, treat it with medication, cut it out, or otherwise physically modify it, then it was not for me to attempt to heal. Only several decades later and after a career in preventive medicine did I learn what my medical school professors either didn’t know or were reluctant to discuss. We cannot be truly healthy unless we are spiritually healthy. Yes, paying attention to our physical selves is a must, the foundation of our interaction with the world. Our intellectual component also needs our
attention if we wish to experience our world fully. Social connection is key to reducing our risk of losing our independence. But spiritual health, I have come to believe, is the glue of it all, the road map of our journey, the thing that makes it all make sense. Viktor Frankl agreed: “The spiritual dimension cannot be ignored, for it is what makes us human.”
¹

Dr. Harold Koenig, a physician at Duke University and an international authority on spirituality and health, tells us that spirituality is “the personal quest for understanding answers to ultimate questions about life, about meaning, and about relationship to the transcendent.”
²
What is particularly appealing about Dr. Koenig’s definition, unlike the hundreds of other attempts to define spirituality,
is that he believes it is a quest and not so much the destination.
Seeking answers to questions such as Why am I here? What is my relationship to other living things and to the transcendent? What is my purpose? What is the meaning of my existence?—this constitutes that quest. Seeking such answers is a spiritual journey, fundamental to who we are as humans, not something arbitrarily chosen by people with time on their hands. French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin grasped this concept: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Perhaps, then, based on Koenig’s definition, spiritual health is found in seeking answers to the fundamental questions of life.