Senior Years: A Time of Growth and Discovery
Shakespeare gave the “maturing years” a bad rap when he berated them as a “second childishness, and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything!” Plato, on the other hand, held out hope for aging into a deeper spirituality: “The spiritual eyesight improves as the physical eyesight declines.”
Nobody is particularly excited to purchase their first pair of bifocals, not to mention what comes next…However, decades of research show that the upper rungs of life can be embraced as a distinct developmental phase offering some surprising and worthwhile opportunities. Rather than framing age as decline or a diminished version of middle age, there is every reason to celebrate the change. Send off the barge of mid-life values, activity patterns, and expectations! Understand that the life tasks before you are necessarily different than the ones that came before.
A tension always exists between the earlier version of your life and the one that you enter. Just like an adolescent who sometimes wishes for the safety or familiarity of childhood, we can stall out developmentally by trying to fit into a smaller or outdated version of ourselves. If we only define our “success” in terms of middle-aged attitudes and productivity, we have failed to move on. If we only see “success'“ as the absence of any kind of disability or limitations, we are failing to grow and learn from what this stage can offer. Later life possesses its own character and meaning.
The literature on positive aging is deep and broad. Here is a sampling of ideas to consider:
Examine your own cultural biases of “how an older person should use their time” and recalibrate to match your own desires.
Become a constructive participant in one’s own age group - admit it, you are one of the elders!
Maintain pro-active behaviors in calling upon your own internal coping resources as well as external social resources: faith and prayer, intellectual challenges, friendships and family, etc.
What matters most is that people are flexible enough to recognize what needs to be altered.
Seek a shift in perspective that puts a higher value on wisdom than physical prowess.
Never underestimate the positive emotional impact of reminiscence and the joy of savoring good moments.
Focus on what brings you satisfaction and fulfillment rather than being tied to the relentless demands of the middle years of life.
Remember what you CAN do and what new possibilities lie on your horizon.
Refrain from being a snob if you enjoy a high level of cognitive or physical freedom - genetics, personality, and individual and cultural variation play a huge role in our experience of aging.
As you navigate these new waters, remember that the team at Hillsborough Wills & Trusts has the expertise to help you Build Your Circle of Security through strong legal documents and good counsel. We are here to help you succeed! Contact us at: https://hillsboroughwills.com/contact
For additional reading:
http://thegenerationaboveme.blogspot.com/2013/06/robert-g-pecks-tasks-for-older-adults.html
http://www.therapyinla.com/psych/psych1202.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4542894/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/time-travelling-apollo/201804/the-prospective-power-savoring