Preparing to Grow Older - Part 1

When do we prepare to get older?

In one sense, our bodies prepare to age when we are in the womb.  Genes, hormones, enzymes, muscles and much much more are getting ready to get older.

But somewhere along the line we can consciously prepare to age.  Kids learn to throw and catch, to dress themselves (including learning to tie their own shoes) and to interact socially with others.  Teenaged boys pump iron and practice skills of many kinds.  Teenage girls learn how to arch theri eyebrows or smile just a certain way and to fix their own hair.

Some kids even learn to read, to write, to do arithmetic and even to think.  "When will I ever use this stuff?" has been asked for many generations.  Then we have to use it and forget when we learned it and how we complained.

I'm more concerned with preparing to grow older than sixty.  At age eighteen a year is 5.5% of the time you have been alive.  That makes a year seem like a LONG time.  At age 60 a year is 1.5% of the life lived.  A year doesn't seem so long.  So when someone says, "Prepare the basics when you are young", the young have a hard time believing they need to do so.

The Basics:
  Survival -- food, shelter, and safety.

You start investing part of your income when you are sixteen or eighteen if you want to survive with food and a roof over your head when you are sixty, or sixty-five or seventy.  You start putting money away for housing early, not later.

"I cannot afford to."  That's what I thought, and what most people think when they are eighteen or twenty.  Now you can eat Top Ramen one or two nights more and save something.  You can do it.

No reason to expect "society" or your parents to bail you out when you are forced to retire, as many of us have been, because we hit a magic age (somewhere over forty-five in many cases).

I'm just talking physical survival.  Next time I'll probe this a bit more.

What have you discovered?  What do you think?  Leave a comment and let us know.

The World We Actually Live In

Those of us in fairly good health and who are fairly adept in all senses have expectations.  Unrealistic expectations.  Perhaps foolish expectations.

We expect everyone else to drive precisely and skillfully all the time.

We expect other drivers to forgive our occasional 'goofs'.

We expect all pedestrians to have 20:20 vision and keen hearing.

We expect all pedestrians to be physically quick, with good reflexes.

We expect bicyclists and motorcyclists to watch out for us (because we are in big cars and have the right of way according to US).

We expect to get the promotion(s) we deserve.

If we have the credentials, we expect to get a job offer.

We expect technology to be intuitive, easy to use, and something we are instant masters at using.  

But the world we live in is not like that.  Wake up, folks.  

Of course, the world is not all gloom and despair, either.  But since we have expectations, wouldn't it make sense to keep honing our expectations into ones that are reasonably accurate?

For instance, when you come to a stoplight, or stop sign, and plan to make a free right turn, even though usually there is no one in your way, a realistic expectation might be that there could be a child about to cross, or a small person on a bicycle moving with the green light you should be careful of.  Usually not . . . but sometimes. . . 

What kinds of expectations to you find yourself having to readjust?  What honing would make you a more useful human being?  Leave a comment and let us know.

(Or am I expecting too much?)

Helping Us Think

If you want to think more widely, more deeply and with zest, have I got a resource for you.  The "Brain Pickings" weekly fills the bill.  Check out http://www.brainpickings.org and get on their email list.  From last Sunday's offering:

"What I'd like to say to all of you is that you are all going ato die . . . You have, in fact, already begun to die. "  This is how Joss Whedon begins his commencement address to Weslyan graduates and families in 2013.

Accompanied by art of various kinds, this is only one mind-blowing bit of input that grabs both left brain and right brain.

Give it a try.  Let us know what you think by leaving a comment.

Public Speaking - 1

The sermon this morning got me thinking about speaking.  My wife teaches public speaking in a university, and I have had nearly a lifetime of public speaking experience (and had a great teacher and coach).  Here's what I noticed today.

• A good public speaker knows her/his subject.
• A better public speaker knows his/her audience and her/his subject.
• An even better public speaker doesn't need to read the talk, but can give it with only occasional reference to notes.
• A great public speaker accomplishes all the above while involving the audience.  

What do I mean by "involving the audience"?

One way is to get them laughing.  Appropriate humor provides a way for the audience to laugh, titter, smile, guffaw or otherwise participate.

Another way is to ask rhetorical questions and then wait a few moments for people to answer in their minds.

Yet another method is to ask a question and take a few answers from the audience or congregation.  Provide enough time for people to think, then to realize that they (he, she) is welcome to answer out loud.

Good communication is a two-way process.  No one really enjoys being 'talked at'.

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let us know.

We Get Excited, We Get Depressed

Most of us who permit ourselves the full range of emotion, the wide range of relationships and the ongoing awareness of whatever and whoever is around us have noticed.  We have noticed how proud, how excited, how great we feel when a child learns something new.  A new word, a new physical skill,  a new social ability, the ability to think for oneself just sends us "over the moon" as my wife would say.

We also have noticed ways in which we feel saddened when a person ages into a stumble, matures into mental confusion, or otherwise grows into ill-advised stubbornness.  We might get depressed, in fact.

We have coaches and teachers to help us grow when we are children, and whether we like it or not we have to listen to them, emulate them, test their ideas.  It seems to me, however, that few of us are aware of coaches and teachers for the latter years of our lives.  Maybe there aren't many.

Maybe we aren't looking.

I think of some of the older people I have known who aged gracefully, forgetting more and more but retaining a sense of good cheer.  Some fell and broke a hip but were gracious and caring to those who visited them.  Others did not want to leave their houses or apartments, but did when the time came, partly to be safer and partly to make life easier on their friends, children and even grandchildren.  They were examples.

They were not teachers or coaches, exactly.  They could not tell others what skills they employed, and that we must employ one day.

Maybe part of what depresses us when we are around the aging who are older is fear.  Fear for ourselves skidding into that unfamiliar territory and getting "D's" and "F's".

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let us know.