Create a Plan to Age Well

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By Mike Milstein

For the past four years my partner, Annie Henry, and I have been profiling people in the community who are ageing well. Annie interviews them on Fresh FM and I write articles about them in the Leader. The paths these people have chosen to age well vary greatly but one thing they share in common is the intent to live a good quality of life during their older years. They understand that “to know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.” (Henri Amiel)

Those we have highlighted are clearly resilient people. They bounce back from adversities, learn new problem solving and decision making skills, grow stronger, more capable, and confident about their ability to age well.

I believe it is important to understand what it takes to age well. Based upon what I have learned from people who are doing so, as well as a review of the growing literature about ageing, I recently completed: Resilient Aging:* making the most of your older years. The book reviews the impact of changing ageing population demographics and the myths that we need to dispel if we hope to age well and then moves on to explores effective strategies we can pursue to live resiliently as we age. There are also exercises to help personalize these strategies and numerous quotes to ponder and enjoy. The over-all theme is about making the most of the brief time we have on our blue planet. As Tennyson says, “How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life!”
    
It is within our capacity to create our futures rather than merely move where the winds may blow us. As I suggest in the book (p. 180) we need to give thought to questions like the following to create a positive future:

• “Do you believe that you can have a positive influence on the quality of your life?

• Do you take time to recognize and celebrate your accomplishments and reward yourself for your efforts and the progress you are making?

• Do you try to enhance your well-being?

• Do you practice saying no when you are asked to engage in activities that are not appropriate for you?

• Do you get as much pleasure from reflection, or ‘being,’ as you do from action, or ‘doing’?

• Do you help other ageing people improve the quality of their lives?”

As Lawrence Peter says, “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.” Knowing where you are going requires developing a basic plan, an over-all sense about your preferences and how you intend to make them your reality.

To age well we need a personal vision of a good older life, clear and meaningful goals, and strategies that can achieve these goals. For this to happen you may need to change the way you think and act. This requires letting go of the known in order to create a better future or, as a Tibetan proverb reminds us, “You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

You are more likely to make progress if you are realistic about your expectations and focus on goals that are positive and attractive. “We have much to learn about our ageing years. We have to come to terms with being strangers in a strange new land. Enjoy the journey and don’t be embarrassed that you don’t know everything you need to know.” (p. 183).

This article was published in the Leader, Nelson, NZ, February 18, 2010. If you want to share your thoughts with the Conscious Ageing Network (CAN) or wish to know when interviews will be aired and when CAN articles will appear in the Leader, send an email to agewell@ihug.co.nz.