There is a popular meme that says “Age is just a number”. That means age doesn’t matter, it’s your outlook and attitude that matters. Is that true?
As we older baby boomers start turning age 71, age does seem to matter less. We have passed the milestones of age 55 for getting senior discounts, age 65 for getting medicare and age 70 for starting our required minimal distributions for withdrawing part of our IRAs.
Whereas in high school our friends were within one or two class grades of us, now we have friends of all different ages. We can hang out with people a decade younger than us or a couple of decades older than us.
We are also reminded that age is just a number when we see the different conditions of people the same age. That is physical, mental, emotional, financial, you name it. We are all over the place on the spectrum. Age matters less than other things that effected our lives, doesn’t it.
On the other hand, time marches on. If you are turning 71 now, you will hopefully be turning 81 in 10 short years and 90 in 19 years. Think back 10 years to 2007 and how long ago that was. Not very long, it was like yesterday!
Age does take it’s toll on us, no doubt. No one is immune from it’s effects. Aging gracefully with a positive attitude takes an effort, no doubt.
We are all in this together. We are loosing spouses and classmates to death. My high school class has a Facebook page set up for death announcements and I got another notification this morning. Long time friends get dementia and it could happen to you or your spouse as well. There are no guarantees, but we know that by now.
Yes, there are a lot of things for us older baby boomers to worry about.
But there is also a lot of things to enjoy and look forward to. By this time a lot of you are enjoying your grand and great grand kids. I see people going to the gym, walking, hiking and enjoying the outdoors. I just came back from the National Senior Games and am motivated by what I saw there. People are volunteering and supporting things they believe in. Some people are enjoying their church families. Here at our 55+ Active Adult Communities, people really like to travel and see the world. People like to keep learning their whole lifetime and it’s nice to be able to learn something not work related, something that you have an interest in. Many people like to read, some just to meditate, some like to putter around, but doing what you like to do is something to enjoy. I could keep going.
Age is a number, but we can deal with it. Enjoy the day. No use in putting things off. The future is now. Do something you like to do. Travel while you can. Learn something new. Walk in the park. Help someone. Be active. Peace.
Robert Fowler
Originally posted 2017-06-15 05:57:03.
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