This International Day of Older Persons should motivate you – whatever your age – to adopt a better view of ageing
We live in an age when many older people are contradicting the oft-repeated Shakespearean portrayal of age “as infancy, as helplessness and decadence” – as spiritual reformer Mary Baker Eddy once put it. Instead they’re exceeding past expectations and seem to be demonstrating to some degree “the everlasting grandeur and immortality of development, power, and prestige” which that same author also wrote of more than a century ago – pre-empting today’s shift in thought concerning seniors’ capabilities.
In June, for instance, we heard about 92-year-old Harriette Thompson, the oldest woman to have completed a major marathon. And there are regular media reports of people, who simply refuse to retire, still working in their 70s, 80s and 90s. Their occupations vary from cloakroom attendant to running a cancer research centre.
It’s almost as if they think they might live forever!
And why not? Laugh if you will, but this idea of the effect of what we expect bears a little more consideration. It was found in a study that “how we think about ageing” has a greater impact on our longevity than do gender, socioeconomic status, loneliness or how healthy we are.
The International Day of Older Persons on October 1 each year is an occasion to celebrate the enormous contributions that our more seasoned citizens make in our communities.
Yet, it may be equally as good a time for younger generations to think more deeply about how their perceptions of ageing can have an impact on their health, too, because a recent study analysing Facebook posts suggests many millennials might be prone to denigrating old people. Though the participants’ comments were sometimes tongue-in-cheek, the ageing research quoted earlier implies that if you make too many jokes about “granny and her walker” it might just shorten your lifespan.
Maybe that’s why ageism has been described as prejudice against our feared future self!
Perhaps we should instead celebrate senior achievers and champion both their accomplishments and the qualities they express. This may lengthen our lives by planting the idea in us that their victories over age will be just as attainable for ourselves.
So why not envisage for our older selves a life of volunteering or enthusiastic service that may still be in the workplace, increased tolerance and humour, a wealth of experience and the wisdom to tackle any problem. Cherishing this hope at all ages will tend to lessen any inclination to belittle the elderly.
And understanding why we have grounds for such hope can help avert the wave of panic that might otherwise threaten to wash over us in our 40s or 50s in response to the threat of ageing, or as a result of the loss of a close loved one.
This is because we’re able to reassess our prospects as not simply living out an allotted lifespan that we have to resign ourselves to.
Expanding on the scientific perspective, the Journal of Physiology published a study this year suggesting that positive self-perceptions along with normal, regular physical and mental activity can prolong life expectancy. Therefore, society’s consensual expectation that we must inevitably decline with advancing years may be incorrect and that how we age is, to a large degree, up to us.
And neurologist Dr Peter Whitehouse – author of the thought-provoking book, The Myth of Alzheimer’s – has a crucial angle to consider about that assumption. He describes ageing as our “unique ability to grow spiritually and mentally.”
The way I see it, such spiritual growth is key. I’ve found that a developing consciousness of our present spiritual nature helps to extinguish fears about ageing that grow out of a limiting material sense of ourselves. Doing this helps us to maintain a youthful enthusiasm, stamina and optimism.
It’s significant the way the Bible corroborates the scientific approach of needing to change our expectations, but points to a deeper means for doing so than positive thinking. Emphasising the need to expect ongoing and boundless life, based on a spiritual view of the universe that’s flawlessly maintained by a higher power, it says, “The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing.” (John 6:63) It stands to reason that potions, injections and creams will also accomplish little or nothing.
As we understand this, we might be less enticed by the latest body-focussed fads to reverse the ageing process, such as injecting young blood into older people or slowing the brain by following a special MIND diet.
I prefer Eddy’s summation in Science and Health, “Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.”
Growing spiritually and mentally, it seems that we can become increasingly useful, rather than decreasingly so … no matter how many times we’ve orbited the sun.
This article was published today on LinkedIn.