The New Retirementality, Fifth Edition

CHAPTER 15From Aging to S-Aging

There is in the act of preparing the moment we start caring.

—Winston Churchill

I often ask audiences if they know someone who is 75 years old and acts like he is 35 and see appreciative nods. I then ask if they know someone who is 45 who acts like she is 80 and see the eyes roll and the knowing nods. The question I then like to pose is this: What, then, are we saying about one's “real age” and the aging process? We are assenting to the idea that, though one's age is a matter of chronology, aging itself is largely a matter of attitude. There can be a wide disparity between being a certain age and acting out that age—hence the phrase “You're as young as you think.” The fact that we know 75-year-olds who act 45 affirms the attitudinal and spiritual source that separates those who are aging from those who are old.

Old isn't what it used to be. Remember that when the age for retirement was originally set at 65, a majority of people didn't even live until retirement age. Now we live 20 to 30 years past the retirement age. The age of 65 today has little resemblance to the age of 65 in, say, 1990. Most people are not old at 65 today. They may or may not have slowed down. Thirty years ago you didn't see many men in their 70s and 80s jumping out of airplanes, flying in outer space, or riding skateboards. You may recall the story I shared earlier about the four generations of family members who water ski together: great-grandpa at 92, grandpa at 63, dad ...