Being in denial is like having a blind spot in your car—you need a
rearview mirror and some competence to use it or you’ll end up having a
million accidents that are always someone else’s fault (usually the
person driving behind you!).
Too
many of us are growing older and thinking that age happens ‘to us’. I
think we need a rearview mirror that shows us our blind spots around
age and aging.
For ‘who we are’ doesn’t get any older—even when our bodies change.
More on rearview mirrors
Being objective about yourself is extremely difficult and rare.
That’s why denial is normal, even inevitable. The real problem happens
when you deny that you are in denial. That’s when you can begin to
believe your own point of view, which can lead to a terrible case of
self-righteousness. So how do you know you are in denial when you are in denial?
I’ve
learned through my own experience with various ‘isms’ that there is
only one possible way of knowing… and that is to
Since I starting blogging a couple of months ago, I find myself
waking up in the middle of the night with something inside me screaming
to be said. Tonight it is cynical ambition. What I mean by that is the
kind of “Do anything for power — or money, or sex, or fame”. You can
fill in the ‘it’ that people will do anything to have.
I
have spent most of my life trying to be positive, to stand for
something, to leave the world a bit better than I found it. Sometimes I
have
I am in Buenos Aires for a couple of weeks. I come a few times a year to work with clients and I have a kind of love affair with the Latin energy and enthusiasm for life one can feel here. This trip I am paying particular attention to the scene from the point-of-view of getting older and my enthusiasm for this blog and our project to transform the culture of aging.
It is interesting how we always see what we are looking for. In the past, I was focused on the numbers of young, good-looking and
By Lilly Page
I was watching Oprah recently, a program featuring a few of our
famous stars speaking on aging. They were talking about this whole idea
of what your real age is. One was only 50, so just a baby to
me, the other was 65 and didn’t look more than 55, but the one that
caught my eye was Diahann Carol at 71 years old. Yikes, she looked
fabulous!!!!
I
have always been one to mention my age, as I have always enjoyed
getting older. I intentionally want to give people younger than
Crabby Old Lady took a swipe at life coaches
yesterday. I commented to her that the same might be said of lawyers,
heath care providers and financial counselors. The fact is there are
many opportunistic and unqualified people calling themselves coaches.
While I can agree with her concern, I cannot let her sweeping
generalization impune the work of thousands of committed and competent
individuals.
What I want to point out is that, as an emerging field and
profession, coaching is attempting
I don’t know that I agree with Crabby Old Lady’s idea to vote out the entire Congress in the bi-annual elections on November 7th. But I sure think we should vote and have our experience and wisdom speak.
I also don’t think we should turn ‘Boomers’ into a one-issue
constituency —“aging issues such as social security, Medicare and so
forth”. We should certainly speak if we having something to say about
those issues, but more importantly, we should be taking responsibility
I don’t think that age is personal. I know it feels like it is ‘me’
that is getting older, but I don’t experience myself as older. If
anything, I experience my ‘self’ as being ‘better’ than at any time I
can remember over the past 64 years. I feel more ‘alive’, more engaged,
more present and more satisfied than ever. It is true that my body
can’t run, wrestle or climb as easily as in the past. I make love
By Shae Hadden
Bio
Was talking with a close friend this week, and we were both
acknowledging how much we’ve changed over the last few months. Looking
back, it would seem the circumstances of our lives have forced us to
grow, to expand our individual perspectives to encompass all the
challenges life has offered—from critical illnesses and ongoing health
concerns to business changes, relationship transitions and dramatic
encounters with fear and uncertainty.
Yet
it’s not really the situations
I was having lunch with my friend Lori and her sister Carol, whom I
had not met before, last week. We’re all about the same age, and our
conversation started out very pleasantly. Then after a while, Carol
started expounding in a monotone voice about how terrible it was to be
getting older and how she absolutely hated the aging process. She
talked for 45 minutes in great detail about her aches and pains, her
failing eyesight and hearing,