I was watching a Larry King interview the other night in which he
was speaking with a bunch of positive-thinking gurus about their
beliefs and theories. One of the questions he asked was, “Do you have
any bad days”? Most of them said they don’t have bad days, and a couple
said that they still have ‘bumps’ in the road but recover quickly. I
got to thinking about my own life and concluded that I too can claim
that I don’t have bad days, although some are more challenging than
others.
How
Thanksgiving with family is a tradition I love a lot. It’s not the
turkey and dressing so much as the chance to take a moment and be
grateful for all that we have. I have grown over the years in how I
think about gratitude—originally I thought it was about taking an
inventory of ‘things’ I have to be grateful for, like listing “Thank
you’s” when saying Grace. Later I came to think of gratitude as more of
a ‘selfless’ expression of appreciation
By Shae Hadden
Bio
I’m fascinated by how people affix meaning to language, and the
limitless interpretations they draw from words. ‘Old’, for example,
triggers different responses among my friends. And their
interpretations show me how they feel about growing older. It’s not
always a happy image…
For
the past few months, I’ve been meeting new people and they, for some
inexplicable reason, believe me to be younger than I actually am.
Flattering,
I think the most important question we ever ask ourselves is “Who am
I?” There are probably as many ways to answer this question as there
are philosophies. How we answer it will determine a lot about how we
observe the world, the possibilities we have, how we relate to the
future and, ultimately, how we experience our lives.
For
example, the prevailing culture, at least in the West, will tell us
that “who we are” is a fact — that we are biological objects in an
objective
By Vincent DiBianca
Bio
Regarding aging, health and well-being—I find myself interacting
with people who live in two worlds. Many of my friends take medication
(particularly antibiotics for loads of ailments), undergo surgery, eat
what they want, rarely exercise and several smoke. Other friends
(although fewer in number) believe that the body can heal itself inside
out, eat nutritionally (organic foods, vegan or vegetarian), meditate
and exercise regularly,
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
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 am 64 years old. Somehow the number seems significant, although I
don’t know why. Everyone I have ever spoken to about age agrees: they
feel a lot younger than they imagined they would feel like at this age
(however old they might be).
It’s almost as if we reach a ‘fork in the road’ age-wise—a
particular moment in time, usually in middle age, when we experience a
total disconnect between what we see in the mirror and what we
experience in our mind. I think