Jane Fonda says in her TED Talk*, let’s do not look at aging as a parabola but as a staircase leading upwards; “the upward ascension of the human spirit to wisdom, wholeness, and authenticity”, “aging is not a pathology it is potential”. Actually, I began a few years back to view every birthday as a level on a video game, and therefrom I look forward to every birthday because as I ascent to a new level, I get closer to wisdom, to freedom and as Jane Fonda says “wholeness and authenticity”.
Today, we have a few age models that show us how it is possible to age in a different way, I’m not saying it is the best way or it should be the only way, I am saying there are more options now on how we decide to live our lives, also as we get older. There is an age revolution going on, I’m just not sure it is getting the attention it deserves. I began this article with one of them but we also have Mick Jagger, who is still fit enough to run around and sing on stage and the glamorous grandmothers from Instagram, who are fashion icons in their 60ies to 80ies and revolutionizing what old looks like. Marie Stafford, the European director of the JWT innovation Group, wrote: Age no longer dictates the way we live. Physical capacity, financial circumstances and mindset arguably have greater influence.” ”Today a woman in her 50ies may be a new mother or a grandmother, a multi-marathon runner or a wild motorcyclist. Her lifestyle is not governed by her age but by her values and the things she cares about.”(New York Times 2018) and let me add, that in my opinion that also goes for men. I’m sure there are many more age Icons and probably you too can think of other examples, some even closer to you.
That is why I decided that I wanted to be at my most fit when I reached fifty, so three years ago I began to treat my training as important as any meeting or doctors’ appointment. I also realized that I have to train more, as I get older, not less, if I wanted to keep my body and mind healthy. And at the same time not living with a limiting rule set of health but to eat carrots and go to Pilates some days and have gin and tonics on a small rib in the Mediterranean other days and some days’ television and Ice Cream. I call it balance.
My amazing sister Louise Kønig Schytte, who works for the ministry of health in Denmark as a Special Consultant, points out to me in one of our very special sister conversations, that we are now no longer only talking about the 3rd age, but about the 4th age. People who retire can now have 25- 30 years of life or more and she mentions an article in the Danish newspaper Politiken by Paul Erik Tinbæk in December 2018; how the different ages have different purpose in the western world; when we are children we are expected to go to school and when we are young to develop a carrier, then as grownups a family and in our 3rd age to go on a well deserved eternal holiday, but what if that holiday now last for 30 years? Should we not have the right to create goals for our 3rd and 4th age? To do what we dream and desire instead of only have the option of eternal retirement? What is it that you see yourself doing your last 30 years? How do you see yourself living?
I must say I dislike the word retirement, retire from what? Work? Life? What if that is not what we want, what if what we want is “desirement”?. At that stage have we not earned the right to have dreams and desires for our next 30 years, and in the future, even more, years? Wouldn’t you rather have “desirement” instead of retirement?
Could it be that the best part of becoming older is as Oscar Wild said: “I’m not young enough to know everything”? and is it like George Bernard Shaw said “we don’t stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing” Is it in our 3rd and 4th life that we have found the wisdom not to know it all and use more time playing?
I can only say with this vision I now look forward to every birthday, every age as I get closer to playful wisdom.
Post first published on February 15 2019