Ageing Challenges
Facts: We are not created equal. Life isn’t fair. If I’d known I was going to live this long, I
would have taken better care of my body and mind. Arguably; it’s about quality
of life.
The question remains compelling:
- What is wisdom,
and how does it play out in individual lives? Most psychologists agree
that if you define wisdom as maintaining positive well-being and kindness
in the face of challenges, it is one of the most important qualities one
can possess to age successfully~ By
For those
of you not familiar with my blog; I am expressing my perspective as I have learned
from experience. My purpose for writing
(first and foremost, I enjoy it) is to give my readers food for thought. I don’t believe in making all the mistakes
myself, if I can learn from other’s mistakes, I will gladly do it. I am an expert on my own life and experience,
don’t profess to know everything about anything, where others are concerned.
With the
ever increasing numbers of participants in the social media, there are many
people sharing advice with regard to age and health that most of us should take
with a grain of salt. Something as basic
and simple as how to prepare the tastiest peanut butter and jelly sandwich, has
the potential of making someone deathly ill, could even prove to be fatal. Not everyone should eat peanuts or peanut
derivatives. For some obscure reason, I
don’t recall ever hearing of such thing growing up, but today we know that
allergies to peanuts are a fact.
I often
see postings on Facebook by younger people that are not yet afflicted by old
age, basically make fun of the elderly, and their age afflictions. Here is where we are not created equal comes
in. We are all raised different some
lacking a formal education make their living by using their bodies (backs and
knees) with time the tear and wear on the joints and back will cause
disabilities that a person making a living professionally (formally trained as
an attorney, or medical professional) will not experience. On the plus side those back breaking jobs are
disappearing quickly as mechanical equipment takes over more and more menial
jobs.
Laying
pipe (for irrigation, natural gas, telephone or cable etc.) used to be labor
intensive, at present most ditch diggers are being replaced by mechanical
digging equipment. Once upon a time a
young man or woman just starting in life might get side tracked from a formal
education because of the seeming easy money provided by labor intensive
jobs. Today’s labor market offers
hamburger flipping jobs to the young, but it shouldn’t side track any one away from
college or vocational training.
Choices
made when young (back breaking work) affects you in later years when even
leisure things like gardening or walking for exercise will be a challenge. Taking medication for back and joint pain can
eventually have worst side effects than the back problems (from serious
prescription addiction to kidney problems for excessive use of some over the
counter pain meds.). Again decisions
made when young will came back to haunt us later in life.
We are
not all predisposed to Alzheimer’s disease, but many of us are, and by the time
we find out we are well on our way to it.
I have a favorite saying:
Everything we say and do will come back to us, positive, negative or indifferent,
but it will come back to us. This is where,
“if I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of
my mind and body,” comes in. Such things
as smoking, alcohol, drugs, not taking the time to prepare yourself for a
career, not investing on your retirement, etc., etc. will get you in the end. I
realize that as individuals we don’t always make a conscious choice, sometimes it’s
a matter of playing the cards life has dealt us.
With
regard to the social media posting, I try to be considerate, but once again consideration
is in the eye of the beholder, I am sure that somewhere along the way, I have
insulted or offended someone. I promise
to try even harder. The best is yet to
come…..
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