I was thinking about my Website Tag Line: “Health, Fitness and Personal Energy for Active Seniors”. I thought maybe I should define what I mean by ACTIVE. So . . .
Webster’s New World Dictionary: “Acting, functioning working, moving, etc.”
Roget’s Thesaurus: “Alive, astir, at work, bustling, effective . . . And Aggressive, agile, alert . . . And Z is for Zeal.”
I think you get my meaning. You probably know a lot of Seniors who fit that meaning. I hope you’re one too. If not, you can be.
Basically it means DOING THINGS, with the implication that the active person has the CAPACITY to do those things. If you recall, in a recent post, I gave the definition of Personal Energy as the CAPACITY to do things. Hence the relationship between PERSONAL ENERGY and ACTIVE SENIORS. To remain alive, moving functioning, working, and all the the meanings of ACTIVE, you must build and maintain your PERSONAL ENERGY.
Unfortunately, we start to lose our CAPACITY to be active as we get older. Often we dwell on what will happen to us as we lose that energy. But we don’t have to lose it. We can move our bodies with exercise, we can eat right and we can even “think ourselves younger”. Don’t laugh, it’s been demonstrated that we can use our minds to keep our youthful energy. Attitude is critical.
A while back I told the story about how Clint Eastwood was asked by his golfing partner “How do you keep so active and continue to produce and act in so many films . . . at your age). Eastwood replied by saying simply, “I don’t let the old man in.” The golf partner, country singer Toby Keith, was so impressed that he wrote a song with that title. The song so impressed Eastwood that he used it as a theme for his most recent movie, The Mule. Clint Eastwood will be 92 on May 31 of this year and is still ACTIVE.
Can you get up and down from the floor? Are you flexible? How is your posture? Do you move fluidly or do you creak and groan? If you have problems with any of those, be aware that they are fixable.
Do you have the energy to be ACTIVE in your community? There are 85 year olds who volunteer at our local hospital and 75 year olds who have retired from teaching who are still keeping their hand in the classroom by substituting. My wife at age 75 did both before Covid. No more subbing but she still volunteers at the local hospital and loves it. And that’s part of the equation too. Not only must you have the CAPACITY to do it, but do you ENJOY doing it?
So that’s what I mean by ACTIVE. If you keep moving your body, eating right, getting plenty of sleep and you “don’t let the old man or woman in” then you will be far more likely to live a long, healthy, and active life. If you don’t follow those core factors in being active, then remember that it’s never too late to take action and start doing what’s necessary to become the ACTIVE senior that most of us want to continue to be.
Thank you for reading.