The Come Alive Project

Tag: Aging

  • Energy bite 305 – Random Thoughts

    Seniors today are aging better and are more vibrant and aware than Seniors of previous generations. Thanks to modern medicine, you are living longer and better lives than before. Many of you have stayed active longer and are in better physical condition than those seniors of earlier generations. 60 is the new 50. Some say 70 is the new 50. And some feel and act like they are 80 when they are only turning 50.

    I know there are a lot of Seniors like you, who want to focus their lives in a healthy direction and get away from the stagnation and boredom that often pops up after the initial excitement of retirement. You are entering a new stage in life where health, fitness and personal energy becomes a priority. You begin to recognize that health and fitness leads to a better and longer senior life.

    As Seniors, you and I face a lot of challenges — some real and some perceived as real. These challenges include lack of mobility, weakening bodies, increased incidents of illness, falling, increasing isolation, boredom and depression, all leading to that lack of independent living that we fear most of all.

    Of course, you can prevent the premature aging that saps the energy from our lives. I’ve been promoting physical movement (exercise), intelligent eating, deep breathing and a Positive Attitude toward life, in the 304 previous “Energy Bite” blog articles over the last decade.

    When I started the Come Alive Project nearly a decade ago, I intended it to be an awareness campaign for active Seniors about how to discover the Fountain of Youth within each of us through Health, Fitness and Personal Energy. I continue to do talks and workshops on the subject and intend to continue both the blog and the workshops for as long as I am physically able. Heck, it’s fun! Plus, I have enjoyed the many positive comments I have received over the years.

    Oh, and by the way, I practice what I preach. That’s why at age 79, coming up on 80 in five months, I feel like “80 going on 45”. I feel better now than at almost any time in my adult life because of the change in lifestyle I made ten years ago. I added physical movement, intelligent eating and better habits back into my life. I am still following the message that I created The Come Alive Project to spread.

    I hope you are doing the same. Thank you for reading. 

  • Energy Bite 271 – Aging Youthfully

    “Life is not geared for age and deterioration. Actually, life is a dramatic process of renewal and regeneration.” —Eric Butterworth, In the Flow of Life

     Isn’t “Aging Youthfully” what a lot of us are trying to accomplish? We want to avoid the stereotypical vision of “getting old”. We don’t want to become stooped over and shuffle along as we walk, head down and looking at the floor. Aging is stereotypically waking up in the morning with aches and pains, hard to get out of bed, very little to look forward to for the day except maybe a [another] doctor’s appointment.

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  • Energy Bite 220 – What Should We Call Ourselves?

    Apparently, we need a special name because we are getting older. Some folks seem to think so. That includes a professor of Psychology and the Director of the Stanford Center on Longevity at Stanford University who, in an Op-Ed article in the Washington Post at the end of December, 2017, suggested that the name “Perennials” might be a good term to saddle us with.

    It’s actually a pretty good article, but it presupposes that we need to have some sort of special identification when we become a certain age; that there is a pressing need for a new category to describe older adults in this world of overly categorized and self-segregated people, so we won’t be offended when younger generations refer to as “older”. At least that’s what the article says. Being “Seniors” isn’t good enough. Some of those reading this are “Baby-Boomers”. That was generational and I don’t hear it used much.

    What will we be told the “Perennial” stereotype (excuse me, I mean “characteristics”) will look like? Hunched over posture? Immobile? Infirm? Weak? Feeble? Or can we choose that stereotype to be Active, Self-actuating, Fit, Healthy, Independent, filled with energy and enthusiasm about life?

    I pray we won’t be characterized as victims, demanding of special treatment and recognition like the rest of the self-identified groups that have so recently popped up?

    Or just maybe we can recognize our own individuality and take care of our own side of the street first, before demanding that people identify us as a group in need.

    One of the letters to the editor in response to this article suggested that she (the letter writer) was born in 1940, the “generation without a name”. She said, “. . . I appreciate the fact that no one gave us a label. What a gift! And I would like it to stay that way.”  YES INDEED!

    Of course, that means taking care of ourselves, being personally responsible for ourselves, moving our bodies, having a positive mindset, becoming self-actuating, and not thinking of ourselves as needy.

    If we can’t reflect those attributes in the way we come across to ourselves and others, then perhaps it’s time to re-think our attitude.

    All this is one more reason to take a close look at ourselves and see how we stack up with our own identity, and not let others “editorialize” our generation into a group that is already so diverse within itself, that to categorize us would be a travesty of the truth — the same as it is with so many “named” groups now.

    Like the woman who wrote the letter to the Editor above, I was born in 1940. I will confess that I like Dan Rather’s term: The Greatest Generation.

    What happens when today’s “Millennials get old? Will they be called “Millennial-Perennials”?

    Next week, back to Health, Fitness and Personal Energy for active Perennials.

    Thank you for reading.