About 20 years ago, when I was in my mid-50s, I wrote a paper for my doctoral program, “What is Successful Aging?” After reading the essay, one professor, who was around 80, said I didn’t know anything about pain and suffering, about losing friends and family, about being scared of what came next on the aging journey. My prof thought my outlook was overly optimistic and naïve. Maybe she was right. Maybe you’ll agree. Here are some excerpts from that paper:
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“Like other baby boomers, I’m interested in exercising and eating right to prevent cancer, heart problems and other diseases.
I read and play brain games to help my cognitive functioning. I have regular checkups. I protect my skin by wearing sunscreen, I remove my makeup before bed, and apply night cream. I brush and floss. I go to the beauty shop to get my hair styled and colored, to eliminate the gray because I’m trying to look the way I did 10 years ago.
But even if I do everything within my power to remain young-looking and physically strong, external beauty is transitory. Physical changes are inevitable.
We could undergo facelifts, liposuction and spend hundreds of dollars a week on cosmetics, but we’d eventually look and feel older. I have never seen a 90-year-old who looked thirty—or even sixty. The best we can hope for is to hear, “You look good for your age.” Denial of the aging process doesn’t keep it at bay.
But does declining beauty and fitness mean we’re not aging successfully? Does our outward appearance define our worth as human beings?
In a 1998 study, Rowe and Kahn defined successful aging as “a combination of avoidance of disease and disability, maintenance of cognitive and physical function, and sustained engagement with life.”
That’s the ideal and is worth striving for, but this definition implies that those who contract disease, become disabled, or have declining cognitive functioning, cannot age successfully.
I don’t believe this. I believe we can transcend physical limitations and live “life to the full” (John 10:10) by continuing to do what God calls us to do with our time and resources.
In the New Testament, we read that Paul’s body was wasting away, yet he did not become disheartened. He looked beyond his present difficulties to fulfill his God-given mission.
We, too, must look beyond the problems of aging and continue being who God calls us to be. We all have a mission. For some, it’s a small mission—take food to sick neighbors or mow their lawn. For others, it’s a bigger calling— become a caregiver, run a non-profit that helps the homeless, write a novel, or become president of the United States. Even people who are cognitively challenged have a purpose in this life. Maybe their purpose is simply to teach us compassion.
I observed a woman who no longer spoke a coherent sentence, sympathetically pat the shoulder of another resident who was crying. Lucy, who also has dementia, said to me “Are you okay? You look tired.” And she was right—I was tired. Kay, who looks for her mother and father every day, although they’ve been gone for 20 years, frequently asks what she can do to help me. Dementia does not inhibit the desire to have a mission.
A 1961 Religion and Aging Report at the White House Conference on Aging stated, “In the light of it, every period of life, including old age, is possessed with intrinsic value and sublime potential.”
As we age, being as active as possible, watching what we eat and remaining socially engaged helps us live longer, healthier lives. But successful aging is not dependent upon beauty, energy, intelligence or strength. It’s about using our abilities to make a difference in this world, and we have the potential to make a difference at every stage of life.”
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In the last twenty years I’ve lost friends and family members, endured surgeries, helped my husband through health problems and wondered what additional challenges we would face as we get older. Nevertheless, as I approach the age my professor was when she questioned my naivety, my viewpoint hasn’t changed much. I continue to believe our lives have meaning and purpose to the very end. And that’s a reason to celebrate getting older no matter what our circumstances.
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Diana Walters has enjoyed a long career working with senior adults as social worker, activity director, and volunteer coordinator. She recently retired (at age 76) from paid employment and is now able to devote more time to her writing and her husband (in that order?) She has written devotionals for The Quiet Hour and Upper Room and been published in six Chicken Soup for the Soul books, but she is excited to be writing for and about her fellow Baby Boomers. She can be reached at dianalwalters@comcast.net.