“Living Well is the Best Revenge” - Part 1

As the aging population expands, concern among pundits, planners and ordinary people tends to focus on the decline that used to seem inevitable with aging. The media-driven message stressed the norm of disengagement as the primary outcome of the aging process. Almost no attention was paid to the years of potential growth and fulfillment that was possible for many at midlife and beyond. The negative focus was illustrated with the common “D” words: decline, disability and dependency.

But “the times they are a changing.” The new vocabulary of aging has added the “R” words: renewal, reinvention and redirection. The new elders, often called baby boomers, are pioneers on the frontiers of reinventing the realities of aging. With the possibility of three bonus decades of life ahead of them, these pioneers are showing us both the possibilities and the challenges of a new period of life.

The biggest challenge presented by this new period of life lies in creating a new “positive aging” story. The new story takes an oppositional stand, one that attends to the great benefits that aging can provide. The new story is a hopeful one—that the second half of life need not be filled with despair at the loss of one’s youth, but can be beautiful in its own right. Aging positively is not just something for the rich and healthy, but is in the grasp of anyone, even those who might appear from some perspectives to be struggling.

Many pundits have been less than enthusiastic given that a very stable research finding asserts that happiness is positively correlated with age. Yet, much of the media remains skeptical of such notions, and claim that positive aging is out of reach for most Americans. They report that in order to have a happy and thriving old age, one must have only two critical resources—wealth and health.

Check back for Part 2 tomorrow!

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