Friends at the 50th reunion reinforced studies I have read.  Those who were aging well were not necessarily the most physically fit and healthy.  Instead they were the ones with healthy attitudes.  Cancer, strokes, pain, paralysis and bankruptcy did not hold these healthy attitudes back.  Rather they were the ones we sought out first.  They exuded age esteem.

• We were drawn by their contagious laughter.
• They were genuinely interested in listening to the stories of others.
• They embraced the opportunity to play, to release their inner child.
• Their health was a minor event in their life story which was filled with family, friends,  accomplishments and contributions.
• They dwell on the positives of life.

Bonnie Fatio

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Isabel Contreras, 57, Switzerland

What comes to mind when I hear Age Esteem is having self esteem so that when you age you will feel good about yourself.  Age Esteem is about having self esteem while aging.  I suppose that for me aging is once you reach 55 onwards.

Isabel’s Tips: Because I am very active in the work that I do, my own concern with aging is that I want to look relatively fresh.  I feel very young inside so therefore I would like to look very young on the outside – and I know and see that gravity is inevitable in aging.  Sometimes I’m concerned about that.

Positive thinking is key.  I maintain a positive attitude in everything I do.  I keep my dreams high, exercise,  read positive books, and avoid being with negative people.  I think that has been the most important thing.

I would say that to age well you need to enjoy every day of your life, to greet every morning with love in your heart, and to be grateful to be alive and to enjoy every day as a gift from God.

Isabel Contreras is founder of  Life Motivations and an international trainer.

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Helen Drew 59, English

When I hear the term Age Esteem I think of the value that older people can bring. – And that would be from the experience that they bring.  If I think personally I think in my life I’ve done many interesting and very different things, and the nice thing to do would be to pass that on to other people.  Of course we do pass them on to our children, which is actually quite difficult.  Often the children don’t appreciate your experience and they don’t really want to listen; but eventually they get to the age when they do.  I have constantly reinvented myself I think. Whatever I started out doing when I left University at 22, I’ve used that experience but I don’t do the same thing now.

Helen’s Tips: I’m very into what I eat and I eat very carefully.  I’ve trained myself to eat carefully.  I make sure I always do some exercise because you also feel better if you do exercise.  And when I get up in the morning I like to have the lot of my day planned out.  I like to know what I’m going to do.  That for me is my raison d’être, my purpose.

I like to think young but I like to look young as well.  I like to keep abreast of fashions.  When I was growing up in the UK the saying for ladies who dressed slightly younger than their age was “mutton dressed as lamb”.  I love to be a mutton dressed as a lamb and I enjoy people who are dressed a lot younger than they probably should be dressing.  Just because I am my age I will still occasionally wear high heeled shoes or platform shoes if I like it.  I will tailor my look for the fashion of that season and I will always buy new clothes every year.

There is always something new to learn and there is always something new you can be doing.  I’m training my mother who’s 81.  I just persuaded her to buy a laptop and I’m training her on how to use it.  She’s a bit nervous about it but we’ve got the email sussed (figured out) and while I was training her I thought, “Oh, I wonder, when I am 81 what will there be new for me to learn at that age?”  I think I will be up to learning it.

I was trained as a designer but didn’t paint for years.  It was only recently that I thought, “Well I’m not going to go down in history as a graphic designer or a trainer but maybe I can carve myself a small niche as a painter.”  I’ve taken on the new challenge of showing my paintings.  I’ve got three expositions coming up and I’ve just hired myself an agent which I think is a wonderful idea.  I hate selling my own work.  If someone else can do that for me I’ll be quite happy.

Helen Drew is a trainer, graphic designer and watercolorist.  Her exposition at the Gallery Chausse-Coqs in Geneva, Switzerland will take place December 5-23, 2010.

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Inez Kirby 74, NY, USA

I think Age Esteem is not letting age become a factor in what you do in life, not giving in just because you’re old.  My mother is 96 and she’s one of the most young at heart people that I’ve met in my life.  I think that that affects all of us, her kids who are all now in their 70’s.  When we look at Mum and very productive older people  I always think it’s really funny when you hear someone of 30 say, “Oh my God.  I’m going to be 30.  I’m going to be so old!”  I’ve never ever felt that way in my life.  I always try to approach the age that I am and enjoy it for what it is because there is nothing much you can do about it.  You might just as well have a good time as best you can.  Obviously it’s not always possible, but just take life and do as much as you can and enjoy it as much as you can.

Inez’s Tips: Not looking in the mirror. (laughter) Because when I look in the mirror I see my father.  I think for me it’s an innate thing.  I’ve always been an optimist in life.  I’ve never really looked back and regretted too many things, and I always try to enjoy what I do.  Obviously my knees are giving out a little bit and I’m having the, you know, sans (without) teeth, sans hair, sans everything.  I enjoy plays, reading, music, friends, and especially family.  I think family is a big part of feeling good about my age.

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Hardy Korver, 54, Netherlands

When I hear the term Age Esteem I think of you, Bonnie Fatio! (laughter)  What made me think about it even before my wife put your book AgeEsteem in front of me was the economic crisis.  I thought, “We’re throwing away a lot of experienced good people because of age.”  You see that the other generations that are now a bit more elderly didn’t screw up as much as mine.  It’s a good mix.  We should use the mix.  Mix high and low in both ages and experience.  Use them both.  We need both.  We need those people yet we’ve let them go way too soon and we haven’t really given them the respect and responsibility that they should still have.

I’m becoming a dinosaur myself.  In fact Age Esteem is written about me.  It effects my life too.  I am a dinosaur in my firm.  There are only three guys older than I am and I’m only 54, and feel like 45.  As juniors we ran to the older guys, but there aren’t any older guys left. Your wings are clipped when you’re older.  I don’t think I can do as much.  Or I can, but I’m not supposed to.  That is the problem where Age Esteem comes in.  You may live alone, but surely you are surrounded by others saying, “You can’t do that anymore.”

Hardy’s tips: Know the relativity of everything. Don’t dig yourself in too much to what you are doing at present because there is much more around you.

Get balance in your life.  Work is very important.  You get a lot out of it but grave yards are full of those people who couldn’t be missed.  I keep that in mind. Work hard and play hard.  At least if you play hard you enjoy other things.   I still have people around me who take four weeks holiday and the rest of the year they’re 100 km and hour, always.  I can’t believe that that’s good.  No one ever died from working hard.  They die because they don’t take a rest.  Relax some of the time.

It is more than just reloading the battery. I think that’s a poor description of just survival.  It’s getting inspiration, not only charging the battery but getting new ideas.  You don’t have the same energy as when you started out, so you have to grow.  It’s inspiration and that can only happen if you look around you in a different way.   I have gotten the nicest inspirations from very unexpected things that I see.  Like in Africa or my home, too.

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Why is it that when someone says “sex” our ears perk up, and when someone says “age” we tend to tune out?

Actually sex and age have a lot in common.

• Both are three letter words.
• How you relate to each of them is dependent on your attitude.
• Your attitude toward each depends in great part on the attitude of your environment, what you were raised to believe.
• What you get out of sex and out of age is influenced by what you put into each.
• You control how you live with both your age and with sex.

Having an intimate relationship can improve your health and longevity.  – Just be sure to practice safe sex.

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Susan Barber 65

Esteem means to honor and so I’ve always esteemed age.  My grandfather was mayor in Birmingham and he was my great model.  Three of my dearest friends, my dad, a friend in India and another in New York all lived into their 90s.  And I held the hands of two of them as they passed on, which I understand is a great gift because it means that they chose you to be the passage to heaven.

I’ve never been very involved in age because I’ve always felt I was very old, even when I was five.  I’ve never understood people who say what number of years people are because you can find 35 year old people who are seemingly dead to living and some friends 89 I know are very active.  AgeEsteem seems to bring great respect.  This seems to be something that is not very strong in America.  I was admiring Madonna the other day because she’s doing a book now because she’s 50.  She’s saying that Americans don’t think there’s life thereafter.

Susan’s tips:  The people I know who are in their 90s and very alive and very active love this life.  They love young people; they love to learn; and they all have religion as a very integral part of their being, Christianity, but it could be any religion.  So those are the inspirations for me every day.  What I can learn in life and who I can learn from.  Who I enjoy as people.  I think we have to live with society.  Of course we all wish for good health because that is a pathway to aging well.

Susan Barber who resides in New York specializes in marketing European hotels.

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Pauline Mawaka in her interview (see March 21, 2010) referred to several secrets to her own AgeEsteem.

• Purpose: When she retired she began the Senior Women Citizens for Change in Kenya to combat the violence against older women.
• Passion:  She lives her passion for helping women.    “Women encourage me, so I keep my energy.”
• Control:  Pauline says, “I control my own life.   I control my thoughts and my body.”
• Sing:  Do something that you love, that lightens your heart.
• Reach out:  Pauline’s purpose is directed towards “shaking the world”, and bettering the lives of Kenyan women.
• Social contact:  She has regular interaction with others through her singing and work.
• Spirituality:  “Knowing that God loves me” makes it possible for her to continue despite difficult situations.

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Pauline Mawaka   Executive Dir. Of Senior Women Citizens for Change

When Pauline Mawaka retired as a school teacher she decided to help change the lives of aging women in Kenya.  I had the privilege to meet Pauline in Nairobi and to learn first hand how she is going about this.  The following words are hers.

“After retirement I began creating awareness of violence against women and in other communities in Kenya.  I have been in most areas of Kenya to say that you must identify yourself as a woman in the community.  Speak out if you are violated.  No one else will speak for you.  Don’t be oppressed.

When women are beaten by their husband they feel that they let him down or failed.  They say they fell down the stairs.  Women are afraid to tell the truth.  We have now started to speak to schools and have women come out and say that they are beaten.  But the problem is that the Police laugh saying the problem is domestic.  This is changing as we get many women to come out.  At the grass roots they are still very oppressed.  I work in the slums of Nairobi.  Women who came from the country did so because their husbands violated them.  Then they come and stay with men in the slums and they are again violated.  They have a red eye or swollen cheek.  With time I think they will understand.  They’ve been oppressed for years.  It takes time.

I got married to a man who believed that a woman is a woman and her place is in the kitchen, but because I was involved in issues of women’s rights I decided I would say no to violence.  He still violates me, but I stand by my rights.  I have declared my rights.  My daughters too.  When a man came to marry my daughter, she said to me, “No, Mommy.  This man is like my dad.  I don’t want to marry him.”  She had seen her father shouting at me and telling me I’m stupid.  And that man is jobless.  I am the one who brings food on the table.  I am the one who has been caring for my children up to now.   He did very little to support.  But regardless of what he did I said that I wanted my children to go to school.  I wanted my children  to be educated.  All my 6 children have finished O levels.  One is working at the UN in NY as an accountant.  So it was like whatever this man was doing to me I didn’t care.  He couldn’t get me down.  I said I would stand firm and be sure that my children would have a good life.  They refuse to be violated.  To be married does not mean that I am a lesser person.

I sing.  When there are meetings like this, (World Council of the YWCA) I come.  Sometimes men don’t let us attend this type of meeting, but I do.  I control my own life.  I speak up.  My husband can call me a mushy brain, say that I am crazy.  Regardless of what I have been told I have walked and gotten on with my life.   Nobody lives my life except myself.  I control my thoughts and my body.  If I didn’t do that, I would not be here.  I would already be dead.  Although my husband never beat me, he abused me with insults.  When he says this I say Thank you.  All you say goes back to you.  I bounce them to you.

I still am here.  At the end of the day he lost his job.  I struggled as a teacher to provide and raise our children.  The man cannot say ‘Mama thank you, you are trying’.  Instead he says I am stupid.  I tell him stupid does not come into my mind but if you call me stupid I bounce it back to you.  One thing he has never done is to touch me.

I know I have a right in my home and in my country and I address it to other women.  I can help other women to say no.

I have a passion for women, and a purpose.  Sometimes when I listen to the women with their issues I just have water running from my eyes, but I know we can work together.  I must shake the world.  I can help women live happily.  It is because of violence that women cannot put food on the table.

When you are told from June to May that you are stupid, you believe you are stupid, you believe you are stupid.  Women encourage me so I keep my energy.  I think, God you love me and I will continue.”

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It’s easy to distinguish that the rugby player on the right is Matt Damon, but who is he shaking hands with?  Is that Nelson Mandela or Morgan Freeman?

Don’t  miss the film Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood.  Morgan Freeman is exceptional in the role of Nelson Mandela.  Freeman had known for a long time that he would some day play the role of Mandela.   When Nelson Mandela’s autobiography was published in 1995, Mandela was asked who he thought could play him on screen.  He cited the name of Morgan Freeman.

In a recent interview in Switzerland published in Migros Magazine, his interviewer said, “Mandela is a wise man; he’s 91 years old.  You are also getting older and therefore also becoming wise?”   Freeman’s response was, “Careful.  I am getting older, but I am not becoming old.”

Age is an attitude.  Nelson Mandela, Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood share the fact that they are getting older – as are we!  They also share age-esteem with a positive attitude toward age that will keep them from ever becoming “old”.

Bonnie Fatio, AgeEsteem

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