“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
“Try”, she said. So I pushed first one button and then another. Finally the loud ringing stopped abruptly.
What a relief. The ringing had been unbearable. I was caring for my granddaughters for several days and someone had set all the alarms to go off so they would be certain to get to school on time. The other alarms had been easy to stop, but this one? This was on a radio with more buttons to push than the elevator in a sky scrapper.
While I pondered over which to push? Six-year- old Viviane entered the room. “Try,” she insisted, so I tried. – And it worked. The ringing stopped.
This was a great reminder and lesson. Just try.
I pride myself in trying the new and unknown. Adventure is exciting. In those situations I do not hesitate. I find it fun to try. However, I am a technological immigrant and am concerned that things will go wrong if I hit the wrong button. This was a good lesson.
Now I will reconsider how I view technology, and “try” in order to learn.
Bonnie Fatio
What is your abundance made up of? Is it money, jewelry and designer clothes? Do you count it as your friends and family? Is it waking up in the morning knowing you have the gift of a new day to open and discover? Do you consider the fragrance of the flowers and sounds of a bird chirping or water running in a stream as part of your treasures? Is the simple fact that you have a job with a regular income or the skills to find such a job part of your fortune?
When Maya Angelou was a young girl she was so depressed and unsure of herself that she considered suicide. A teacher took her aside and told her, “Sit down and write everything that you are thankful for.” When she replied that she had nothing to be thankful for, her teacher said, “You might begin with the simple fact that you can hold a pencil and write.” Realizing our abundance helps us to uncover an untapped potential that is waiting to be called on. Look at all that Maya Angelou has accomplished since that time and the lives that she has positively touched.
Each of us has potential that can be freed by looking at the abundance and goodness around us. When we lighten our lives by seeing the fortune that we have we are not only happier and more confident, we also become a magnet for others. There is a goodness in abundance that creates more goodness and more abundance. Look around you. The abundance is there. It just needs to be defined and appreciated.
AgeEsteem is recognizing the abundance around you as a key to healthy aging.
Bonnie Fatio
Do you feel that abundance surrounds you? Do you think that it all belongs to someone else? Or, are you sometimes overwhelmed with wonder at how fortunate you are?
Abundance is having all that you need and want. Different people have varying perspectives. Much depends on how we define what abundance includes. Do you measure it by the number of things that you have acquired? Do you feel blessed because you are healthy and have enough to eat? Do you relish the abundance of beauty that surrounds you?
Often as people age money becomes a concern. Will I have enough to put food on the table, pay the rent, and pay the medical bills? However, abundance is not just a question of money.
My Dad used to say that we were rich because we were healthy and happy. We kept healthy habits, ate balanced meals and took dental hygiene seriously. During childhood our extra perks were picnics on the beach to watch a stunning sunset, or on a summer evening catching fire flies and giggling with friends as we pointed our elbow to a star and wished on it out loud. We were giddy with abundance. No one needed a second pair of shoes or a designer shirt to feel rich. The coolest of the cool was to have bottle pop tops stuck onto your shirt, the more the better.
Some of these perks have changed over the years, although picnics, fire flies, sunsets and giggling remain as part of our abundance. I believe they are also important to our age-esteem. Age-esteem can also make us giddy with abundance when we focus on the stars and sunsets.
Bonnie Fatio
It Is Up To Us
When people go around looking and feeling negative about their age they do everyone, and especially themselves, a disservice. If we are relatively pain free, have enough to eat and a roof over our heads, why are so many of us determined to radiate an air of misery and martyrdom?
In this world brimming with people, loneliness is optional, not essential. As the Buddhists teach, ‘Today is the best day of your life’. Why not make the most of it? Smile at people. Some may think it is the sign of galloping dementia, but just maybe, someone we smile at will feel better for it, and it will have done good to both of the giver and the receiver.
Smiling exercises many of the facial muscles that lift the sagging contours and fight the downward pull of gravity. This in time will create nice new wrinkles and creases, rather than frown lines and down-turned mouths. Presenting this new face to the world one will not only look better but feel better too. The unexpected glimpse of myself in that mirror will no longer shock me to the core but reflect the ‘me’ I know I am. The warm expression will radiate the image of someone worth getting to know. – And who can tell what new doors that will open?
Today could be the start of a new beginning. Let each succeeding day be just as good. It is up to us to make it happen.
From Images© by VM. Shared with the author’s permission.
Older People – An Attractive Image?
So how can older people present an attractive image to the younger generations, become role models rather than being viewed as a potential social burden? We cannot try to force feed them our life experience, but if we can show an open-minded, forward-looking attitude, rather than condemning the modern way of life, it is a start.
Think positive, maybe seek out ways of helping the less privileged, many charities will welcome us with open arms. Trying to find ways to meet the challenges of climate change and population growth, which will have an immense impact on our grandchildren’s future lifestyle, offers the chance to become involved and work alongside people of all ages.
The opportunities to contribute to society are endless; we can all find something useful to do in one way or another, depending on our abilities and inclination. Doing things for and with others and really participating in team-work can break down age barriers and give everyone a new view and respect for each other’s generation.
If around all that you still have the time, take up a new hobby too. Make sure that it is something that you will become passionate about; do whatever it is with passion and then share your passion with others. Enthusiasm is very infectious.
From Images© by VM. Shared with the author’s permission.
A View Of Online-Dating At 65+
I happened to look through the photographs of the over 65’s posted on an online-dating site. What a sorry looking lot! I have seen more smiling faces at a funeral. Who do they think they are going to attract? Are they trying to ensure in-house geriatric nursing care and how do they visualize their remaining years? In reply to a question asking what were their projects for the future the majority said they had none. What a negative image to present to potential soul mates.
On the female side of the site smiles abounded and it seemed that the women wanted to present a picture of cheerful, positive well-being. Are these up-beat women as unimpressed by the images presented by their male counterparts as I was?
From Images© by VM. Shared with the author’s permission.
Perceptions
If I now start to wear with pride my signs of ‘seniority’, not just shudder at them, and l work on my new smiling face, I wonder how I will be perceived by other people. Will they see that I am an individual who still has a life to lead and can they accept that I am not a has-been who is fit only for the life of a spectator? Is this how most people still see the older generations and how merited is this view?
How do I see other people of my generation and how do I relate to them? Do their signs of ageing repulse me or is it that I can accept them in others but not in myself? Well I think lots of the men of my own age, or older, look great! The fit, slim, bright eyed ones, out enjoying the opportunities that their good health offers. You see them sailing, jogging, cycling, skiing; the benefits of exercise and a healthy life-style are self-evident. The future looks good for them.
They are not all so lucky though. Many are already suffering from ill health, creaking joints or failing hearts. Years of sedentary working, too many calories and lack of exercise has taken its toll They have no choice but to accept the status quo and find enjoyment in less active pastimes.
From Images© by VM. Shared with the author’s permission.
I Won’t Be Categorized
I think that a major part of my inability to acknowledge where I have got to in my life is that I find the wholesale categorization of people into neat euphemistically labeled packages is utterly senseless. We are all different.
The Elderly, Senior Citizens, Golden Oldies, these labels all conjure up images of Dear Old Things with sticks or Zimmer-frames, slippers by the fire, knitting away with arthritic fingers. That was Retirement in the old days. Most of us aren’t like that now.
If I want to learn to dance I want to join a dance class, not a well-intentioned ‘Senior’s’ class. I want to match my riding skills to competitors of all ages, ski with other people of my ability, old or young. Learn to sail, die from falling from the North face of the Eiger, rather than in a geriatric ward where the nurses will call me ‘Dear’. Now that really would turn me into a Grumpy Old Woman.
From Images© by VM. Shared with the author’s permission.
My Self-Image
When I look down at myself I see the ‘me’ that has been there since I grew up, same height, same weight. This ‘me’ can still out-sprint my seven-year- old grandson, (though he is now showing that he can go further than me), swim faster than him, (though relative size might play a part in that), ride horses better than most people, work longer hours, delight in being silly, and still enjoy active life in a whole-hearted way.
Then I catch a glance of my entire self in a mirror, and I see an almost complete stranger. My self-image reflects the person I feel inside, happy, confident, probably humming a song in my head. The image in the mirror is of a grumpy-looking, care-worn old woman, and I see the ‘me’ that others see. My self- image has tactfully omitted to have a face.
Now my financial resources would not stretch to pay for radical cosmetic surgery and in any case, I am not sure that that would be really ‘me’ either. I may hanker a bit for the benefits of the odd tweak here and there, and a dental makeover would certainly be a great improvement, but I don’t think I would like to go further than that. No, the real change needs to come from within. I must allow my inner cheerfulness to be reflected in my expression so that I become more in harmony with my outward image.
From Images© by VM. Shared with the author’s permission.
A Certain Age
I am a woman of a ‘Certain Age‘; that much I am now willing to admit. It is a pleasantly vague description for someone of indeterminate years, but I fear that even then I am flattering myself and that it is no longer how others see me. However, that I am no longer ‘young’ is self-evident, even to my deluded subconscious. How should I now see myself?
Many years ago I made a conscious decision to op-out of ‘Middle-Age’ and I still think it was an excellent idea; I just carried on doing what I had always done, without a backward glance and not a forward one either. To me the concept of ‘Middle-Age’ is the embodiment of Boring, spelt with a capital B; to stop regarding yourself as young, to stop doing fun things, to slow down, get fat and think you are ‘past it’; all that is as far from my philosophy as it is possible to get. But it’s the first three words of this paragraph that make me a bit nervous.
If I ever analysed the label ‘of a Certain Age’, I would see it used to describe a woman who was in, perhaps, her mid-fifties; past Middle Age, but not yet Old. I now have a nasty suspicion that many other people would now look at me and put me into the latter category, that is if they even actually notice me. What is sad is that I do not feel myself that way at all.
From Images© by VM. Shared with the author’s permission.
