Let me hear from you. Contribute your experience and thoughts. I can’t promise to answer every email, but as common themes emerge, I’ll publish some responses and try to faithfully relay the range of points-of-view. rbs@AgileAging.net
In your most private moments, what do you think about aging? Does advancing seniority fill you with distaste, or with relief? Apprehension or contentment? Are you grinning or grimacing?
What image of aging first pops into your mind’s eye? More memory-making with the grandkids? More midnight shuffles to the bathroom? A lengthening shelf of unpronounceable pills? A closet-full of business attire dry-cleaned for schlepping to Goodwill?
Have you dreams deferred or nagging irritations? A Danube cruise? Elusive words on the tip of your tongue? Performing with the Community Players? Being nibbled to death by ducks?
Like most of my peers, I’m aware the aging glass is both half-empty and half-full. We have to take the sour with the sweet. But it’s my impression that we tend to over-emphasize seniority’s downsides. If that’s correct, this reflexive pessimism exacts a high price. Not only can it impair our mental and emotional health. It can also neglect and undervalue seniority’s rich offsetting opportunities, passions and pleasures. This blog is dedicated to helping rebalance the scales. I want to make the case for a positive approach to growing old.
CURRENT POST
When planning blog posts for 2024, I always intended to devote November’s to election reflections. For months, it felt as if the Main Event was taking an eternity to arrive. Then suddenly it had come and gone.
Pundits and politicians have been competing to parse the election results. What happened and why? Who was to blame? Why did no one foresee this electoral sweep? Leaving recaps and recriminations to others, I’d like to pivot to what comes next. (Developments are evolving daily. I halted my data-gathering in the middle of this month.)
What are the priority items in the President-elect’s emerging agenda? Who is he tapping to lead implementation? What does the combination of actions and actors reveal about his overarching approach to a second term?
What strategies are available to opponents to resist this implementation? Are there adaptable precedents from foreign democracy defenses? What domestic responses are already being mobilized?
Within the ambit of tumultuous transition, how might American elders, like most readers of this blog, aim for personal security, engagement and serenity?
In the spirit of full disclosure, let me preface this examination by acknowledging my grave concern that the President-elect’s new tenure may present a historic threat to American stability and world peace. I realize these are complex, controversial subjects. Not all blog readers will agree with me. But the stakes can hardly be higher. I want and need to speak up.
Russell Sunshine worked for 40 years in 40 countries as an international development lawyer and independent policy advisor to foreign governments. Now retired back in America, he’s writing non-fiction and practicing agile aging on California’s Central Coast. Russell’s memoir, Far & Away: True Tales from an International Life, is available on Amazon. Click Here