Chapter One

Old? Who, Me?

The old joke about there being two types of people in the world—those who divide the world into two types and those who don’t—reminds us that, to some extent, all distinctions are arbitrary. That being said, most of us would agree that our lives do fall into two distinct halves—a morning and an evening.

A more honest, if less poetic, way of putting it would be to admit that for half of our life we’re young and for half of our life we’re not. Let’s be frank: there’s the young half of our life and there’s the old half.

Our culture is a young-half-of-life culture. The focus is on the external dimension of life: developing our outward-focused plans and goals, looking after our relationships and our livelihoods. It’s about ascent. Success is often measured externally, by such criteria as how much money we make or the quality of our creative efforts or our social status.

The old half of life gets a bad rap; it’s seen as largely about descent: declining health, financial insecurity, a downward spiral that’s more or less inevitable.

In this book, and in our lives and work, we reject that narrative. Both halves of life are equally important and equally worthwhile. After all, if they weren’t equal, they wouldn’t be halves, right?

Success, in the old half of life, is measured internally, not externally. So, it’s harder to see. When we’re old, success is about growing our inner life rather than our outward success. When we’re growing inwardly, we’re succeeding.

Sometimes we’re pushed by pain; other times we’re pulled by possibilities. Purposeful aging requires letting go of previously held assumptions about aging. Often, it requires being impelled by a crisis of some sort—a life crucible—to move us inward. The structure of the first half of life has to fall apart to some degree and show itself to be wanting, or we will not be motivated to grow.

Admitting “I am old” does not mean that we accept decline; rather it means we recognize that we’ve moved into the half of our life that’s beyond external achievement. It’s not about slowly dying; it’s about staying alive in ways that allow us to express who we truly are more fully.

In the old half of life, we discover that it’s no longer fulfilling to find meaning in simply being outwardly successful or physically appealing. We need a new story, a new language, and new models of what it means to be old.

What’s in a Name?

We have chosen to use the word old to describe ourselves, emphasizing the idea of growing old rather than merely getting old. We freely admit that we enjoy being old and that we embrace (most of) the experiences associated with our advancing years.

The way we see it, there is a certain sense of power and agency in claiming the word old for ourselves. It’s analogous to the way in which marginalized groups have taken ownership of terms that were historically used to describe them in a derogatory way, such as the LGBTQ community pridefully adopting the word queer to self-identify.

Thus, “We’re old,” we say, “and proud of it!”

We realize, however, that not everyone feels the way we do. For many people, the word old remains negative. “Old? Who, me?” they say. “Old is a state of mind; you’re only as old as you feel, and I feel younger than ever!” This antiaging mindset is pervasive.

Point being: the word itself doesn’t matter as much as the mindset behind it—a mindset emphasizing the pro-aging conviction that later life is about real possibilities. Consequently, we believe you should adopt the term to describe your age that best suits you and best describes the age and stage you perceive yourself to be.

Some of the terms we’ve heard include elder, well-der, older adult, oldish, person of a certain age, aged, aging person, senior citizen, retiree, sage, gray, coot, perennial, geezer (Dave’s favorite), and fossil (which always brings a smile to Richard’s face). In short, if age is just a number, then old is just a word, one of many to choose from. So, pick the term that works best for you—or employ more than one, as we do from time to time in our writing.

After a certain age, we’re surely old enough to do so.

How Old Is “Old”?

Why do some people “of a certain age” identify as old, while others don’t? How old is “old,” anyway? And if old is a mindset, can we be old on our own terms?

Dave was 28 when he met Richard, who was 41 at that time—not old, but certainly, to Dave’s 20-something eyes, grown up. He owned a house and had kids—both signs, to a young person’s mind, of moving one foot toward (if not into) the grave.

There was a guy Dave worked with, though, who he considered legitimately old. Doug was 53—a geezer, if you asked the 28-year-old: used-up, out of touch, ancient. He was just so slow, and serious, and kind of fragile; never once did he go out drinking and dancing with Dave and his friends on Monday nights!

Now, however, from the perspective of a 63-year-old, 53 doesn’t seem old at all; it’s middle-aged at most. People who are 53 have yet to earn their first senior discount; they probably haven’t even started opening their mailings from AARP.

Today, Dave’s former coworker would be 88. Is that old? Chronologically, perhaps, but it depends on the person. When Richard is 88, he might be old, but maybe not. So, maybe old is just a mindset. The seven- and eight-year-old students that Dave teaches consider the college students he brings to their class to be old, and their perspective on his age is one of complete mystery. When he asks them how old they think he is, their eyes get wide: “Eighty?” one asks. “Ninety?” guesses another. When he admits that he is 63, one kid says, “Wow! You don’t look a day older than 62!” To them, Dave is old, impossibly so, especially when he points out that when they’re his age, it will be 2076.

With this in mind, the term old is subjective; it depends on the perspective of the person using it.

College students are old to the second-graders, but they’re not really old. On the other hand, the term old does have an objective dimension. Dave’s former coworker, at 88, probably qualifies as objectively old—but maybe not, depending on the person. As for someone aged 63, it might depend on the person’s characteristics and attitude. And Richard, at 76? He’s young at heart, and vital, and curious, and healthy, but does that mean he’s not old?

The real issue is the way in which the word old is used: not as a descriptive term but as a value judgment. Calling someone (especially oneself) “old” can be an insult; to be old means used up, washed up, and basically irrelevant.

In this light, identifying a person as “old” pigeonholes them. It limits their possibilities and constrains their options. All of a sudden, someone is too old for something and of too little interest to someone else.

Small wonder, therefore, that so many older people find themselves trapped in a cruel paradox: they aspire to active aging but simultaneously dread the prospect of getting older. Billions of dollars and countless hours are spent on antiaging efforts to “stay young,” in a desperate attempt to deny a natural and inevitable process.

We need to embrace the term “old” and the realities of being old. But at the same time, we can be old on our own terms for as long as possible. By making choices about what it means to be old, we aren’t denying time’s advances, but we are taking charge of what it means to “act our age” in our own way.

The consensus among the elders we have interviewed is that young people worry too much about the pains of being old and too little about the possibilities associated with it. So, the earlier we begin to reimagine old age, the better. Geriatrician Louise Aronson, in her 2019 best seller, Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life, writes, “We treat old age as a disease, rather than as one of three major life stages. We approach old age as a singular, unsavory entity and fail to adequately acknowledge its great pleasures or the unique attributes, contributions, physiology, and priorities of older adults. . . . As humans, we are more than the sum of our parts, but somehow as we age, we get fractionalized into being seen as a body with a disparate collection of broken parts.”

A big part of the problem is that we are complicit in our own fractionalization. We pass judgment on ourselves for the signs of aging and reject ourselves accordingly. As Thomas Moore writes in Ageless Soul: The Lifelong Journey Toward Meaning and Joy (2017), “The first state of getting old can be unsettling. You notice stiffness in your body and wrinkles on your face. You observe that people address you differently, calling you ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir,’ or, just as typically, ignoring you altogether. You walk into a room and forget the reason you entered into it.”

Small jolts like this jar us out of the illusion of youthfulness and force us to face the fact that we’re getting older. These little shocks, though, are really gifts. They awaken us to the choices that aging presents; without them we’d be far less likely to step onto the path of purposeful aging.

Everyone, everywhere, is aging, whether they like it or not. With each passing moment, we’re further from birth and closer to death; there’s nothing we can do about that. But aging doesn’t have to be passive; it can be an active process that we embrace. In other words, getting old or growing old: which will it be?

Remember when you were young and you couldn’t wait to be a grown-up? You’d be able to set your own hours—no bedtimes!—and eat whatever you wanted—ice cream for breakfast!

Then you got a little older and the appeals of adulthood became more real (and expensive!): your own car and apartment, no parents telling you how to live your life, and maybe, finally, the legal right to vote or have a drink in a bar if you wanted.

What it meant to be a grown-up was pretty clear: freedom! And while some responsibility would go along with it, you’d be able to be your own person, whatever that meant to you.

No wonder you couldn’t wait.

Contrast that with getting old. Chances are, it’s not something you are looking forward to. In the first place, what it entails isn’t nearly so clear as growing up, and in the second place, the potential promises of it aren’t nearly so appealing.

So, we need to reimagine what it means to grow old, in particular by emphasizing the growing part. If the benefits of growing up include greater freedom, what do the possibilities of growing old comprise?

Traditionally, they include wisdom (debatable) and perhaps the respect of others (hard to count on) and a well-earned rest (sort of unlikely in this day and age). All of these, challenging as they may be, are fine, but in our view, the best thing about growing old is the opportunity it offers for a deeper sense of purpose in life. This results in more authentic connections with others; with oneself; and with what is sacred, or holy, or divine, however we conceive of and experience that.

This deeper sense of purpose and the connections that go along with it are fostered by a willingness to engage in honest reflection and real conversation about aging’s big questions. And this requires courage.

The courageous aspect of growing old is illustrated well by the self-named Skilled Veterans Corps, a group of 200 retired engineers and other professionals over the age of 60 who volunteered to tackle the cleanup at the Fukushima nuclear plant after its meltdown following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011. It is evidenced in the spirit of the group’s organizer, Yasuteru Yamada, who shared in a May 2011 interview with BBC News his belief that volunteering to take the place of younger workers at the power station was not brave but logical. He explained that at 72 years old, he figured he only had about 15 years left to live; and so, even if he were exposed to radiation, cancer, which could take 20 or 30 years to develop, was not an issue. Therefore, he reasoned, older adults like him and his fellow volunteers, with less chance of getting sick, had a greater responsibility—and ability—help out.

Although Yamada denies being brave, his willingness and ability to confront the reality of dying and do what’s logical exemplifies the courage that can come to us as we grow old. It’s courage squared, as it simultaneously requires the courage to look death in the face and the courage to join forces with others in service of others.

Getting Old? Or Growing Old?

As we age, we find ourselves faced with this choice: get old or grow old. Getting old is a passive, default state in which we sit back and let aging happen to us. Growing old is an active state that requires a purpose path and a practice. We say yes to the invitations and challenges of aging and no to attitudes and behaviors that no longer serve us.

The key to growing older is to age from the inside out—to reflect honestly on how aging affects the deepest parts of ourselves, who we are at our very core. It’s not just about trying to be happy. As Viktor Frankl wrote in his 1946 classic, Man’s Search for Meaning, “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason ‘to be happy.’” He was right. We need a reason—a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to do what we do, a reason to live. We need to feel relevant, that we matter. Mattering matters. Full stop.