{This is my sixth blog entry. I wrote the first four as an introduction to “conscious aging” and “sage-ing,” so if you are new to the topic, I suggest you read my first four entries in order.}
Often when I facilitate a workshop, one of the first things I do is ask people to go around the circle and share their name, how many years of life experience they have, and whether they see themselves as mostly a Denialist, a Realist or an Enthusiast. These three terms are used by Bill Thomas in his book Second Wind: Navigating the Passage to a Slower, Deeper, and More Connected Life (2014).
Thomas says they are three subcultures that are shaping the way we see aging. The first group he calls the Denialists. They “want to stay in midlife as long as possible,” and they buy into the anti-aging industry. The second group is the Realists. They don’t deny that they are aging, but they think aging is both inevitable and unpleasant. The Realists equate success with lack of change, and “still” is a popular word with them. Finally, there are the Enthusiasts. They are “well aware that aging includes significant decline-related difficulties,” but “they are unwilling to equate aging with decline. They “reject the fantasy of human immortality and, in doing so infuse the decades, years, months, days, and hours that remain to them with depth, richness, and poignancy.”
Those who choose the Enthusiast are in the smallest group, but often these people say that they aspire to be in that group, and they like to hang out with people who are. Often when I teach, it isn’t too long before at least one person will say that they’re so happy they signed up for the class or workshop, because they had thought aging was all about diminishment, and now they are excited to realize that it’s not, and now they see their lives differently.
I love to tell them about the very popular book that is entitled Life Gets Better: The Unexpected Pleasures of Growing Older (2011) by Wendy Lustbader. Lustbader begins her Introduction by telling us about the time she told a group of eighteen to twenty-four-year-olds not to worry. “Everything gets better—you just have to get through your twenties.” She urged them to be patient with these years of struggle. (1)
When I read these words, I was as surprised as the eighteen to twenty-four-year-olds that she said these words. At 71, I feel this is the best time of my life, but it would never have occurred to me that I could generalize and make it a blanket statement like Wendy’s, or that eighteen to twenty-four-year-olds might realize that youth wasn’t such a great time of life. And I was surprised that she said she was “swarmed by the thankful.” She said one man said that he didn’t know how to love or who to love, if he was gay or straight and that he’s been torturing himself over it. He said she had given him hope. A woman said she had been depressed and that Wendy’s remarks were like being shaken awake. The woman now realized it would take time to arrive at an answer to the questions that were nagging at her.
And after having these conversations, Lustbader realized that she needed to write this book. She wrote, “the myth of youth as the best time of life burdens the young and makes us all dread getting older, as though there is only diminishment of life’s bounty as the decades pass,” but actually “life gets better as we get older, on all levels except the physical.” (2) Actually she says aging is a “burgeoning opportunity.” (5)
Lustbader refers to a telephone survey of over 340,000 Americans in 2008, which found that older people, on average, are “happier and less stressed” than younger people. They were surprised to find that variables such as “gender, having children under that age of eighteen at home, being unemployed, and not having a partner” had little impact on this tendency to feel happier with age. (4)
Have you discovered some ways in which “life gets better” as you age? If you have, I would love it if you would share one in the comment section. And, of course, I will be writing about this topic in future blogs.
To contact me, call me at 651–399-9571 or email me at “karenw0214@gmail.com.” I would love to have you take a minute to let me know what you think of my blog.
Please consider registering for the “Online Awakening the Sage Within” workshop in November on the Sage-ing International website–Sage-ing.org.
