Anyone who says 70 is the new 65 is not even close to being 65 yet.
My health started to give me attitude in my late 50’s despite me being athletic, active, eating healthy and all the rest.
It is called aging.
I think we are developing a dangerous skewered view of aging that is similar to the warped view of entrepreneurship when you are old.
The media highlights the success stories, which gives us the idea that all you need to do is work at it and you can stay healthy and young forever.
I agree that ‘working at it’ increases the odds in your favor to be healthy as you grow older, but it is not a guarantee. Yes, you should do all you can – but when you get older, your body WILL have other ideas, no matter what you do. It slows down, it loses ability and agility, it gets ill, it dies. I have seen so many people in denial about this who torture themselves to cheat death.
Society has bought into this New Age crap about mind over matter, positive thinking and all that shit, and it is causing us to be more youth orientated than ever. We have a very flippant and unforgiving attitude towards aging that is doing serious harm to the elderly.
It is an unfortunate lie to presume that aging is all in your head – that it is just a number. It is not. Your body wears out. You cannot do what you could at 20, 30 or even 40.
Look at the real world, how many seniors can you truthfully say are younger in body than in age? We only hear about the exceptions, the ones who defy aging – they are in the minority. The truth is not so rosy.
The dangerous part of this thinking is that it could set in motion policies designed to cut out or delay necessary help for the aged, namely medicare, pensions, government assistance. Saying that 70 is the new 65 implies that all seniors are able to keep on working and take care of themselves, this is so far, far from the truth.
Equally so is the fallacy that when you are old you can just start over when you are cast out of your job and deemed redundant. Many do not have the resources to do this, nor the energy or health. It costs a lot of money, time and energy to start your own gig, and if it fails, like most of them do, seniors have no way of recovering what they have lost. Even to keep working 8 hours or more a day, 5 days a week takes a hell of a toll on an older person. They can’t keep it up.
The truth about aging is this: Our bodies deteriorate, no matter what. We cannot do as much as we used to. Our ability to recover from loss; mentally, physically, financially is almost ZERO.
Before I got sick, I used to think the same way, that aging was all in your head. That I could keep on forever working hard, playing hard and doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. But it is a lie.
Aging is not a disease. It is not something you can outsmart, overcome or out do. And you will need help, of some kind, in your later years because you cannot function as you did when you were younger.
My Mother always warned me that I should save enough money because I will get tired. Of course I did not believe her. And anyone in good health younger than 60 reading this will not believe her either. Nowadays you could never save enough money anyways.
Take a good look at those older folks who are celebrities, or successful. Are they doing it on their own? NO. They have staff that does a lot of things for them, that is how they can stay active doing what they love. When they get sick, they get instant attention and the best care. Do most seniors have that luxury?
My Mother got to live in her own place well into her nineties, but this was not because her body was healthy like a 40 year old. It was because she had an awful lot of help. This is reality. Ask anyone who is currently taking care of an aging relative.
It is not right or fair to ask or expect an older person to continue doing what they did when younger. We must ensure that our aging population is taken care of. It is not their fault that they get old, sick and die. It is mother nature.
So stop waving the flag that 70 is the new 65. It is total bullshit.