Category: Enjoy Life

Getting Older Is Getting Younger

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but it seems to me that what was once considered old age is no longer old. It’s not just that people are looking younger than past generations have at their age, from what I’m observing, they’re also acting younger.

A motivating factor for going on this cruise was a belief that I’ve moved into a decade of life that is classified as “old,”  and should go while I’m still physically able to enjoy traveling.  But meeting so many people who are several years older than I am is rapidly changing my belief about age-imposed limits.

One of the cruise ship’s doctors was seated at my dinner table last week and mentioned that the average age of passengers onboard is 83.  I knew that the oldest passenger is 98, but I didn’t realize that the average age was over 80. I look around me and I observe people who clearly aren’t young, but who don’t act old – or at least aren’t behaving in a way we once believed appropriate for a person over a certain age.

There are a small number of people on the ship who use canes, walkers, scooters, or are in wheelchairs, but they’re still going on a cruise around the world. They aren’t sitting at home in front of the TV thinking about the life they once had or could have if they were younger and healthier.  They’re going places despite the physical limitations of getting older. Think about how many wheelchairs you see in airports these days.

Of course, cruising does attract an older demographic because it is less physically demanding than other forms of travel, but it still requires a lot of walking to get to different areas of the ship and go on tours when we are in port. When we’re at sea I average walking two miles a day just going from place to place onboard in addition to the two miles I walk around the ship as daily exercise. And then there’s all the dancing on the ship. Someone’s always dancing somewhere. There are dance lessons during the day and dancing in two locations every night. I look at the people who are dancing and they aren’t young, but they’re still walking and dancing on a ship that is often rolling from side to side or up and down.

I realize that my fellow passengers may not be representative demographics of the larger over 80 population.  They have the financial means to eat healthily, engage in activities that support mental stimulation, and connect with people who are active instead of living in isolation as many seniors do. And yes, there are grumpy old people onboard who never smile and will be miserable anywhere they go, just as you can find people in their 20’s and 30’s who are prematurely grumpy.  Who wants to model them?

We’ve learned from multiple studies that key factors contributing to a long healthy life are relationships, exercise, and diet; but I’m observing the behaviors, attitude, and mindset described below in my fellow passengers that I believe contribute as well.

1.       Talk more about the future more than the past. The future my fellow passengers often talk about is their next cruise, but the point is that they have something to look forward to. People who talk more about the past than the future typically can’t envision a future that is as enjoyable than their past and can develop the belief that there is nothing to look forward to. Their best years are behind them.

2.       Focus on what you want to experience instead of what you believe you must accomplish.  If you’re old enough to be classified as old you’ve probably already accomplished enough for a lifetime, plus it sounds like work. Instead, think about how you want to experience life at this stage of your life. I seldom hear anyone on the ship talk about the career or profession they’ve retired from, but they do talk about the experiences they want to have.  

3.       Engage with people who are active and share your outlook on life. It’s easy to become isolated when you don’t have a job to go to every day that also provides an outlet to build relationships with others who have similar interests. You must make an effort to find religious, charitable, political, and educational organizations that provide the structure to form relationships that your job once did.  The attitude and behavior of people you spend time with can limit or expand your view of what’s possible for you at any age.  If your friends sit around and complain, you’re likely to as well. Not fun.

We can’t stop the aging process but there are steps we can take to turn getting older into feeling younger, even with a few aches and pains.

Something to think about.

Life Lessons From The End Of The World

Getting away from it all sounds appealing when you’re rushing through life checking items off your “To Do” list and thinking you could have done each one of them a little better. How would it feel to be in a place that is calm, serene, silent, disconnected from the outside world, and where no one knows you well enough to ask anything of you?

I had the opportunity to find out last week as my cruise ship spent 7 days at sea between Buenos Aires and Ushuaia, Argentina – also known as the city at the end of the world.

Our scheduled stop in the Falkland Islands was cancelled due to bad weather. This added an extra two days to the already scheduled five days at sea to cruise around King George’s Island, Admiralty Bay, Paradise Bay, and Charlotte Bay in Antarctica; and to be completely disconnected from the world outside the ship.

Antarctica is virtually untouched by humans. Cruising is the only way to visit unless you’re on an expedition team.  For five days I felt like I was floating in an ethereal silent world of silver and white where it’s almost impossible to tell where the snow ends, and the water and sky begin. The only sound from my balcony was the crackling of the ice, similar to what you hear when you pour liquid over ice cubes. And this time of year, it doesn’t get dark at night, it just gets gray. Virtual daylight but little sunshine 24×7.

There was a constant parade of icebergs of all shapes and sizes and large chunks of glacier ice passing in front of my balcony. The glacier ice is underlit by a neon blue light caused by the amount of ice visible under water. It looks man-made but is natural, God-made, and truly beautiful. It’s almost hypnotic to watch it all.

The cruise ship was the only vessel on the water, and other than an occasional spotting of whales, colonies of Penguins and an Albatross flying by, we were completely alone. Even though I was accompanied by 1300 people on the cruise, when I was standing on my balcony surrounded by snow, water, and sky, I felt completely alone.

Antarctica is a place people go to be unreachable. Internet connections were impossible, phone calls extremely difficult, and we had no TV reception on days when there was a lot going on. In this world of constant connection and news 24 x 7, what’s a person to do when you can’t connect?  How do you get through the day without knowing what’s going on in the world? What do you do when no one needs you to do anything?

Not being able to connect with the outside world made me feel uncomfortable. I found myself checking my phone to see if it was working and trying to log on to the internet much too frequently.  I was surrounded by beauty and yet I just didn’t seem to be able to let go of the need to connect, even though there was no urgent reason why I needed to.  I think constantly checking our phone for messages is another one of those habits we develop without fully understanding why. It’s difficult to stop even though you say that you really want to get away from it all.

I finally realized I was wasting too much time trying to fix something that wasn’t fixable. Wouldn’t it be better to stop resisting reality and enjoy where I was? After all, I was in Antarctica and heading to Ushuaia, the city known as the end of the world, and likely won’t come this way again. Wouldn’t it be better to fully experience the world I was in and enjoy the present moment?

The lesson I took away from this experience was to stop doing what clearly isn’t working. Relaxing and accepting reality of the moment is a much better choice than fighting the impossible. How many times do we continue to but our head against the wall of something we don’t like but can’t change?

The feeling of being cut off and unable to communicate didn’t feel good, but it wasn’t within my power to fix. Continuing to try only increased my frustration and prevented me from enjoying the beauty of the moment.

To simply stop doing what clearly isn’t working may sound too simple but often what sounds simple isn’t easy to do.  

Something to think about.