When I was a sophomore in high school, my French teacher assigned an essay on the question “Quel est le plus bel âge de la vie?” (What is the most beautiful time of life?) The answer came to me quickly: “Of course: when you are young.” Later, in my twenties, I came across a book called Life Begins at Forty. I found the title both strange and untrue. I couldn’t understand why anyone believed life began at 40 when obviously, life was almost over by then. As I look back on these deeply ageist attitudes, I marvel at how I ever came to hold them so firmly and uncritically. I see how unaware I was of the wonderful possibilities of later life, and how much I feared and scorned older age.
Today, it’s quite clear to me that the best age of my life is the age I am living, creating, and experiencing now. Much of what we always took for granted physically we can no longer assume. Much is harder to do, and the older we get, the harder it is. It’s harder to see and hear, harder to walk, breathe, get moving, and keep moving. It’s harder to stay awake, to concentrate, to keep warm, to remember what I just did, and to recognize people and know who they are. It’s more difficult to fall asleep at night, to sleep deeply, and to get up in the morning. It’s not as easy to find my way through once-familiar streets, to deal with complexity, and to stay alert. And it’s more trying to put up with nonsense and destructiveness.
By contrast, an Israeli woman of 70 tells me:
“I find that everything is becoming ‘lighter,’ less burdensome, less fateful, as if all the ‘vital’ decisions – again, for better or for worse – have been taken a long time ago and are a matter of the past...I also find that with increasing age I experience greater freedom from social pressures, especially with regard to my status as a woman who never married or bore children. To me, one of the satisfactions, if not joys, of retirement is that I no longer have to worry about making – or even ‘ having’ – a career. I feel that what I do now is no longer, in any way, part of a ‘career.’ Having a career in that sense, I feel, is something that, for better or for worse, I have put behind me. What I do now, if I may put it that way, I see as being ‘extraterritorial’ to any kind of career. I feel that now I no longer have to worry about having myself defined by others according to how I fulfill assignments or demands of any kind. Or about how I am being ‘evaluated’ or ‘assessed’ by them in any way. Now it is myself, and no one else, who calls the shots.”
Like this woman, I find that some things are also easier for me. It’s easier to become impatient, annoyed, frustrated, and critical. It’s easier to get tired and drop things. Yet it’s also easier to recognise these negative responses and stop some of them. It’s easier to be more open-minded, more humane, more understanding, and more empathic. Some things are also clearer: I see myself and my relationships more clearly, and I feel more certain about human nature and the human condition.
For example, human beings, with few exceptions, are both good and bad, destructive and constructive, to self and others. They will behave on one or the other side of this duality depending on how they are treated and the social situations they are in. I’ve experienced the emotional ups and downs, the contradictions and contrasts, described below. I believe that many of us have had the same experiences.
Enthusiasm and despair
I’ve experienced waves of hopelessness and despair, alternating with determination and enthusiasm for living. There have been times – especially when I’ve been severely ill – when I just wanted to give up and throw in the towel. In those dark moments, I felt that the best days are gone, so why continue at a lesser level of effectiveness? When I see some of the horrendous things that have happened to older people I know, like painful cancer and Alzheimer’s, I keep trying to reassure myself that it won’t happen to me. After each period of feeling defeated and drained, I return to fight again, to keep on being who I am, who I must be, and to strive for what I might become.
Then I become enthusiastic about what I am doing at the moment and what I have yet to do tomorrow, about my current relationships and others that are developing, and about my inner growth and insight.
Security and insecurity
I’ve experienced increased insecurity because of my increased vulnerability to illness. Uncertainty, over my current illness as well as possible new ones, looms large on my horizon. As time goes on, I will undoubtedly experience some decrease in mental acuity. How long can I continue to be free and independent and pursue projects of my own choosing? How long will I live? In what state? How will my life end? As I think about and experience the reality of these unknowns, I feel anxious and insecure. I therefore have to expect the unpredictable and be ready to meet it in whatever form it takes. But on the other side, I experience myself as being more secure and more integrated. I feel more whole, clearer in my purposes, more certain of my values and the ends that I direct my life toward. I have a wider and broader perspective on life. I feel stronger and surer about what is important and what isn’t.
My security also comes from feeling stronger about how I cope with adversity. Also, I have established certain routine activities. For example, I see friends and family regularly, exercise routinely, keep my sense of humour engaged, read, write, and teach, as well as meditate regularly and meet with a group that has similar interests to mine. These routines sustain me and provide a degree of equanimity and inner peace much of the time.
Feeling my age and feeling ageless
I recognise, with a slight shock, that I really don’t believe how old I am, and when I do believe it I want to forget it. There are times when I feel every bit of my age: when a strange fatigue hits me, stays a while, and goes away mysteriously; the day after a bad night’s sleep, when I try to dance vigorously and find I can keep going for only a few moments. I have to keep reminding myself that I am seventy-six years old. When I remember, I find it difficult to absorb that I have lived so many years. Sometimes, I feel ageless in spirit, as if time had not passed and my young self lingers in the hidden crevices of my being.
I am vigorous, walk with a spring in my step, and am full of enthusiasm and energy. I’m often taken aback when someone reflects to me that I present myself to them with an old face, gray hair, and an aged body. To convince myself of my chronological age, I have to keep telling myself: Be realistic. Much of your life is gone. It’s almost over. How fast and fleeting the past feels! As I approach the end, I want more time – a lot more time. Yet I fear that there may never be enough time. Then I wonder what I should do with my remaining time.
Excerpted with permission from The Wisdom of Morrie: Living and Aging Creatively and Joyfully, Morrie Schwartz, Hachette.