Advancing years can be productive

Those senior jokes aren't always so funny. I rebel against an underlying negativity that anticipates decay and decline as inevitable. The joke can become a vehicle for passive acceptance.


Years have nothing to do with usefulness and productivity.

Grandma Moses began painting in her 70s.

Pablo Casals, the famed cellist,

was performing in his 90s.

Mary Baker Eddy, American religious leader, author, business woman, founded The Christian Science Monitor daily newspaper in her 88th year.

Love for mankind, and the conviction that one has something to contribute, however small, finds its expression. A volunteer in California at 104, shows up at her job as a hospital receptionist every day. When asked why, she replies, “What else would I do? Sit around and play cards?”

Asked for her advice on longevity, she counsels, “First of all, keep breathing! Then, help others, and stop thinking about yourself.”

Expecting decline and decay needs to be revised. It's healthy and satisfying to turn thought into more productive channels.

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“Except for the error of measuring and limiting
all that is good and beautiful,
man would enjoy more than threescore years and ten
and still maintain his vigor, freshness, and promise.”

“Life and goodness are immortal.

Let us then shape our views of existence

into loveliness, freshness, and continuity,

rather than into age and blight.”

“Each succeeding year unfolds

wisdom, beauty, and holiness.”

Mary Baker Eddy

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