While it’s probably better to laugh than to cry, I must protest.
Might age be a state of mind? Musicians and politicians (very strange bedfellows) often stay physically active and mentally sharp decades after others have retired.
Grandma Moses stands as a worthy example of a woman who, unexpectedly, launched a new career in the arts in her 70s.
Another woman who defined “productivity” during her senior years was Mary Baker Eddy – author, editor, publisher, lecturer, teacher, and preacher. She wrote, “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. Man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness.”
In fact, when Eddy wrote those words, the average life expectancy was 45 – so that age 70 (threescore years and ten) is about 60% greater. Google reveals the life expectancy in 2007 in the United States at 78 years. So, an increase of 60% over that, using Eddy’s cheery estimate, would be 125 years. In other countries, today’s life expectancy is even greater – 82 in Japan, 81 in Singapore, 80 in Sweden, Australia, Switzerland, Iceland, Canada, and France.
So why not anticipate vigor, freshness and promise -- right through 125 years of age? What if the antidote has more to do with attitude than we think? -- to not measure or limit anything good and beautiful in our lives.
This includes deciding whether to forward even those emails that, while eliciting chuckles and smiles, spread an accepted curtailment and inevitable decline of intelligence, health, and mobility for those past a certain number of years.
Yes, the lives of those in all generations can embrace “all that is good and beautiful.”
The ad below affirms the satisfying surprise of challenging assumed limits for age and gender too.
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