I spoke this past week at the Manatee Center for Spiritual Living.
Go here to hear the talk I gave on Conscious Aging.
Just before I spoke, we played the song I’m Here to Remind You (Youtube version here)
Go here now to listen:
http://cslmanatee.org/mp3/2014-0803_tl_conscious_aging.mp3
The closing song can also be found on YouTube I Hope You Dance
Counting your blessings can bring more joy than counting your money, according to a new survey.
Results from the 2014 United States of Aging survey shows adults 60 and older are generally satisfied with their lives and optimistic about the future. The survey, sponsored by the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, the National Council on Aging, United Healthcare and USA Today, has been taken annually since 2012.
Compared to last year’s survey, older adults are more confident about their financial situation, but when asked the key to keeping a positive outlook on life, money was a distant 10th on the list.
“The No. 1 answer was spirituality,” says Rhonda Randall, a gerontologist and chief medical officer for United Healthcare Retiree Solutions. In fact, 25 percent of adults 60 and older said “faith or spirituality” was the key to happiness, followed by “a loving family” (15 percent) and “a positive attitude” (14 percent). Only 5 percent said “being financially secure” was the most important factor.
Perhaps the best news in the survey is older adults are getting serious about improving their health and eating habits. About 37 percent said they exercise at least 30 minutes every day compared to 26 percent in the 2013 survey.
But while actually exercising and eating well are important for physical health, simply making plans to ramp up activity and nutrition appears to have benefits for emotional health. Those seniors who said they set health goals were more than twice as likely to think their quality of life will improve and three times as likely to believe their health will get better.
“Just the act of setting a goal for your health has a positive effect,” Randall says. “There’s a degree of optimism that comes with setting the goal and believing that you can achieve the goal you set.”
This year’s survey also showed seniors feeling less pessimistic. For example, 22 percent said the current year was the worst in their lives or worse than normal.
A year ago, 24 percent said 2013 was worst ever/worse than normal. And in the 2012 survey, as seniors were still recovering from the Great Recession, 34 percent said that year was the worst ever/worse than normal.
As for their biggest worry, the No. 1 choice was “not being able to take care of myself” (16 percent), followed by “losing my memory” (14 percent) and “being a burden” (9 percent).
For the complete survey, go to nwsdy.li/agingsurvey.
From DailyWritingTips.com
Posted: 20 Aug 2014 09:22 PM PDT
Everyone wants to live longer, but no one wants to be old. –Harry Moody, director of academic affairs for AARP (2012).
To me – old age is always ten years older than I am. –Bernard Baruch, American financier (1870-1965).
About forty-two million Americans are 65 years or older. Advertisers, politicians, and researchers often need to refer to this group, but finding a term that will not insult its members is not easy.
Various terms have been suggested with varying degrees of success. Elder, elderly, senio
In Canada, according to what I’ve read in forums, the term elder has connotations of venerable age and wisdom; in the United States, however, people tend to associate elder with disapproving church elders or the word elderly. The decline of the acceptability of the word elder is illustrated by the name change of a travel organization established in 1975 for active Americans 60 and older. The parent organization is still calledElderhostel, but in advertising, the program is now known agelessly as “Road Scholar.”
Even the word retiree is heavy with the connotations of age. These days, the American Association of Retired People (founded 1958) goes by its initials only: AARP.
When politicians talk about “our seniors” in the same breath as “our children,” mature adults understandably bristle.
An article in The Senior Times says that the term “senior citizen” was coined in 1938 during a political campaign. Its use soars on the Ngram Viewer beginning in the 1940s. According to National Public Radio reporter Ina Jaffe, “senior citizen” is a term that “seems to annoy just about everyone.”
Recognizing the minefield of age and terms relating to it, The AP Stylebook has this entry for the word elderly:
Use this word carefully and sparingly. Do not refer to a person as elderly unless it is clearly relevant to the story. It is appropriate in generic phrases that do not refer to specific individuals: concern for the elderly, a home for the elderly, etc.
If the intent is to show that an individual’s faculties have deteriorated, cite a graphic example and give attribution for it. Use age when available and appropriate.
Apply the same principle to terms such as senior citizen.
Age is one of the realities of life that our culture prefers to deny. It’s unlikely that any term can be found to refer to old people that would not be offensive to someone because in our culture, old age itself is seen as offensive.
Perhaps the safest course is to refer to the intended age group in numeric terms:
between the ages of 65 and 75
above the age of 65
septuagenarian
octogenarian
nonagenarian
centenarian
Colloquial synonyms for “old person” range from friendly to deliberately hurtful, for example:
old-timer
oldster
codger
dotard
crone
coot
Although the word codger (like coot) usually has a negative connotation, this review about Dick Van Dyke in the Chicago Tribune (1992) makes a kind of compliment of it:
The wonderfully funny Dick Van Dyke, insufficiently honored in his prime, has now passed into the lovable-old-codger stage.
His comic gifts are sharper than ever, and he still dances with grace, style and a naughty insouciance. He is much too good for the quirky-old-coot roles that are his lot nowadays.
