Why Growing Older Is Awesome

Posted on February 5, 2025 by Dr. Toni

Why Growing Older Is Awesome, According to the SilverSneakers Community

By Nancy Fitzgerald | January 27, 2025

You have more power over aging than you think. Here’s the proof.

Aches and pains, sorrows and losses—growing older isn’t always a laugh a minute. But cruising past retirement age comes with a lot of benefits too. Besides, does anybody really want to be a teenager again?

Studies show that embracing those birthdays is good for you. Seniors with a good attitude about getting older are better at handling stress, enjoy better physical and mental health, and even live longer.

“But it’s not just about living to be 100,” says Lewina Lee, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine. “It’s about being healthy physically and mentally. And optimism and a positive attitude are important parts of that.”

That’s a message we heard loud and clear from the SilverSneakers Facebook community when we asked this: “What’s your favorite part of being a senior citizen?”

Many of you chimed in, and responses were overwhelmingly positive. Deb G. summed it all up when she said that she’s “feeling like life has just begun!”

By your 60s, you’ve learned firsthand about the curveballs that life can throw your way. But despite everything, you’ve inspired us by embracing life with enthusiasm and joy. You’ve taught us a ton about optimism and persistence and the achievement of building a good life.

Here’s what we’ve learned from you. For us, it’s proof that growing older means getting better.

Lesson #1: Time Means Something Different (and That’s a Good Thing)

One of the best things about getting older? The chance to slow down and savor life, saying so long to the frantic pace of working and raising a family. Again and again, you told us how much you’ve loved easing into a lifestyle that’s still active—but is filled with things you really enjoy, with time to focus on you.

Kim B. is one who loves the slower pace of time, especially “being able to do the things I want to do and not what I have to do. I love keeping very busy but not punching a clock to sell my time.”

For Bonita H., the gift of time is the simple joy of a snooze in the middle of the day. And Nancy S. notes, “because I’ve had cancer three times already, I know how precious time is.”

Speaking of time, most of you are happy to toss the clock completely. Jeanne H. loves “not having to use an alarm clock. I sleep until I wake up, or until the puppy whines to go outside—better than the alarm!”

In fact, you’re so wrapped up in living life by your own rules that you may lose track of time altogether. Valerie C., for example, has tossed her calendar: “I look at the paper to see what day it is.”

Lesson #2: Self-Concern Gives Way to Focusing on Family and Friends

The most popular reason for loving life as a senior? “Grandchildren!”

Ken B. is one who puts his young crew on his large list of plans. On his retirement bucket list: planning to “walk the Appalachian trail, bicycle across the U.S., and spend time with my grandson.”

Being with the little ones is a joy, but it can be just as satisfying to know that you’re helping out. “I’m able to be there for the people I love,” says Dawn G. “We’ve had a lot of big events to celebrate and some serious emergencies where our ability to help was the best gift we could give.”

Janice B. agrees. “I love being available to help my family and make their lives a bit easier,” she says.

All that helping? Turns out it’s good for you. In a recent study, women who spent one day a week caring for their grandchildren performed best on tests of mental sharpness. And caring for the little ones can even add years to your life, according to a Swiss study.

Lesson #3: There’s No Age Limit to Learning

You’re never too old to master new skills. Just ask Stephen A., who’s taken up playing the banjo. For Nancy S., being a senior means “time to pursue writing without interruption.” Jaki R. loves taking classes, and Patricia G. is learning how to swim.

You showed us you’re curious and totally immersed in lifelong learning. “There are always new ways to develop and strengthen my mind, body, and spirit,” says La G.

Scientists say she’s on the right track. According to a study at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, older adults who learn a new, mentally demanding skill improve their cognitive function. The trick, researchers say, is you have to try tackling a brand-new skill, and you have to work hard to see results.

Want to get even sharper? Try learning a couple of new things at once, say researchers at the University of California, Riverside. In their study, seniors who spent just six weeks learning multiple skills increased their cognitive abilities to levels similar to those of folks 30 years younger.

Lesson #4: Wisdom Really Does Come with Age

Many of you reported that you appreciate the wisdom you’ve acquired along life’s journey.

What exactly is wisdom? It’s tough to define, but you know it when you see it. Scientists say it emerges from life experience and plays out as people show a sense of balance, make thoughtful decisions, and act with understanding toward people with different backgrounds and perspectives.

A 2016 study at the University of San Diego confirmed what we’ve all been counting on as we creep up in years: Older adults exhibit more of the hallmarks of wisdom and an increase in measures of mental health.

The best thing about getting older, says Kathy M., is “learning that I don’t need to worry so much. Learning that if I can fix it, I will, and if I can’t, it’s not my problem. Worry is a terrible waste of a mind.”

Another big part of wisdom is emotional intelligence, and many of you have found that life has smoothed some of the sharp edges and helped you to be kinder and gentler. For Jan S., wisdom is all about “my changed attitude, realizing that kind words are sweeter than beauty.”

You know life hasn’t always been easy, but you’ve learned a thing or two along the way. For MaryLou K., wisdom means “surviving all the lessons I’ve learned and keeping on moving forward.”

Lesson #5: Giving Back Feels Good

Many of you expressed a profound sense of gratitude: “I’m just happy to wake up every morning!” writes Pat K. And you’re delighted to share some of your time and fortune with others—volunteering is one of the joys of being a senior.

Ellen D. says the best thing about growing older is “being free to volunteer,” for an organization that provides aid to people around the world who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters and disease.

Diane B. says she loves focusing on her own community, “registering people to vote with the League of Women Voters and serving on the Homeless Task Force.”

Sandy T. enjoys having the chance to help others. She loves “serving at my church food bank and growing friendships there, but especially helping others.”

For some of you, the chance to serve takes a more personal turn, and you enjoy sharing your experience with younger people as a mentor. “I love having an opportunity to be an encourager to a younger adult,” says Rose R., “as someone was for me when I was younger.”

Lesson #6: Now’s the Time to Live Your Own Truth

After decades of trying to please others, you’ve told us you’re in the happy place of accepting—and liking—yourself just the way you are.

“I love being less concerned about what other people think,” explains Sherrill C., “and more concerned about living my life the way I want.” Gale H. is right on board with that. “Other than some aches and pains,” she writes, “I’m finally comfortable in my own skin.”

Many of you told us about the joy and freedom of casting off others’ expectations and being your authentic self. “I’m so happy to accept who I am now,” writes Irene M. “Not perfect, but that’s okay. My life isn’t controlled by fear of what others think of me anymore.”

These seniors are definitely onto something. The more we accept ourselves, the more likely we are to live fulfilling lives, according to researchers at the University of Hertfordshire in England.

We were glad to see so many of you have developed that healthy habit. Bette V. explains that she loves being a senior “because I don’t worry at all about what others think. I’m very grateful for the life lessons, and drinking in this stage of life, enjoying blessings, good health, great friends, great family—and truly (most of the time) being in a state of great peace.”

quotes on getting older

Posted on June 7, 2023August 21, 2024 by Dr. Toni

Growing older is one of the most pervasive preoccupations of humankind. The passing of time is, after all, an inescapable part of the human condition. And aging, like love, is one of the most common themes in literature, be it the calm of poet Robert Brownings’ “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be,” or poet Dylan Thomas’ raging against the dying of the light.

Being the paradoxical creatures we are, people generally want to live a long life, but at the same time, we lament getting older. We long for our days of youth and say “Youth is wasted on the young,” as the old adage goes. But while we can’t fight the inevitable aging of our bodies, we can shift our perspectives on what it means to grow older.

To some extent, aging is a state of mind. Instead of mourning the loss of youth, we can celebrate every extra year and be grateful for getting older. Many great minds and famous figures have said as much, and the following quotes might just change the way you think about getting older.

Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure.
–

Philosopher and writer George Santayana

The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball — the further I am rolled the more I gain.–

Susan B. Anthony

A human being would certainly not grow to be 70 or 80 years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species to which he belongs. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.–

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.–

Henry Ford

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.–

Minister and columnist Frank Crane

I believe the second half of one’s life is meant to be better than the first half. The first half is finding out how you do it. And the second half is enjoying it.–

Activist and writer Frances Lear

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.– Eleanor Roosevelt

The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquillity of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.–

English writer W. Somerset Maugham

Odder still how possessed I am with the feeling that now, aged 50, I’m just poised to shoot forth quite free straight and undeflected my bolts whatever they are… These are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.–

Virginia Woolf

The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.–

Author Madeleine L’Engle

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.–

Sophia Loren

If you are pining for youth I think it produces a stereotypical old man because you only live in memory, you live in a place that doesn’t exist. I think aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person that you always should have been.–

David Bowie

Since our society equates happiness with youth, we often assume that sorrow, quiet desperation, and hopelessness go hand in hand with getting older. They don’t. Emotional pain or numbness are symptoms of living the wrong life, not a long life.–

Author and speaker Martha Beck

When you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. I know people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners and they get hospital wings named after them. But the truth is that nobody in the world loves them. If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.–

Warren Buffett

Today, I am 64 years old. I still look good. I appreciate and enjoy my age… A lot of people resist transition and therefore never allow themselves to enjoy who they are. Embrace the change, no matter what it is; once you do, you can learn about the new world you’re in and take advantage of it. You still bring to bear all your prior experience, but you’re riding on another level. It’s completely liberating.–

Poet and activist Nikki Giovanni

Photo credit: v2osk/ Unsplash

About the Author

Tony Dunnell

Tony is an English writer of non-fiction and fiction living on the edge of the Amazon jungle.

Interview on Embracing the Aging Process

Posted on June 18, 2014 by Dr. Toni

This is an interview I did with Barbie Gummin of TLC5. It introduces my upcoming book, Embracing the Aging Process. Look for it soon.

“Aging is a Triumph, Not a Tragedy”

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Dr. Toni

So spake the great geriatrician, psychiatrist and elder advocate, Robert N. Butler, who died in December 2010. According to his biographer, W. Andrew Achenbaum, he helped

“…to transform the study of aging from a marginal specialty into an intellectually vibrant field of inquiry.”
Personally, I doubt I would have become an elder advocate myself without having had Butler’s books to teach me.

Robert N. Butler cover artRobert N. Butler, M.D. is the title of this just-published biography of the great man who won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1975 book, Why Survive? Being Old in America and before that, in 1968, coined the term “ageism” as an analog to racism and sexism.

”Butler well understood that ignorance, prejudice, and stereotypes clouded the vision of vital, productive, fruitful aging that he wished to promulgate,” writes Achenbaum.

“In late life,” he continues, “Butler concluded that ageism was even more pernicious than he initially had realized…Butler now called ageism a disease, a morbid fear of decline and death that crippled individuals.”
Robert Butler may not have crushed ageism during his long career but his other achievements transformed attitudes and beliefs about old age that continue to help elders’ well being now and will continue to do so into the future.

Butler was appointed by President Gerald Ford to be the first director of the National Institute on Aging. Later he established the first U.S. department of geriatrics at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

In 1990, he founded the International Longevity Center (ILC-USA) to pursue the study of health and productivity of old people. Among the organization’s projects was the Age Boom Academy created in 2000 to

”…deepen the understanding on the part of 150 journalists of how the perils and promises of societal aging affected their respective news beats. Ideas germinated in the academy often found mass circulation,” explains Achenbaum.
In 2009, I was privileged to be one of the dozen journalists that year at the week-long Age Boom Academy – all expenses, as every year, paid in full. Dr. Butler brought together the crème de la crème of age researchers and experts from every sub-field imaginable and by the end, it was like being granted a masters degree in aging. Here is one of my stories about the Age Boom Academy.

[DISCLOSURE: Achenbaum quotes from my 2008 interview interview with Dr. Butler which you can read here.]

Achenbaum, who is professor of social work and history in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Houston, does a fine job of recounting Butler’s achievements that benefit elders – the remarkably large number of reasons the book is subtitled, Visionary of Healthy Aging.

But it is the many quotations from Achenbaum’s previously unpublished conversations with Butler along with the book’s epilogue – Butler’s unfinished “life review” in his own words – that most captured my attention.

Some thoughts from Butler you too may find provocative:

“Why do we have so much trouble enjoying the moment? This was not as true when we were children.”
“When a young person writes a novel he writes an autobiography; when an old person writes an autobiography, he writes a novel.”
“There is a dark side to the lives of those of wealth and privilege; they do not need to carry out the most elemental aspects of existence, the preparing of their own food and taking care of their own personal needs. In a perverse sense, elementality is a luxury of poverty.”
“Old age is no longer equivalent to disease, infirmity, frailty, decrepitude and slowing down. The brain is proving to be subject to repair and growth and this plasticity promises greater cognitive health.”
“The challenge is how to better understand, shape and value this new old age. Older persons themselves should define this portion of their lives, and not passively allow the culture to do so.

“They are the pioneers who have interest into the redefined old age and do not accept aging and disability as inevitable, unpreventable and untreatable. Society and culture, of course, have catching up to do.”