Excerpt from Daily Cures, Wisdom for Healthy Aging by Connie Michaelis
I’ve spent many years working in retirement communities, and a frequently asked question was, “What is the average age of your residents?” I could never answer that question. It would not be impossible to capture all that data and find out the average age, but it makes no difference. Did you know that as people age, they become more diverse? You can take a group of newborns, and they will have more similarities than ever in life. Time provides the opportunity for growth, change, and diversity. Life experience, personality development, and culture will all continue to mold and shape an individual. Genetics and the environment continue to express themselves as well.
When people ask that question, I assume they are considering whether they are old enough to move into a retirement community. But old doesn’t have anything to do with the number of years. Age matters if you’re getting a driver’s license or drinking your first beer. But age has little to do with being old. Will Rogers said. “When you are young, you lie about your age, when you get old, you start to brag about it!” I think old is about attitude! We have 100-year-olds that are young at heart, and it shows! Negative attitudes make people seem old. You hear the expression over the hill; the young at heart keep moving hill. Maybe the hill isn’t an age; perhaps it is an attitude. When you have a positive attitude, and you are as active as possible, you’ll never grow old. Age is not the issue, but attitude is.
It seems that more and more people have asked me my age lately (I was taught not to do that), so I've borrowed a recent TV advertisement line of "Age is just a number and mine is unlisted".