Excerpt from Daily Cures, Wisdom for Healthy Aging by Connie Mason Michaelis
In this day and age, we can avail ourselves of professional advice of any kind. With multiple resources through books, television, and the internet, we have mountains of information to consider. In a lifetime, you can get pastoral counseling, premarital counseling, child psychology, sex therapy, financial advice, coaches, trainers, and there is always Dear Abby, Dr. Phil, and Oprah. It occurs to me that there is not a lot of advice on how to grow old gracefully. I’m not sure that anyone wants to admit the need. Everyone wants to live a long time, but no one wants to grow old!
How do you position yourself for the future before things happen that compromise your ability to make your own decisions? Where can you get competent counsel from a professional when it comes to aging? I would suggest you align yourself with someone who deals with these issues over and over, a trusted professional who has experience with hundreds of similar situations. No one wants to be a surgeon’s first case or a beautician’s first haircut. Although each person is unique, there are universal issues that will affect all of us at some time. Of course, the best way to get professional advice is talking face to face with a real live person. You can begin by talking to others who seem to have navigated the aging journey successfully. Ask them about their secrets and their resources. Many retirement communities have consultants that can be helpful. The important thing is to reach out. Don’t be in the dark about positioning yourself for the future.
"The best thing about the future is it comes one day at a time." Abraham Lincoln