It’s the age-old question: How can we live longer? For as long as humankind has been around, we have tried to find ways to prolong our life spans. Ideally, we hope, there will be some special remedy or drug that will allow us to live forever. But with longer life expectancy comes the issue of mental health. More and more people do live to see past 80, 90 and 100, but most of them don’t really get to enjoy the extra years much, because their brains shut down long before.
For someone like me, who’s barely made it across the supposedly dreadful 40-year mark, the prospect of being 80 or 90 and dealing with old-age problems like dementia is still ways off. Throughout my life, though, I have watched people get on in years, and some of them did lose the ability to function as “normal” people. My grandmother on my father’s side, for example, was around 70 when she was struck down by dementia. In her case, the condition progressed with lightning speed, and if memory serves, it was within three to four months that she had gone from “all there” to having her “hard drive” wiped clean completely. She spent another ten years in a care facility before her body, too, finally died.
As my mother would say, my grandmother had never really challenged herself. Especially after losing her husband to cancer, she’d spent her days reading celebrities magazines and watching TV and generally being listless. That’s all she’d ever do. She’d let herself go, one could say.
I am not one much for resting or lounging or coasting around. I actually enjoy challenging myself. Learning new things or skills is something I thrive on. While I do spend a lot of time reading, for example, due to my work, I always make sure to squeeze other activities into my days as well, such as a good walk or doing some household chores.
But the most crucial aspect, I think, to staying alive while keeping one’s mind fresh enough is always to have something to focus on and to look forward to. I don’t think that my grandmother had anything she focused on or looked forward to. Focusing on one activity or subject isn’t good enough. Say, you like motorbikes. Reading books or articles about motorbikes to the exclusion of most everything else isn’t helpful. This creates a one-track mind, and while you may be focused, it’s only a single, rather than a multiple, focus. It is the latter we need to keep our senses alert and, as a consequence, our bodies.
I always set myself projects – professional and personal ones – and in many ways you could say I live by a schedule. Several, actually, because I have schedules for the day, week, month, year and decade. But that’s not as bad as it sounds. In fact, I believe, having a fixed schedule like that imposes structure on your life and prevents you from flailing about aimlessly. Without clear objectives and milestones, there’s nothing you can look forward to or concentrate on.
My grandmother’s fate is a constant reminder of how empty and truly meaningless life can become without such objectives and milestones. Living like that means that you never see anything in front of you. Instead, you wallow in your miserable present existence as well as memories from long ago. But being able to look ahead and actually “see” things there is what keeps your body and mind going. It can involve the most trivial things, like looking forward to a special Sunday dinner or your favourite TV show. As long as you have something to anticipate, I think, you’ll keep on going, and so will your mind.
The human body, sadly, will give out after some wear and tear, and there’s only little we can do about it. We can replace knees, hips and entire organs, but in the end even those procedures add only “seconds” to our biological clocks in the grand scheme of things. That is to say, when we grow older (and old), the body will stop functioning in some ways. This is something we need to accept as a fact of nature, but by all means we shouldn’t allow ourselves to become depressed over it.
Unfortunately, it’s only too easy for us to feel depressed when the first physical signs of aging set in – a grey hair, the first signs of hearing loss or the onset of arthritic pain. But just because the body is letting go (which it must, unless we find a way to stop the aging process), it doesn’t mean we have to take leave of our senses as well. If the body prevents us from engaging further in activities we used to enjoy all our lives, then we must find other interests. So what if you can’t go skiing anymore? You might discover a new passion in cooking, painting or learning to play a musical instrument, for example.
The secret, in my view, lies in always finding joy and passion in your life, no matter what may happen to your body or circumstances. Granted, some physical changes can be very drastic – e.g., loss of eyesight – but people tend to be quite resilient. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t see any blind people or those confined to wheelchairs, because they would have all killed themselves. Thankfully, this is not the case. People with disabilities actually serve as great examples, and role models, of what the human mind and spirit are capable of – even when faced with very tragic events.
Growing old is in itself a disability, because it renders the body less functional with each passing year. For the most part, the “ravages” of aging don’t always cause the level of disability or dysfunction that, say, an accident or being a soldier in a war can precipitate. No matter how old we get, most of us don’t lose both legs and an arm all at once. Yet even those tough and courageous people, bless their hearts, find ways to “soldier” on (pardon the pun). They may find joy in being with their families and seeing their children grow up. Or they might acquire a new skill they can excel at, despite their somewhat limited and limiting circumstances.
In short, it’s all about moving forward, without looking back. What is past is past – it literally doesn’t “exist” anymore. Instead, keep your eyes to the front, enjoy the view of things before you, and never be afraid to try and learn new things.
I suppose I’ll know whether my approach is correct or not in about 30 to 40 years. I’ll report back then.
Comments on this entry are closed.