Category Archives: Aging Well

Ask Your Elders: Pearls of Wisdom from a Reader

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We love it at the Legacy Project when our readers offer their wisdom. One such person (who wishes to remain pearlsanonymous) read an article I wrote in Aeon Magazine about why we need to see older people as sources of life wisdom. I think you will enjoy the insightful response – and the beautiful poem.

 I wish more young people (including myself when I was young) paid more attention to old people as sources of all kinds of things. My grandmother was a pioneer emigree to an cattle ranch, from  an English drawing room in the early 1900s. Instead of embroidery and piano recitals she coped with 13 children, winters, a log cabin and wolves around at night. But she died before I was old enough to talk to her much  or appreciate what she might have told me about her thoughts and ideas about life in those years. Perhaps you could lead (or are leading) a movement to revalue the old, who are not all wise and wonderful but at least have experiences to share that offer some insights into life as is. I have to say magazines etc. for old people don’t play their part in showing the depth of what old people can offer, since so much of their material has to do with health, finances or travel. I once tried to get my retired teachers’ magazine to have ideas about life as  a theme for one issue, but they didn’t bite and so we still get issues on hobbies and pets and cooking etc.  etc. Pity!

And I just had to send you this poem – one of 60 in a book I self published for my kids when I was sixty, 15 years ago.

Sociologists study the old, write theses

On how people fit into society

Or don’t.

Their machines survey,

 Make graphs, collate pages

On finances, food habits, maladies,

But they don’t tell the true tale

On their tables and charts, how things strike the mind, the brain.

Sixty years hand in hand with experience

Don’t  show on an axis.

As I walk by the sea, watch a child,

Study the stars,

Feel wonder and terror,

Only I know my real statistics.

From Lee Woodruff: “What My Mother-in-Law Taught Me”

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Spending the summer in Scotland, I think often of my mother-in-law, Clare. She was a funny, woodrufffamily2bfeisty, kind, loving woman, who immigrated to the U. S. from Scotland shortly before my wife was born. She became a second mother to me after my own died too young.  In the seven years since she left us, I still miss Clare greatly. I am reminded of daily of her here, when I hear the Scottish accent and  the familiar expressions she used (most frequently, to me, “Don’t be daft, laddie!”), and visit her home town, Glasgow.

So I am delighted to post this guest blog by the wonderful Lee Woodruff, who writes eloquently about family and many other issues (check out Lee’s blog here). She beautifully sums up the wisdom she learned from her mother-in-law – it’s really a tribute to mothers-in-law everywhere.

What I Learned from My Mother-in-Law, by Lee Woodruff

These are some of the things I know to be true about my mother-in law:

  • She believed without a doubt that her four sons were perfect.  And even if they weren’t, she never said otherwise in public.
  • She taught me to set up the coffee maker in the evening so all you had to do was push a button in the morning.
  • The definition of a 1950’s era lady, she wore her Revlon Moonrise Pink lipstick at all times.  Like most of us, she was never fully satisfied with her hairdo.
  • Her signature saying, “It only takes a minute,” applied as equally to doing four loads of laundry or whipping up a steak dinner, as it did to driving from Detroit to New York to visit her grandchildren.
  • It was her personal philosophy to never say a bad word publically about other people.
  • Homemade chocolate chip cookies were her calling card.  They had verifiable magic powers to change the course of an illness, heal a broken heart, brighten up a new home, refresh a friendship, thank people, wish a Merry Christmas or just simply say “hi.”  To know Frannie Woodruff was to have eaten one of her ultra thin and crispy chocolate chips, the secret of which she liberally shared — extra butter and cake flour.
  • She was an early convert to “transition” glasses, which meant her Jackie-O size  lenses were usually a shade of dark purple, even when indoors.  Although her sons teased her, I now realize it was a clever way to have “eyes in the back of her head.”
  • No matter what she ordered at a restaurant (usually Fettuccine Alfredo), when it came, 90% of the time, before she even tasted it, she remarked that she should have ordered what we did.
  • I’ve tried to imagine all the places she went in the pairs of white and black formal gloves that she gave to my daughters for dress-up, including one elegant opera length kid leather pair smelling faintly of smoke.
  • She knew bank tellers, grocery clerks, pharmacists, hairdressers, T.J. Maxx employees and just about everyone else by their first names.
  • Raising four boys in the 70’s who played every sport imaginable, she inexplicably cooked only one package of frozen corn at dinner, causing them to develop a lifelong habit of eating too fast.
  • She knew the names of every one of our neighbors in all of the cities we ever lived and kept up with some of them—adding them to her Christmas card list– long after we’d moved.
  • She worshipped butter, whole milk, and cream sauces.  Her sister Lynnie bought a framed poster of a stick of butter and Frannie coveted it so much that she dragged Lynn to every Homegoods store in the greater Detroit metro area looking for its duplicate.  In the end—they agreed to share it.
  • She could not have told you what NPR stood for and did not listen to it.
  • She danced the Charleston like she had rubber bands for legs and enthusiastically taught my children how.
  • She was an avid reader of mass-market fiction.  We both shared a secret love of Sidney Sheldon.
  • Bob and I moved to nine places in 25 years of marriage (seven were domestic) and she was physically there for all seven.   In each house she would unfailing set up the kitchen (my version of plunging toilets after an intestinal virus) and unpack boxes with me from dawn until long after the kids went to bed.  I always gave up first.
  • She was such an enthusiastic and regular patron of TJ Maxx and Marshalls that on her 70thbirthday, her local store had a nametag made for her.
  • She never spent a second worrying that she needed to fulfill herself, find her passion or broaden her horizons, and she could not have accurately defined the word “feminist.”  She was 100% happy being a wife, mother and the “World’s Best Grandma,” although she never would have worn the T-shirt out of the house.
  • Never once in my presence was she able to work the TV controller, program the VCR or operate the cable box.  She did, however, have a grasp on the volume button.
  • She set a gold standard, real life example of the word “devotion.”  Watching her move through the world, I learned many important things that go into the secret sauce of being a wife, mother and good girlfriend —  not just in the placid times, but when the going gets choppy.
  • She taught me you could drive a car with your left leg up on the console, a coffee cup balanced on the dashboard and the seat belt alarm circumvented by clever buckling.
  • She was the oldest sister of three girls (like me) and two brothers.  Watching her interact with her siblings was my preview for how that bond would further strengthen, long after the kids are grown and flown.
  • The famous story of Frannie — one Pappagallo shoe on the flank of their black lab as she extruded a long stream of black plastic garbage bag out of the dog’s butt (he had escaped and eaten a neighbor’s garbage AND the bag)  — became an iconic metaphor in our house for some event, issue or what-have-you that just won’t end.
  • Her cornflower blue eyes and signature dark “Dawson” brows and lashes were passed on to her lucky, lucky boys. (Why is it always the boys who get this gene?)
  • She was fortunate enough to die exactly the way she would have wanted — in her own home, in her own bed, surrounded by her devoted husband and her beloved boys, and the repeated assurances (not that she needed them) that she was the most loved, most wonderful Mom in the world.  And she was.

Rest in Peace Frances Dawson Woodruff – 1933 — 2013

Follow Lee Woodruff on Twitter: @LeeMWoodruff

Check out Lee’s website: http://leewoodruff.com/

 

 

Young and Old Together Sharing Wisdom: Doesn’t Get Much Better than This!

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I’m a firm believer in the power of older people sharing their wisdom and advice for living with younger folks. But rarely do I get to see it in action the way I did at the University of Rhoda Island a few weeks ago. It was a powerful testament to the way the generations can come together both to share important ideas – and to enjoy each other’s company.

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30 Lessons for Loving Update: Reviews, Giveaways, and More!

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Nothing is more exciting for an author than anticipating a new book coming out. And 30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the photoWisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage will be out in a little over a month (January 8). There’s a lot of attention and activity starting already.

First, visit our great new website for the Marriage Advice Project. Check out the video on the new book, connect to our Youtube channel with videos of elders sharing their lessons on love, relationships, and marriage, and add your own lessons for loving.

Second, here’s your chance to get a free copy! There’s a giveaway on Goodreads between now and December 8. Enter to win a free copy of the book, hot off the press.

Third, every writer fears those early reviews, so it was a thrill to read this advance review from Publisher’s Weekly. The reivewer perfectly captured the aims of the book:

Gerontologist Pillemer shares findings from his survey of 700 people in “very long marriages” (the shortest here have lasted three decades, the longest, more than five) for tips on maintaining successful long-term relationships. The respondents, charmingly called “the experts” by Pillemer, share “storehouses of invaluable lived experience” on areas including questions to ask yourself before settling down, domestic violence, and late-in-life sex. Communication is discussed at length via six lessons, including being polite to your partner within “the comfortable informality of married life” and choosing the appropriate time for serious conversations. The experts break down conflict by examining the “five major stressors” that affect most relationships, with rules for dealing with the in-laws and properly delegating household labor. In addition to summarizing his survey’s results, Pillemer shares the experts’ own words. One respondent describes divorcing her husband and remarrying him 64 years later, while an 88-year-old “rough and tumble” Korean War veteran suggests taking an interest in your partner’s preferred activities, remarking, “I went to operas. Operas!” The benefits of such a comprehensive study incorporating so many years of experience should be ample, for newlyweds and contemporaries of the respondents alike. The advice is astute, fresh, and well selected by Pillemer. This book would serve as an excellent gift for newlyweds.

Stay tuned for more announcements as we count down to January 8 (including a surprise media appearance…)!

George’s Lesson for Living – Blog from Our Summer Intern

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Our summer interns are back! Three great undergraduates spent part of the summer interviewing older people about their advice for living. Here’s the post from Ryan, a rising senior attending York College at the City University of New York, majoring in Gerontological Studies and Services and minoring in Black Studies. He learned an important lesson about making the most of one’s life – travel!

Vacations are great opportunities to escape. They allow for time to de-stress from all of the work and anxieties left back at home.Welcome-Interns-Sign When traveling, though, perhaps more significant than what you leave behind is where you go. Retirement provides a great opportunity for traveling, but there is something to be said about traveling at a young age. When George, 73, was asked about a turning point in his life, he did not have to think twice for an answer:

When I left General Motors, before I went into teaching, I decided I was going to take my retirement. And at the time I was perhaps 35 at the most. So I decided I was going to retire. And I took that time to travel. And I traveled throughout Europe, North Africa and parts of the Middle East. And that changed my life a great deal, because it taught me a lot about cultures and the value of having the experience of other cultures and to compare cultures and to see how other people lived and how they did things. And I’ve been pursuing travel ever since then. And that was one of the key turning points in my life, probably when I was about 35, and determined that I wanted to retire to see what retirement would be like in the future. A weird choice, but I’ve always been a little weird.

When I went into the classroom, I went in telling students, ‘If you don’t travel, you don’t become educated.’ Because to be educated you gotta have a whole panorama of experiences and those aren’t going to come from home. Especially when I got to teach in New Jersey, where kids had not even left the state. Had never even left the state and were in college. And that was kind of sad to me that they had nothing, no point of reference in which to place things, you know? And so that was kind of sad and scary and so I’ve always preached ‘Travel is the second part of education.

As I get closer and closer to graduation, George’s suggestion to travel becomes more and more appealing!

Learning to Live in the Moment: Why Not Do It Now?

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John MacGregor, 70, lived much of his life looking toward the future, striving in his distinguished academic career. His lesson is to learn to live more in the moment. He learned this in his sixties, but suggests younger people learn it sooner.

I don’t say people shouldn’t think about the future. But when you really give yourself up to the present, when you’re in the room and you look around you, and there are other people in the room and you’re able to really zero in on those other people, and being able to really sense what they’re feeling and tap in to their own presence, then it’s not aimless at all. You feel very connected, very grounded, and it’s energizing. So you receive energy by making those connections in the present moment.

And it’s not just with people. The same thing is true with a walk in the woods. If you can really open yourself up to hearing the sounds and smelling the smells, and feeling the touches, the wind, and all those things, then you increasingly feel like an integral part of that system, so that you too have feelings, and they begin to connect with what’s going on around you. You may feel small, but it’s not a very frightening smallness. Instead it’s a feeling of being a part of a larger something. There’s a connectedness that is very, very reassuring. So that’s what I mean by being present and being connected to now.

I think you inevitably look at the future, but to the extent that you can still appreciate what is going on today and at the moment, then exactly what that future is going to be continues to be an open question, and that openness I think has great value. You’re allowing in some sense your intuition to play a role, and not being afraid that somehow that intuition is going to compete with and overwhelm your reason. That the two can work together, and support one another, influence one another.

It’s not easy, particularly for those of us who spend a lot of time in academic institutions or other jobs where the rational part of you is applauded. Living in the present and enjoying life isn’t something that you complete, or accomplish; it’s something that you strive toward, something that you work on, something that you engage with. It’s a process, at least in my experience.

live in the moment.2

Five Tips for Happier Living from Liza

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It’s been a while since we posted one of the elders “Lists for Living.” We love these organized lists, in which some of the list for livingLegacy Project elders were able to sum up a lifetime of wisdom in a few key points. Liza, 68, has some thought-provoking ideas for living the good life:

1. You will NOT experience regret over a decision to remain single and childless. Creating your own life can be as exciting as the predictable stresses (and even the joys) of the procreation and education of progeny.

2. Friendships should fit your emotional and intellectual needs. You should have many different kinds of friends – never depend upon just one or two. Understand that you, and thus your friends, should be expected to change over time. Llife is far richer if you vary the nature of your relationships – it is stifling to hitch yourself to/depend upon/share experiences with only one other person.

3. Always take advantage of an opportunity to have new experiences – travel, activities or in the realm of ideas. You learn as much from unpleasant experiences as you do from pleasureable ones.

4. Strive throughout your life to achieve a clear sense of who you are, what you want, what you want to be recalling as you die, and how you wish to be remembered.

5. Devote as much time as possible toward understanding the evolution and history of the universe and of humankind This long-range perspective makes you grateful and more generous.

Need Motivation?: Four Elders on Living Life to the Fullest

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Sometimes the elders spoke with nearly one voice. So it was with their advice to take advantage of every day given to you. They didn’t feel the need to elaborate too much on this point; their message is more along the lines of “just do it!”

If you need motivation, post these four comments from four of the wisest Americans on your refrigerator:

Live each day to the fullest. Life is an adventure worth living. Smile! (Juanita, 87)

Well, my mother used to say live every day as if you had forever to live and yet also it was your last day. So make every day count. (Mei-Zhen, 76)

One of the things that comes to my mind is to do whatever it is that presents itself to you, rather than to let that opportunity pass and then regret a lack of involvement in it. Don’t miss an opportunity! (Eddie, 68)

I’ll put it this way. Yesterday is a cancelled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is cash in hand, spend it wisely. (Morris, 91)

Jack’s Lesson for Living: Guest Blog from Summer Intern!

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Thanks to our summer intern, Laura Museau, for learning Jack’s lesson for a happy old age, and sharing it in this guest blog!

It is said that experience teaches wisdom. During my time with the Risk and Resiliency Internship Project, I had the good fortune to have been taught wisdom by listening to the experiences of older adults. The Legacy Project interviews that I conducted this summer contain valuable information that will be useful as I journey into adulthood. One of the key themes discussed by those I interviewed highlighted using passion as a guiding force in life. Passion can make the difference between living a life filled with regrets and one of contentment. For even if accomplishments fall short, the heart’s desires have been satisfied.

The thoughts that Jack Bronsen, a writer from southern California, shared with me expressed this best. He was clear that having something that he is passionate about has been the critical factor in having a good quality of life in older age:

At the end of your life or in the latest years is when you look back and you assess what was important. I was passionate about my work. I still am. I did a specialized type of drawing, still doing it, for almost 60 years: making India ink drawings of inventions for patent attorneys around the country. I loved to play golf. I still do even though I’m in my 80th year. I don’t do it very well but I still do it twice a week and I do walk a full course.

I love to write. I’ve written 3 novels and quite a bit more as a restaurant reviewer and newspaper columnist. I’m also passionate about acrostic puzzles which I love to do. I do the New York Times one every other week on Sunday.

My father loved his work. He worked until he was 82. Then he retired and he watched television all day. He went straight down hill. And the same basically happened to my mother who lived to that same fine age of 91 but did not seem to have any real passions. And they both kind of faded away mentally and that would be my concern: that if I let go of my passion, I let go of my mind, of my life.

He emphatically stated that each person should “have something you are passionate about. All through your life. Not a person, but something that you do yourself that you love to do.

Worry Wastes Your Life

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What do older people regret when they look back over their lives? I asked hundreds of the oldest Americans that question. I had expected big-ticket items: an affair, a shady business deal, addictions — that kind of thing. I was therefore unprepared for the answer they often gave:

I wish I hadn’t spent so much of my life worrying.

Over and over, as the 1,200 elders in our Legacy Project reflected on their lives, I heard versions of “I would have spent less time worrying” and “I regret that I worried so much about everything.” Indeed, from the vantage point of late life, many people felt that if given a single “do-over” in life, they would like to have all the time back they spent fretting anxiously about the future.

Their advice on this issue is devastatingly simple and direct: Worry is an enormous waste of your precious and limited lifetime. They suggested training yourself to reduce or eliminate worrying as the single most positive step you can make toward greater happiness. The elders conveyed, in urgent terms, that worry is an unnecessary barrier to joy and contentment. And it’s not just what they said — it’s how they said it.

John Alonzo, 83, is a man of few words, but I quickly learned that what he had to say went straight to the point. A construction worker, he had battled a lifetime of financial insecurity. But he didn’t think twice in giving this advice:

Don’t believe that worrying will solve or help anything. It won’t. So stop it.

That was it. His one life lesson was simply to stop worrying.

James Huang, 87, put it this way:

Why? I ask myself. What possible difference did it make that I kept my mind on every little thing that might go wrong? When I realized that it made no difference at all, I experienced a freedom that’s hard to describe. My life lesson is this: Turn yourself from frittering away the day worrying about what comes next and let everything else that you love and enjoy move in.

This surprised me. Indeed, I thought that older people would endorse a certain level of worry. It seemed reasonable that people who had experienced the Great Depression would want to encourage financial worries; who fought or lost relatives in World War II would suggest we worry about international issues; and who currently deal with increasing health problems would want us to worry about our health.

The reverse is the case, however. The elders see worry as a crippling feature of our daily existence and suggest that we do everything in our power to change it. Why is excessive worry such a big regret? Because, according to the elders, worry wastes your very limited and precious lifetime. By poisoning the present moment, they told me, you lose days, months, or years that you can never recover.

Betty, 76, expressed this point with a succinct example:

I was working, and we learned that there were going to be layoffs in my company in three months. I did nothing with that time besides worry. I poisoned my life by worrying obsessively, even though I had no control over what would happen. Well — I wish I had those three months back.

 Life is simply too short, the oldest Americans tell us, to spend it torturing yourself over outcomes that may never come to pass.

How should we use this lesson, so that we don’t wind up at the end of our lives longing to get back the time we wasted worrying? The elders fortunately provide us with some concrete ways of thinking differently about worry and moving beyond it as we go through our daily lives.

Tip 1: Focus on the short term rather than the long term.

Eleanor is a delightful, positive 102-year-old who has had much to worry about in her long life. Her advice is to avoid the long view when you are consumed with worry and to focus instead on the day at hand. She told me:

Well, I think that if you worry, and you worry a lot, you have to stop and think to yourself, “This too will pass.” You just can’t go on worrying all the time because it destroys you and life, really. But there’s all the times when you think of worrying and you can’t help it — then just make yourself stop and think: it doesn’t do you any good. You have to put it out of your mind as much as you can at the time. You just have to take one day at a time. It’s a good idea to plan ahead if possible, but you can’t always do that because things don’t always happen the way you were hoping they would happen. So the most important thing is one day at a time.

Tip 2: Instead of worrying, prepare.

The elders see a distinct difference between worry and conscious, rational planning, which greatly reduces worry. It’s the free-floating worry, after one has done everything one can about a problem, which seems so wasteful to them.

Joshua Bateman, 74, summed up the consensus view:

If you’re going to be afraid of something, you really ought to know what it is. At least understand why. Identify it. ‘I’m afraid of X.’ And sometimes you might have good reason. That’s a legitimate concern. And you can plan for it instead of worrying about it.

Tip 3: Acceptance is an antidote to worry

The elders have been through the entire process many times: worrying about an event, having the event occur and experiencing the aftermath. Based on this experience, they recommend an attitude of acceptance as a solution to the problem of worry. However, we tend to see acceptance as purely passive, not something we can actively foster. In addition to focusing on the day at hand and being prepared as cures for worry, many of the elders also recommend actively working toward acceptance. Indeed this was most often the message of the oldest experts.

Sister Clare, a 99-year-old nun, shared a technique for reducing worry through pursuing acceptance:

There was a priest that said mass for us, and at a certain time of his life, something happened, and it broke his heart. And he was very angry — he just couldn’t be resigned, he couldn’t get his mind off it. Just couldn’t see why it had happened.So he went to an elderly priest and said, “What shall I do? I can’t get rid of it.” And the priest said, “Every time it comes to your mind, say this.” And the priest said very slowly, “Just let it be, let it be.” And this priest told us, “I tried that and at first it didn’t make any difference, but I kept on. After a while, when I pushed it aside, let it be, it went away. Maybe not entirely, but it was the answer.”

 Sister Clare, one of the most serene people I have ever met, has used this technique for well over three-quarters of a century.

So many things come to your mind. Now, for instance, somebody might hurt your feelings. You’re going to get back at him or her — well, just let it be. Push it away. So I started doing that. I found it the most wonderful thing because everybody has uncharitable thoughts, you can’t help it. Some people get on your nerves and that will be there until you die. But when they start and I find myself thinking, “Well, now, she shouldn’t do that. I should tell her that . . .” Let it be. Often, before I say anything, I think, “If I did that, then what?” And let it be. Oh, so many times I felt grateful that I did nothing. That lesson has helped me an awful lot.

Worry is endemic to the experience of most modern-day human beings, so much so that following this piece of elder wisdom may seem impossible to some of you. But what the elders tell us is consistent with research findings. The key characteristic of worry, according to scientists who study it, is that it takes place in the absence of actual stressors; that is, we worry when there is actually nothing concrete to worry about. This kind of worry — ruminating about possible bad things that may happen to us or our loved ones — is entirely different from concrete problem solving. When we worry, we are dwelling on possible threats to ourselves rather than simply using our cognitive resources to figure a way out of a difficult situation.

A critically important strategy for regret reduction, according to our elders, is increasing the time spent on concrete problem solving and drastically eliminating time spent worrying. One activity enhances life, whereas down the road the other is deeply regretted as a waste of our all-too-short time on Earth.