Do You Have Take Some Risks

There is a classic image of a senior citizen driving with their turn signals continuously on and poking along 20 miles under the speed limit on the highway. A popular comedian once quipped that if he was 80 years old, he would “drive like hell” since, after all, why not take some risks at 80?

It’s true that as we move into our senior years, we do become a bit cautious in how we conduct our affairs. Now, if you have health difficulties that a fall or a serious illness could prove life threatening, those precautions are called for. In defiance of that comedian’s remarks, our lives are precious and just because we are closer to the final years of our lives doesn’t mean we want to see our lives end too soon and miss out of a minute of this time on earth and time with our children and grandchildren.

But one aspect of that joke has some food for thought as we think about our lifestyle as senior citizens. There may be some good reasons to get out there and take some risks in life and to enjoy the thrill that a little danger can bring. Recently the elder President George Bush went skydiving even though he was well into his senior years. His life of achievement showed that President Bush was not afraid of a challenge. And by getting out there and doing something fun and that may have been a dream of his, he showed that our senior years are not all about rocking chairs and naps. It’s also a time to live out our dreams.

Some risks, like skydiving, can be done with the guidance of skilled professionals to help reduce the actual dangers. But the illustration of what President Bush did emphasizes one rational for to “go for it” and take some risks in our retirement years. For one thing, it’s a tremendous inspiration to younger people when they see their elders exhibiting courage and a willingness to get out of their comfort zone. Many times your own children may be the ones who need that kind of inspiration that they too should live life courageously and not let fear stop them from enjoying every moment.

Another great reason to take a risk is that it may be a great way to bond with family. Not long ago, I had the chance to go white water rafting with my grandson. Now I am not an adventurer and not in physical shape to do anything athletic. But this was a moment where I could establish a bond with my grandson by going into a great adventure with him and coming out of it with great stories. Because I am writing this article for you shows that I made it. There were a few heart stopping moments but I wouldn’t trade those moments with him for the world. You too may be presented with a chance to make a memory with a loved one by taking a risk. And it’s worth going for it, in a reasonable fashion, to capture that memory and build that bond as well.

Some risks you might take don’t involve physical danger. Maybe you need to finally take the plunge and get up at the local open mic night and deliver that stand up comedy routine you have been polishing up with the family. They say there is nothing more terrifying as facing a crowd and trying to make them laugh. But when you hear their laughter and their applause, that will be a dream come true for the amateur comic in you.

So consider taking a few risks as you plan your activities in your busy retirement schedule. The rush of adrenaline will put some spring in your step and give your heart rate a workout. But it will also add some fun and adventure to your life. And that is something we all can use.

Write the Great American Novel

How many times when you was moving through the decades of raising a family and building a career did you say that you were going to write the great American novel when you retired? Now as you settle into a life of retirement and the lifestyle of a senior citizen, do you wonder if now might be the time? After all, this is the time of life when you always promised yourself you would uncork all of that creativity you have been keeping pent up all these years and let it spill out onto the world. So why not give it a try? Nobody ever got hurt trying for greatness.

But even if you don’t achieve “greatness”, your years as a senior citizen are a wonderful time to explore the creative side of you. It might not be “the great American novel”. That phrase really is a way of expressing that we all have something creative and unique to give and our senior years are a great time to let them out.

The idea that writing, or painting, or acting or any of the creative arts are the venue only of the young has been proven wrong time and time again. It seems creativity and creative expression really knows no age limits. In the last few years we have had Haley Joel Osment, Harrison Ford and Clint Eastwood all vying for the Academy award. That makes a 10 year old, a man in his late middle ages and a senior citizen all being evaluated by the same criteria for greatness in acting. The young boy didn’t win that year but keep your eyes on him. He has plenty more to give.

In fact, it is notable that a few years later when Clint Eastwood won the Oscar for directing, he remarked that much older directors than him were still making their masterpieces. So he was a youngster in his 70s just getting started striving for greatness. These are just a few examples to show that if these senior citizens can shine in their creative work late in life, so can you.

Don’t be afraid to get out there with the youngsters and take the introductory classes in the art form you want to try out. You may have always dreamed of painting. You know that Picasso and Rembrandt did some of their finest paintings as senior citizens. So go ahead, go to the junior college or the local museum and enroll in classes. You may be the Grandpa or Grandma of the class but once the other artists see that you have something burning inside you to express artistically, they will respect you as a fellow artist and peer in the artistic community.

This is not to say that writing the great American novel or other forms of creative expression are not going to take work to master. But in that department, you also have the inside track. As a senior citizen, you are not stranger to hard work. You worked hard to raise a family, succeed in a career and provide for others all of your adult life. Now its time to use some of that work ethic to let your own light shine and for a little while, let it all be about you.

Fighting Loneliness

When you are raising your kids in your adult years, it seems you will never know a minute’s peace. Each day was another explosion of yelling, running and wild activity in the house from the moment the kids are born until they are grown and moving out. It was when the last one finally made their way into the world that you actually knew what is was to be alone, at least the two of you.

A full life such as this makes the adjustment to senior citizen status, retirement and the time you may spend alone and with time on your hands a bit of an adjustment. The adjustment is even more profound if you enter your senior years alone and you find yourself alone much of the time. The problem of loneliness is chronic in senior citizens so it’s good to get out ahead of it so it doesn’t cause serious problems the longer it goes on.

The negatives of loneliness in senior citizens are well known. Excessive loneliness can easily lead to a sense of isolation, desperation and depression. This can result in substance abuse or worse if the senior citizen doesn’t find a way to fight back against that feeling of being alone. It is easy if you are in your house that used to be filled with children to feel abandoned and resentful when your day passes with no human contact. If you have relocated to an assisted living center or nursing home, the problem may be even worse as you don’t have the comfort of familiar surroundings.

But to feel sorry for your self and blame your children for not coming to see you is not a healthy way to fight this enemy. Yes, your children should call or come see you more often. But short of moving in with you or you with them, the problem of loneliness will have to be solved by you and using other means. It may seem like a simplistic answer to loneliness but the beginning of solving these problems is a simple prescription which is – Get Out of the House!

If waiting in your house or apartment for people to bring companionship to you has not worked so far, it probably isn’t going to. So you have to get out there and engage life directly. If you can become proactive and take command of the situation, you will find the opportunities to find friendship and companionship are diverse and abundant. Among some of the ways you can get in the company of other people are…

. Senior citizen functions. If you are in an assisted living or retirement home, there are events being planned all the time for you to get out and meet your neighbors. But even if that is not your living arrangements, most local communities have senior centers that have as one of their primary missions in life to provide social outlet for senior citizens. So use that resource to its fullest.
. Volunteering. There are so many excellent ways for you to volunteer at church, with civic groups or in the arts that you can stay continuously busy. Not only do you get the gratification of doing something good for others, you get out and meet people which is a sure cure for loneliness.
. Church. If you are active in your church, they always have ways for you to be involved during the day. Some of them will be volunteer opportunities but others might just be attending a good bible study or social time with your Sunday School class.
. Pitch in with the grandkids. This is a wonderful way to get out. You love those grandkids and by giving your children a way to get out and leave them in a trusted place, you do them good and get tons of great play time with those sweet children.

These are just a few great ways for you to get out and meet people who will welcome you with open arms. These are areas of life that are eager for an enthusiastic Grandma or Grandpa to jump in feet first and get involved. Getting involved means staying busy and staying busy means never feeling lonely again. And that is the permanent cure for loneliness.

Ethical Wills

You probably did not wait until you officially became a “senior citizen” to prepare your will. Most of us put one together early in life and at least when we have children and realize we do have assets and we need to make sure the kids are taken care of in the case of an accident that suddenly takes you out of their lives. So you know well what goes into your will and how to document exactly how you want your estate taken care of in the event of your death.

There is a good feeling that goes with knowing that you have made sure your affairs are in order long before you need to them to be. Senior citizens today are in the best health of any other generation. So while you are still healthy, active and vibrant, now is the time to make sure your insurance, funeral directives and wills are all in order so you have that information on file and a designated loved one well trained in the event of your early departure from this life.

But there is one will you may have left out of your preparations so far. That is what is called your Ethical Will. An Ethical Will is unlike any other document you will prepare. This document has no legal bearing on your estate. It does not pass along property or instruct your executor on how you want your financial, business or property affairs to be handled. Instead, your Ethical Will passes along to your loved ones something more precious than property. It passes along your values.

An Ethical Will is a very personal document or set of documents that is used to resolve issues that may be remaining at end of life, to communicate the ethics and morals behind your legal decisions or to provide sage instructions to your children or friends about how you want them to carry on your legacy of charitable work or value based activities once you are gone.

In a way, the Ethical Will requires more thought, prayer and consideration of what you actually want to say to your loved ones than your conventional will. Typically, you prepare an Ethical Will to be given or read to your loved ones after funeral as way of giving them one last touch of who you really are as a person. So you can see that an Ethical Will can be a precious memory that will be treasured long past when your wealth or possessions are no longer around.

Your Ethical Will may be passed from generation to generation. Just imagine if you had a document written by your grandparents or great grandparents that spoke with heart and from a personal perspective about what they found wonderful about life, where their values took them and what they would pass to you from their heart to you, their child far off in the future. That document would be of tremendous value to you and would be precious to your children and grandchildren down the line.

Ethical Wills can also be used to seek forgiveness for wrongs committed that you just could not resolve in life. Conversely, you can give forgiveness where it may be needed and heal a life long rift between you and a family member and provide peace and closure as you go to your reward. You don’t have to prepare just one Ethical Will. You could prepare a separate one for each child, for your spouse and for your business associates and friends. Obviously each will address a different level of intimacy and arena of values and ethics.

It’s a good thing to think about if you want to leave an Ethical Will for your friends and loved ones. There is able reading on the market about how to get started writing your Ethical Will. And if you take the time to put down on paper your heart and soul in this way, it will be source of comfort for a level of your “affairs” that you put in order well in advance that is even more meaningful than your conventional will or other end of life documents.

Anger with Aging

They say there are stages of grief. Some of those stages include denial, depression and acceptance. But one that many of us experience is anger. While we most often associate grief with the emotions when a loved one passes away, we can go through grief about a lot of things. People go through grief when their house burns down or when they lose a job or a pet. An area of loss that we don’t often lump in with grief causes is the physical decline of aging.

You can detect that you or senior citizens you know are experiencing grief from their loss of youth from comments they make. It is common to hear them look back with remorse at lost youth and with the loss of functionality and strength that happens when we age. As a senior citizen sees their strength decline and perhaps go through one of the many natural ailments of aging such as arthritis or problems with elimination, it is not uncommon to see a response of anger result from their impatience with these problems.

Nobody asked to get old. And I am sure that if we could put it to a vote, aging would lose the election to continue to be part of our lives. As much as senior citizens hate to grow old, your loved ones hate to see it happen to you. And while you as senior citizen may not see it happen, your family is grieving the loss of the “young mom or dad” as much as you are.

The problem with being angry about growing old is there is nobody to take it out on. The result is often we lash out at those closest to us because the frustration with our aging bodies causes our temper to flare up spontaneously and a loved one or caregiver is the one who is handy to get mad at. You know this isn’t fair and when it happens, you are sorry. So it would be good with finding ways to cope with the anger about aging in a productive way.

This kind of coping is necessary so you don’t lash out at the innocent. But it is also healthy for you to learn to cope with the aging process because stalling out in the grief process will create tension in your emotional system, which can cause physical problems such as ulcers or problems sleeping. So how do we get rid of the anger we naturally feel at seeing our bodies decline?

A wise man once said that we get angry because of a false sense of entitlement. It comes when our expectations do not line up with reality. A false sense of entitlement comes when we come to the conclusion that we do not deserve to get old. The best way to confront and put aside that sense of entitlement is to recognize it. It seems simplistic to just come out and recognize that everybody grows old and we are not entitled to be exempt from the changes that come with aging. But if you can recognize that consciously, it will help take anger out of the loop when you are coping with the affects of aging.

Resolution of grief comes when our expectations line up with reality. The attempt to deny the advance of years is the sole cause of midlife crisis in your younger days and that emotional response to aging can create devastating results as the one in crisis tries to behave as though they are not growing old and make bad decisions based on that concept.

So too, if you can recognize that these problems are the natural result of aging and the best thing to do is to take care of yourself to try to minimize their impact, you will live with a much healthier attitude toward aging. By focusing on your diet, your exercise, a wise use of substances and doing all you can to stay rested and emotionally sound, you will see the negative effects of aging become minimized. Moreover, you will be a happier person and that shift in your emotions can go a long way toward keeping you young at heart. And that is the best way to turn back the effects of aging from the inside out.

Can Grandpa Still Drive?

Some of the issues involving helping your senior citizen parent or grandparent can be difficult and full of tough decisions. Seniors face unique medical and lifestyle issues that call upon them and those that love them to find solutions that they can live with. And it’s very common for senior citizens to live in denial about the effects of their advancing years and to accept the changes in the way they live that must happen for them to continue live in a safe and healthy way.

Driving is just such an issue. For most adults, the ability to drive a car is an integral part of our sense of empowerment and freedom. We seldom think of what it would be like if we couldn’t just “jump in the car and go.” But that feeling of complete freedom to go where you want and when you want is such a deep part of how we all function that it seems inconceivable to any of us to lose that mobility and freedom.

But for senior citizens, there will come a time when they will need to give up driving. The causes are many but the most common reason that calls for senior citizens to stop driving is failing eyesight. While much can be done to preserve the eyesight of senior citizens, if their ability to see becomes a hazard behind the wheel, they will have to be told that its time to let that precious freedom go.

So how do we help our senior citizen loved one accept and then cooperate with a plan to reduce or eliminate their driving? You might be surprised that when it comes time for you as the child or caregiver of a senior citizen to talk to them about giving up driving, they may have already begun to think about it. Senior citizens are very aware of their physical condition. So while they may resist giving up the car or van, they may know deep down that this time would come. Some other compelling reasons to take that step sooner rather than later are…

. Doctor’s orders. If the senior citizen’s doctor specifically directs that Grandpa cannot drive. The senior will often respect that directive even more than family advice. A doctor’s credibility goes a long way on this issue.
. Their own safety. In the same way that no senior citizen wants to “fall and not get up”, the idea of being in an accident which may cause serious injury resulting in painful recovery and possible permanent reduced freedom and mobility is a compelling reason to turn the car keys over to someone else.
. The safety of others. It’s easy to find news stories of a senior citizen who continued to drive only to be involved in an accident that caused injury or death to others, maybe even children. That prospect is so horrifying to a Grandma or Grandpa that they may choose to ground themselves then ever face that kind of guilt.
. Savings. Getting rid of the car means no more upkeep, car payments, gas expense and auto insurance. Senior citizens are penny wise so that kind of savings can make a big difference.

If your senior citizen comes to understand that accommodations can be made to help them get out and about, the loss of that car may not be a big deal. Public transportation or buses that community services centers send out to retirement villages can help senior citizens get out to the grocery store and to doctor’s appointments. And if their family pitches in to help drive Grandma or Grandpa around, not only do they lose the expense and liability of driving, they get more family time too. And that is a great incentive to give up driving and let others serve as their chauffeur.

Bringing in New Blood

When a senior citizen finds a new romantic companion late in life, it’s a wonderful moment for both. Romances late in life can provide a much needed source of companionship and love that may be missing if the senior has lost a spouse or is going through their golden years alone. But it’s common for children of seniors to go through some anxiety when they see dad or mom enjoying the company of another romance in their lives. And getting the kids to accept your new girlfriend or boyfriend, especially if that romance is going to result in a wedding.

Part of your children’s resistance to you dating comes from anxiety about losing their parent which may be just as deep and lasting a grief as you had in losing your wife or husband. It may seem strange but often it is the children of the marriage who go through the longest grief when a parent passes on. You may have already moved along in your processing of that loss much more than they. To children, the parents are a permanent institution and the idea that one of them would go away seems inconceivable. And this feeling often survives well into adulthood.

So that is the first big adjustment your family ahs to make when they see you beginning to enjoy the company of the opposite sex. They must be assured you are not going to replace mom or dad in their hearts and that this romance will never remove the love you cherish for that departed spouse. To the children, that love must endure forever because it is the foundation of their concept of family which is a big part of their own identity as well, even though one parent may have passed away.

This is a next step in life that calls for you, the senior citizen and the wise old Grandma or Grandpa in the family mix to use some of that sensitivity and wisdom of your years to help your children and even grandchildren accept your new romance and evolve with you to a new phase of life. If you have the chance as you begin a new relationship, the time to begin the acceptance process is before that friendship becomes a romance.

By sitting down with your children and discussing that this will happen, even before it happens, you begin the acceptance process. In their minds and emotional systems, they begin to understand your need for companionship and for love and for romance. You need that as much as they do. So you explain it to them.

Then as you begin to see a romantic interest, be open with the family about what you are doing. Adult children can even get to the point that they will be your advisor and your cheerleaders as you enjoy a new era of dating and romance. Once that area of life is open, then when you do “bring home the date to meet the family” it wont be such a difficult thing.

But by keeping the adult children always in the loop, they can talk with one another, agree that this is the best possible thing for you and even work to help the grandkids accept your new romance. Before long, he or she will be able to come for dinner, join in the holidays and really become part of the family. Just as you opened your heart when your kids were dating and finding new loves, you will teach your kids to open their hearts to someone who is becoming important to you. It’s a cycle of life but if we handling it lovingly and honestly, it’s a good cycle.