Successful aging

TIME's first-ever "kid of the year" Gitanjali Rao, created apps to tackle contaminated drinking water, cyberbullying, opioid addiction and other social problems. She is 15-years-old. Speaking about age, mum, dad, your baby turned 56! And, like most, I wonder how it all happened so fast. Like a lot of people, I had an exciting, eventful twenties. Wild, free, energetic are words I would use to recall that period. My thirties brought responsibility. At thirty-one, I became a parent. I would describe my thirties with the words, confused, searching, scared. I didn't have time for a midlife crisis; by the age of forty I had a new job and relocated to a brand-new country. I was on top of my game and made a name for myself. To chararcterise my forties, I would use the adjectives "stressed" but also "appreciative" and would rate my life statisfaction at nine out of a possible ten. I was ecpecting less, and appreciating more. Now in my mid-fifties, I have to grapple with, "Well, things hasn't turned out the way I expected." I have run up against a reality that looks pretty different from the future I anticipated for myself at age 45. With not only a professional transition,but a personal one too, it would seem my most exciting days are behind me. But as I look back on my life, I realise that everytime I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being redirected to something better. What Sophie Tucker used to say - "I've been rich and I've been poor, and rich is better" - is true. The seven big factors in the happiness economics are relationships, our financial situation, our work, our friends, our health, our personal freedom and our personal values. One secret of happiness is to ignore comparisons with peiople who are more successful that you are: always compare downwards, not upwards. Unfortunately, that advice, while sound, is difficult to follow; how difficult depends on not just our attitude, but also our age. As you get older, your ability to benchmark a bad experience against other things you've navigated just puts it all in a very different perspective. You do get wiser. The passage of time is inevitable and inexorable; the clock ticks at the same rate for all of us. Aging is a more subtle, more relative phenomenon. For one thing, people age at visibly different rates. Some people, at age fifty six are more physically active and fit than in their days of beer and pizza. Others struggle with painful backs and aching knees and have been forced to relinquish their vigorous self-images. A life in memory, like a great painting, changes with the light it is seen in. In my mind's eye, I am almost twenty again. I want to make a mark on the world. I would do well professionally. I would have everything to be grateful for. I have a sense of what my limitations are, what my strengths are, and I can now organize my life so I an play to my strengths. I can do life. Life gets better. Much better. Growingt old isn't for sissies. Don't let age change you. Change the way you age. Sometimes you will never the the true value of a moment, until it becomes a memory.