Hello, please let me introduce myself. My name is Dan and I’ll be posting information to this blog about my journey into life past 60. In a conversation I recently had with my son, he made the casual observation that I had a lot of gray hair and that comment got me to thinking about my age. I’m turning 60 later this year but I haven’t given any serious thought to what it meant. I decided not to put off the inevitable and take a look at what I can expect as I continue to age.
The first 60 years sure went by fast. For some strange reason I thought of a car commercial 0-60 in no time flat. I haven’t changed the world yet so I better get busy, but how much time do I have? A good place as any to start is to research life expectancy. I began to wonder who can make a reasonable estimate of how much time I may have to work with and was surprised to see the estimates. I turned to the National Vital Statistics Report, United States Life Tables 2010 published in November 2014 and authored by Elizabeth Arias, Ph.D.
According to her research a person reaching the age of 65 in 2010 could expect to live an average of 19.1 more years for a total of 84.1. If I reach 85 I can expect to see an additional 6.5 years for a total of 91.5.
Now knowing I have a chance to live to a ripe old age and besides getting grayer, what else can I expect? If I ever plan to retire how do I afford to take care of my family? If I remember from my labor studies classes in the good old days, the reason that retirement was set at 65 is that that not many people actually made it to 65. Conversely, if I retire when I am eligible for Social Security, I will be 66 with close to 20 more years of life. The question begs, will I be able to stretch my savings that far to be able to live a reasonably comfortable existence? Will social security be there when I’m 90? As we have seen, the statistics show that if I’m going to live to a ripe old age, if all goes well, statistically my wife will be around a little longer so we’ll need to stretch the savings even further. Will I even be able to entertain fully retiring?
I work now and would love to stop the commute into the City every day. But I know that there are times that I don’t feel that I have enough to do what I want to do, so what happens on a fixed income? What about health? What do I have to look forward to and what can I do to stay healthy and independent?
As I gave it more thought, more questions kept popping into my head. It is around this time that I thought that it would be interesting to share my thoughts as I can’t be the only one thinking about this stuff. I started to list the things that have an impact on how I live out my life and wondered what the research says.
Have you ever read, As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen? His philosophy is that as we think we are. What I’m getting at is the preconceived negative notions about aging that some of us have. There is some interesting research on this phenomenon. Age is a state of mind and all that jazz. I’ll have to look into that more fully. Do the stereotypes have influence on how we see aging? It appears that it does. I don’t feel old… at least not that stereotypical old… you know the way they depict older people on TV or in the movies.
How will I fare mentally and what are the odds that I will need someone to care for me as I age? I was a care giver for my mom and it is not a good situation for all those concerned. She had dementia, will I? Is it better to ignore knowing what to expect or is it better to know and prepare to stave off the inevitiable?
I’m interested how will this turn out? Will I have regrets? Can I squeeze out a happy existence? Will I be energetic enough? Is fitness and working out the fountain of youth? Will my desire to learn slow down? I do have a new found interest to explore things that did not hold my attention in the past. For example, mediation and its benefits. What about age discrimination, will that have an impact whether I continue to work or not?
I do think that at this point I prefer to go out kicking and screaming. I know that some see it differently and feel that they have earned a well-deserved rest. Others feel that they are out of gas. I however definitely feel that I have gas left in the tank. I feel that I still haven’t hit my flow yet. Although I must admit I’m getting subtle hints from my body to the contrary.
So where was I heading with all this?
My purpose is to address those very issues and more. I will observe how I’m feeling on a host of issues pertaining to aging, interject some research and give my opinions. I read that there are a ton of us turning 60 each year, so with such a high number of us entering our proverbial golden years, I would welcome your participation. Please feel free to share your comments and suggestions or ask a question or two. I’ll post at least once a week and will try to keep the content focused on the questions you have.
Finally, I will try to refrain from telling the same story over and over and over again, but that may come with the territory.
Aging with Dan 
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