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I love a good holiday, any chance to blow up balloons and eat buttercream. However, today is Ageism Awareness Day and it has me a little stumped. Or at least it did at first glance. I mean, I know how old I am, do we need to bring awareness to this fact? Then I realized that my reaction is exactly what they’re marking the day about! Tackling the voices, both in- and outside our heads relentlessly telling us aging is bad, and contagious, so keep it as far away from you as possible.
Obviously this mindset has repercussions everywhere, from the workplace, to the beauty industry (if you want to sell something put the words anti-aging in the name!) even to how we value ourselves. Not everyone of course, I recently heard of something called the F.U. 50’s where apparently you stop caring what anyone thinks of you! Did I sleep through this decade? But back to the festivities at hand.
Dr. Robert Butler was the first to use the term “ageism” in 1968 or ‘69 depending on Google’s mood. A well-respected U.S. Dr. and the first director of the National Institute on Aging, Butler coined the word to define the mistreatment of people based on their age. Digging a little deeper into this, I am beginning to understand why it matters and how insidious it is. Here’s a pamphlet if you’d like to read more about it. Fascinating facts found here like the one stating that “older individuals with more positive self-perceptions of aging live 7.5 years longer than those with a less positive perception of aging.”
Just sitting down to write this has made me even more aware of the relentless youth messaging that can make a person feel like they are no longer invited to the party. Having worked with seniors for the last six years, I can report from the front lines that we can each do our part here and it doesn’t take that much. Smiling, engaging, listening, making a point to include our elders in conversation, this goes a long way in helping them feel welcome.
And if you’ve got your own anti-aging horn blowing in your head, and you have money to burn, you can join another groundbreaking man with a passionate message about aging. Check out Bryan Johnson! He’s a tech entrepreneur and biohacker leading the anti-aging charge with a two million dollar a year daily routine that includes having your last meal at 11 am, sleeping alone, and a working relationship with blood plasma. And no cookies, so I’m out.
Unless you're Johnson and his acolytes, anti-aging seems like a bad place to put our energy. I like to take a more pro-vitality stance. It’s true I don’t drink alcohol and that probably helps, and I make sure I move my body everyday even when I don’t feel like it. I definitely don’t have enough face cream, but I still feed the cultural youth machine because I can’t yet surrender to the grays.
Maybe I didn’t skip the F.U. 50’s after all because I definitely do whatever I want to show up for life as my best self at whatever age I am when the alarm goes off. And when I feel like I’m not invited to the party, I keep trying the Sonos app until I remember how to use it and then dance around my living room until I feel it’s 1980 again and I have my whole joyous life ahead of me.
