The Best for Last
As I’ve worked through ideas, outlines, and drafts of my new book, I’ve finally decided on the title: The Best for Last: The Power, Grace, and Wonder of Later Life. Why this title? My experience in this last part of life has been the most profound and wondrous period of my entire life. I’ve stopped trying to find the exact reasons why this is the case, as I am too involved with living my life every day. My new book is my attempt to share what I’m discovering and to reframe the usual dread (or outright fear) of getting older and present a very different version of this life stage. There is nothing we can do about getting older. But we can change our outlook and our health (physical, emotional, and spiritual) to experience what only these later years can offer: how wondrous the simple experience of being alive can be.
Interestingly, this exalted experience of later life is true for many older people, based on life satisfaction surveys I’ve read about for people in their 70s and 80s. I also suspect that it has much to do with the approaching sense of mortality we feel in these years and the desire to milk every last day, every last breath, for everything that life has to offer.
In accepting and no longer questioning the “why” of this experience, I am increasingly focused on the “how”—how to live and how to best spend my time with friends and loved ones. This acceptance comes in realizing that a force much greater than myself, a combination of all the elements of my life, what people in earlier times used to call Providence (purposeful, divine fate), has guided me here. I believe Providence comes from inside me, in the form of insight, conscience, and the choices I make, as well as the outer circumstances of my life. I feel privileged and grateful that the “grace” of life has blessed me this way and allowed me to experience this wonder and this robust state of health at this age. I know I go on about how much I do to enhance my health. But the truth is that there is also a lot of luck, universal benevolence, and deep acceptance, in addition to health and life practices, that all play important roles in this stage of life.
Days of Wonder
In a previous article, I wrote about bucket lists. I explained that my bucket list is not a list of places I would like to see or activities I would like to do before I die. Instead, my bucket list is to simply try to live each day in as much overall health as possible (meaning body, mind, and spirit) and with the full awareness of just how special it is to be alive. When I can, I try to give myself as much space and time to live this way. Many of these days are filled with “doing nothing” but experiencing being alive, however life presents itself to me, or by pursuing my health practices like yoga and cardio exercise, or by spending time with people who matter to me. And even on the days that are busy with the necessary affairs of life, I try to imbue them with the bigger wonder that we are all together in this thing called living, and we are all fragile, mortal, and interconnected with each other and with nature.
The result of living this way has filled my life with a sense of wonder that has always been somewhere in the background but is now a front-and-center aspect of my life. These “WOW!” moments of awe come unannounced and from a place within me that I don’t have dominion over. (Providence?) The ”ah-ha” realization I had on a train many years ago that kickstarted my health journey was a very big ”WOW!” moment.
Now, I experience many mini-moments that come from that same place, which are helping me guide and appreciate my life more and more. This has all led to a relative contentment with life, while at the same time allowing for the ever-present changes in circumstances as well as my outlook. So, while I am mostly content, it is an active contentment, not passive. By this, I mean that I continue to actively work toward vibrant health (physical, emotional, and spiritual); I don’t just sit back and call it a day.
The Role of Health: What a Shame to Waste These Years
Without good health, experiencing all this contentment, wonder, and grace may not be possible. I recognize that pain, disability, and the stress of dealing with medical conditions would redefine how someone would spend these later years. As much as I am able, I pay close attention to my health and actively practice prevention to reduce the risk of falling ill or impairing my ability to move. What began as a mission to be a healthy, capable older father for my two young daughters has become a focused lifestyle that now has a third beneficiary: ME. The ability to continue living a quality life and experiencing the wonder of simply being alive becomes more fully available to me thanks to robust health and fitness.
What’s more, health itself (the way I’ve come to define it) becomes a big part of the wonder of life that I’ve described. To be healthy means not only having a healthy body, but also having healthy relationships with myself and others and a healthy attitude toward the world around me. All this is a 24/7 preoccupation, not a list of things I practice to stay healthy but a way of living that fully appreciates life. To be in touch with my body and mind and to appreciate the wonder of everything they do every second of the day to keep me alive is as “awe-some” as anything else in the universe. The interconnectedness of everything inside me mirrors that same quality in all life around me.
My new book will be shorter than my first one. I am hoping to make it an uplifting call to vibrant health at this precious time of life. There is much that is available to us at this age that is not available to us in our younger and more formative years. Embracing and navigating these years, however they present themselves to each of us, with as much attention, compassion, and energy as we are able to give them can enhance the experience of this stage of life immeasurably.
