What to know about this topic:
- Sherwin B. Nuland on remaining attuned to ourselves
- Ursula K. LeGuin on how to see yourself
- Louis Cozolino on social engagement
- Carol Dweck on the growth mindset
- Daniel J. Levitin on conscientiousness
- Annie Dillard on why we're here
Poet Grace Paley writes of a moment when her aging father sat her down to teach her "how to grow old.” His advice was this: “When you get up in the morning, you must take your heart in your two hands. Do this every morning.”
She mistook it for a metaphor, but he was being literal. “In the morning, do a few little exercises for the joints,” he began, “then put your hands like a cup over and under the heart [and] talk softly. ... Then talk to your heart, [tell it] anything, but be respectful. Maybe say, 'Little heart, beat softly but never forget your job,'" or "just whisper, ‘Remember.’” That includes remembering stressful times and dealing with regrets. “It's good for the old heart—to get excited.”
His unconventional advice on "how to grow old" also seems intuitively practical. As we age, we gain a deeper understanding of the value of slowing down and listening to our bodies.
Why not talk to our bodies, directly and mindfully?
The rest of the advice below is not all so personal. Nor is this a comprehensive collection of wisdom about longevity or aging successfully. Tomes have been written on that (see Dan Levitin’s Successful Aging, quoted below).
This is the sagest advice we’ve seen, seven thoughts about aging we hope will inspire and enlighten:
Sherwin B. Nuland on remaining attuned to ourselves
Nuland’s The Art of Aging remains a standard in advice on aging, notable for its mix of research and personal testimony. “I’m taking the journey even while I describe it,” he writes. The combination makes for an engaging, lyrical read. Below, he eloquently writes about the value of personal attunement.
We elders are no longer at a stage where things will care for themselves; nothing can now be taken for granted. We have arrived at a time and place in our lives where we [must be] attuned to ourselves in ways that are new to us and sometimes burdensome. This requires attention, reflection, and action, not only in regard to ourselves but in regard to the world around us as well. In these ways, we older men and women must all become philosophers.
Ursula K. LeGuin on how to see yourself
In “Dogs, Cats, and Dancers,” from her 2005 essay collection, The Wave in the Mind, the sci-fi legend tells readers how to recognize the beauty in her own aging face and body.
The beauty ideal is always a youthful one. This is partly simple realism. The young are beautiful. The whole lot of ’em. The older I get, the more clearly I see that and enjoy it.
But it gets harder and harder to enjoy facing the mirror. Who is that old lady? …
And yet I look at men and women my age and older, and their scalps and knuckles and spots and bulges, though various and interesting, don’t affect what I think of . Some of these people I consider to be very beautiful, and others I don’t. For old people, beauty doesn’t come free with the hormones, the way it does for the young. It has to do with bones. It has to do with who the person is. More and more clearly, it has to do with what shines through those gnarly faces and bodies.
Louis Cozolino on social engagement
In Timeless (2018), Cozolino looks at the way nurturing relationships can foster improved brain health, backed by science. He focuses on the importance of a healthy social life as we age—not only maintaining one but applying life experience to constantly relate better to those around us. In one of the book’s introductory chapters, he writes:
A core component of ongoing health and longevity lies in the power of sustained intimacy, attachment and learning. It’s the power of being with others and staying engaged in taking on the challenges of life that builds, shapes, and sustains our brains…. [Maintaining] our relationships and [staying] connected to others are vital aspects of our continued health and longevity.
Carol Dweck on the growth mindset
Dweck's influential work, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, helps readers overcome a fixed mindset with a growth mindset (the phrase she coined), a belief that abilities can be developed, no matter what your age or anything else.
It’s summarized in the quote below:
[Yourl] traits are not simply a hand you’re dealt and have to live with. ... Everyone can change and grow through application and experience. Do people with this mindset believe that anyone can be anything? ... No, but they believe that a person’s true potential is unknown (and unknowable) and it’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training.
Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem [and] why seek out the tried and true? ... The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.
Daniel J. Levitin on conscientiousness
Levitin's 2020 volume, Successful Aging, is a wide-ranging look at the subject, using insights from developmental neuroscience and individual differences psychology. It shows that there is such a thing as successful aging, and Levitin provides signposts throughout its 400 pages as to how to do so. One of the book's succinct summaries highlights the importance of mindfulness and openness:
The single most important factor in determining successful aging is the personality trait of conscientiousness, associated with a great number of positive outcomes in life. The fields of psychiatry and clinical psychology are founded on the premise that [you can] be more conscientious, even later in life, and the benefits will still accrue to you. The latest science confirms what has been argued for millenia, by various forms of religion—that personality is malleable, and that one can learn to interact with the world in new ways, even well into one’s eighties and beyond.
Annie Dillard on why we're here
Dillard's classic, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, reminds us that we can all access big ideas every day through the natural world around us. In Teaching a Stone to Talk, she's unflinching in her look at aging, and what it means to grow, even as we falter. No matter where we're at, we have a role to play, one that doesn’t change with time.
We are here to witness the creation and to abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house.
~ Jim Huinink, with Glen Herbert
