Read Online Live Long, Die Short by Roger Landry - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Roger Landry
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of life is unequivocally spiritual. I believe that my friend will enrich those privileged to know him for many years to come.
Yet you need not be a maestro. My good friend Al from Pennsylvania, nearly seventy, lives a life filled with the essential characteristics of successful aging. Daily he is at the Y for a physical workout and, even more importantly, to meet with lifelong friends. He lives on a large estate but takes great pleasure in doing most of the work to maintain it. It is labor of love. He still is actively engaged in a family business started by his father, another labor of love. Surrounded by family and the rich heritage of the area he grew up in, Al is an active, connected, contented, and fulfilled man. He, too, will grace our halls for many years to come.
Remember the three key characteristics that define successful aging: low risk of disease and disease-related disability, high mental and physical function, and active engagement with life. When we commit to having these as the defining characteristics of our lifestyle, we are moving toward a better aging experience. And when we fully acknowledge that as humans we have absolute requirements in order to be truly healthy—requirements handed down from our ancestors, requirements not determined by the latest health fad but by human experience over eons —then now, now we have a solid road map to authentic health and successful aging. Th is does not mean I advocate regression to our ancestors’ hunter-gatherer culture, only that we at last recognize that our basic needs for health are written in our DNA, not in the latest health advertisement, and that we find a way to acknowledge these needs in creative ways and meet them even in a culture our ancestors could never have imagined.
In the Ten Tips to Achieve Authentic Health and Successful Aging in part II of this book, I offer some recommendations that can lead to a lifestyle rich in these three basic characteristics and that will help you achieve your own version of compression—squeezing the most out of your life.
It is the choices we make every day that will determine whether we live the last decades of our lives slowly deteriorating, impaired and isolated, or continuing to grow, accommodating life’s curveballs, staying vital and flourishing. How much we move, learn, connect with others, seek meaning, avoid creating stress, eat well—these are the decisions that determine how we will age. Making these choices not as single decisions but as a part of a commitment to a lifestyle that acknowledges our inherited human needs—this will make the difference in our lives. Such a commitment willlead us on a journey to becoming truly healthy, with a health acknowledging requirements deeply rooted in who we are as humans, wired into our very DNA, established by thousands of generations of our ancestors, and therefore authentically human. And that same journey will lead us to an aging experience filled with wonder, growth, and satisfaction.
This all makes sense, but we have to ask—is such a commitment possible?
CHAPTER 3
CAN WE CHANGE?
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change.
—CHARLES DARWIN
I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
See everything. Overlook a great deal. Improve a little.
—POPE JOHN XXII
T his chapter is going to change everything for you. Nearly forty years of working with people to change their lives has brought me to a place where I’ve learned some stuff. I know that most people, particularly Americans, approach change in a way that is doomed from the beginning. It doesn’t have to be that way. We can easily change the way we change. Really, we can. You can.
Life = change
The Masai people of East Africa have a saying: “Life is change.” And indeed it is. Change is occurring all around us, every day, a virtual parade of
Yet you need not be a maestro. My good friend Al from Pennsylvania, nearly seventy, lives a life filled with the essential characteristics of successful aging. Daily he is at the Y for a physical workout and, even more importantly, to meet with lifelong friends. He lives on a large estate but takes great pleasure in doing most of the work to maintain it. It is labor of love. He still is actively engaged in a family business started by his father, another labor of love. Surrounded by family and the rich heritage of the area he grew up in, Al is an active, connected, contented, and fulfilled man. He, too, will grace our halls for many years to come.
Remember the three key characteristics that define successful aging: low risk of disease and disease-related disability, high mental and physical function, and active engagement with life. When we commit to having these as the defining characteristics of our lifestyle, we are moving toward a better aging experience. And when we fully acknowledge that as humans we have absolute requirements in order to be truly healthy—requirements handed down from our ancestors, requirements not determined by the latest health fad but by human experience over eons —then now, now we have a solid road map to authentic health and successful aging. Th is does not mean I advocate regression to our ancestors’ hunter-gatherer culture, only that we at last recognize that our basic needs for health are written in our DNA, not in the latest health advertisement, and that we find a way to acknowledge these needs in creative ways and meet them even in a culture our ancestors could never have imagined.
In the Ten Tips to Achieve Authentic Health and Successful Aging in part II of this book, I offer some recommendations that can lead to a lifestyle rich in these three basic characteristics and that will help you achieve your own version of compression—squeezing the most out of your life.
It is the choices we make every day that will determine whether we live the last decades of our lives slowly deteriorating, impaired and isolated, or continuing to grow, accommodating life’s curveballs, staying vital and flourishing. How much we move, learn, connect with others, seek meaning, avoid creating stress, eat well—these are the decisions that determine how we will age. Making these choices not as single decisions but as a part of a commitment to a lifestyle that acknowledges our inherited human needs—this will make the difference in our lives. Such a commitment willlead us on a journey to becoming truly healthy, with a health acknowledging requirements deeply rooted in who we are as humans, wired into our very DNA, established by thousands of generations of our ancestors, and therefore authentically human. And that same journey will lead us to an aging experience filled with wonder, growth, and satisfaction.
This all makes sense, but we have to ask—is such a commitment possible?
CHAPTER 3
CAN WE CHANGE?
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change.
—CHARLES DARWIN
I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
See everything. Overlook a great deal. Improve a little.
—POPE JOHN XXII
T his chapter is going to change everything for you. Nearly forty years of working with people to change their lives has brought me to a place where I’ve learned some stuff. I know that most people, particularly Americans, approach change in a way that is doomed from the beginning. It doesn’t have to be that way. We can easily change the way we change. Really, we can. You can.
Life = change
The Masai people of East Africa have a saying: “Life is change.” And indeed it is. Change is occurring all around us, every day, a virtual parade of
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