Since my retirement in 2011, I have been thinking how to teach younger adults to appreciate aging and live happily to a ripe old age.
Most people do not give much thought to aging. We live one day at a time, and then suddenly we realize we are old. The following are two quotes that provide substance about being older:
I had several careers prior to my retirement, but my “encore” is about teaching younger and older adults to live fully and appreciate the experiential aspects of their aging.
My primary 20-year research focus was on survival and longevity of the oldest old, including the Georgia Centenarian Study with specializations on genetics, neuropathology, functional capacities, and neuropsychology.
My first career was as a systems engineer working in missiles and space technology at Lockheed. But then, I began a long career in academia, receiving my Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology followed by postdoctoral fellowships in Gerontology and Psychophysiology, teaching at the Harvard Medical School focusing on diagnosis of Alzheimer’s dementia. My final stop before retiring in 2011 was the University of Georgia, as a Distinguished Research Professor in Gerontology, Psychology, and Public Health.
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What’s your encore story? Share it now.
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My current aspirations are to think of ways to translate current knowledge on aging that could change people’s thinking about their own aging. About five years prior to my retirement, I traveled the world with a documentary expert to collect video narratives of exceptional older people from different cultures.
I have been using these video stories to teach a university course on “Live Like You are Dying: Stuff Your Mother Never Taught You” to ignite students’ imagination on “what makes a life.” This is currently being taught and evaluated in courses in nine universities to ascertain how these stories could change students’ positive and negative attitudes on aging. I am also developing different book projects for both children and adults to change their outlooks on aging.
And now for one more quotation on aging:
“To enter the country of old age is a new experience, different from what you supposed it to be. Nobody, man or woman, knows the country until he has lived in it and has taken out his citizenship papers.”
— Malcolm Cowley, writer and editor