How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life

Years ago we discovered the exact point, the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net.¹

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best . . .
Life’s but a means unto an end; that end, Beginning, mean, and end to all things—God.²

In 2003, Art Linkletter, who has known every American president since FDR, administered his famous Old Geezer Test to one George W. Bush.

In “We were standing in the Oval Office. I was in Washington to get the Humanities Award, and I asked to meet with President Bush privately. We were sitting around and talking about all the things I’m doing, and he said, ‘I can’t believe at ninety-one you do all these things. I hope when I’m ninety-one I’ll be living that way, with the same vitality, curiosity, and enthusiasm.’ And I said, ‘Would you like me to give you a test? Based on a UCLA study proving that lifestyle is more important than genes, we believe you can live longer no matter what your genes say.’ He said, ‘Go ahead. Let’s see how I make out.’ So I stood there with the president of the United States, and I started firing questions at him: Do you smoke? No.Are you abusing alcohol? No.Do you get eight hours of sleep? Not quite. That’s understandable for a man with a high-stress job.

“I went down the list. Low-fat diet. Exercise. Good breakfast. Humor. Curiosity. A passion for what you do. A happy marriage. All these things add to your life because they cut down on stress. He gave good answers, and at the end I said, ‘Mr. President, you passed the test. I now proclaim you an honorary Old Geezer.’ He laughed. It was probably the first time in the history of the presidency of the United States that the president had an examination on how to get older better, and I gave it to him.”

Three elderly men are at the doctor’s office for a memory test. The doctor asks the first man, “What is three times three?” “274” is his reply.

The doctor rolls his eyes and looks up at the ceiling and says to the second man, “It’s your turn. What is three times three?” “Tuesday,” replies the second man.

The doctor shakes his head sadly then asks the third man, “Okay, your turn. What’s three times three?” “Nine,” says the third man.

“That’s great!” says the doctor. “How did you get that?” “Simple,” he says, “just subtract 274 from Tuesday.”

You don’t find many folks aspiring to become Old Geezers. They are either spending fortunes in a fruitless search for potions that will keep them eternally young, or they are hustling themselves toward the grave in the hope that their bodies will call it quits before they end up broke and in a home somewhere waiting in vain for a grandchild to visit.

In other words, they buy into the eight great myths about growing old. According to a USA Today/ABC News poll of 1,000 adults taken in 2005, the average age people want to live to is eighty-seven. Just 25 percent of those surveyed said they wanted to make it to one hundred. And what did the same group cite as their main reason for not wanting to live to 100, 120, or beyond? Being disabled by health problems and becoming a burden to their loved ones.³

Baby Boomers say they fear death less than they fear the idea of falling apart when they hit old age. The specter of spending ten, twenty, or thirty years immobile, bereft of memory and identity, and utterly dependent taps the deepest fears of today’s active, vibrant Boomers, and who can blame them? Compared to that kind of life, death looks like a viable alternative.

Those grim images of old age are outdated. Today, seniors compete in world-class Olympic events, run ultramarathons, start and manage billion-dollar companies, publish bestsellers, climb Himalayas, act, sing, dance, travel to the farthest corners of the world, and make breakthrough discoveries in medicine, science, history, geriatrics, and human sexuality. People over fifty have broken the tape into the twenty-first century with vigor, but our concepts about what it means to be old are languishing in the nineteenth century. It’s time they caught up.

In case you think this is all a lot of hype, witness some of the more remarkable examples of older people who are not just getting by but are at the top of their games:

• Clint Eastwood, 76, won his second Academy Award for Best Picture at age 75.

• Paul Newman, 80, remains a race car driver and a leading producer of natural foods, much of the profits from which he donates to charities.

• Sophia Loren, 71, continues to make films regularly in her native Italy and is widely regarded as one of the world’s great timeless beauties.

• John Wooden, 95, former UCLA basketball coaching legend, continues to travel the country speaking to audiences about his Pyramid of Success.

• Sandra Day O’Connor, 75, was widely regarded as the most influential justice on the Supreme Court of which she was recently a member.

• Warren Buffett, 75, known as the “Oracle of Omaha,” is one of the world’s wealthiest men, the champion of value investors, and the leading mind in smart, risk-managed investing.

• Paul Harvey, 87, continues to tell listeners the “rest of the story” and wish us all “good day” on radio stations throughout the United States and around the world.

• Etta James, 68, is one of the most vibrant, virtuoso female blues singers in the world and performs at dozens of blues festivals annually.

• Chita Rivera, 73, still regarded as “The Goddess of Broadway,” continues to tour and perform, singing and dancing all over the nation.

• Betty Ford, 88, has become synonymous with drug rehabilitation and persists in her crusade to find new ways to prevent and treat drug abuse.

Those are just a few examples of well-known people who are leading the way in their professions at ages that, a few decades ago, would have gotten them laughed into the rest home. Society’s acceptance of what seniors can accomplish has undergone a marvelous transformation. We don’t even blink today when a seventy-year-old launches a new Internet company, sets a record in the discus throw, or releases a hit music CD. The younger generation takes it for granted now that older Americans will live longer, be healthier, get more active, and achieve more in their later years than ever before. The only problem is the older Americans themselves still don’t get it.

In 1903, the average US life expectancy was forty-seven years. Today, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average US citizen can expect to live just over seventy-seven years as of 2004.⁴ And people in some other cultures, such as Okinawa and Sardinia, are living even longer. What’s even more surprising is the increase in the number of centenarians—those over one hundred. According to the US Census Bureau, there are more than 71,000 Americans over age one hundred today, with that number expected to boom to 241,000 by 2020.⁵ We owe that in part to improved health care, medicines, public sanitation, and better nutrition. But millions have access to those things, and only a small percentage of us live to triple digits. What do they know that we don’t?

The Art Linkletter “Old Geezer Test”

Are you a future Old Geezer? Answer the questions to find out, then check your score at the bottom.

1. Do you refrain from smoking?	YES / NO
2. Do you abstain from alcohol consumption?	YES / NO
3. Do you get eight hours of sleep a night?	YES / NO
4. Do you eat a low-fat diet?	YES / NO
5. Do you exercise every day?	YES / NO
6. Do you eat a good breakfast every day?	YES / NO
7. Do you have a sense of humor?	YES / NO
8. Do you have a sense of curiosity about the world?	YES / NO
9. Do you have a passion for what you do?	YES / NO
10. Do you have a happy marriage?	YES / NO

Scoring—Count your “Yes” answers and determine your odds of becoming an Old Geezer.

9—10	“Yes” answers: You are well on your way to Old Geezerhood, if you're not there already.
6—8	“Yes” answers: You're a good candidate to become a Geezer, but you've got some work to do in a few areas.
3—5	“Yes” answers: You're not maintaining the best habits to keep you vital as you age. Old Geezerhood is going to take some work and commitment.
0—2	“Yes” answers: You have a will, right?

Today’s super-old refuse to accept the idea that age-related losses of health, mental clarity, mobility, passion, and purpose are inevitable. Aging and decline, for now, are inevitable (though medical and scientific research are now challenging even that long-held belief), but they can come at the end of eight or nine or ten decades of healthy, vigorous, fulfilling living. We’re not talking about denying aging or chasing some nonexistent fountain of youth but about extending healthy life by years or even decades.

The people who will make the rest of their lives the best of their lives are those who stubbornly refuse to believe that life is a one-way slide into dissolution once you pass age sixty. These people—you’re one of them— look at aging fearlessly, as a time when adult life is just entering its second half.You’ve made your money, had your kids, made your sacrifices, earned your wisdom.Now it’s time to travel, build, eat, drink, dream, create, speak truth, cherish friends, learn from past mistakes, make all new mistakes, take risks, make peace with the things you cannot change, and raise Cain over the things that need changing. As Norman Lear, creator of such television icons as All in the Family, said in an interview for this book, “‘Next’ is more important than ‘Over.’”

As aging expert Dr. Ken Dychtwald stated in an extensive interview for this book, “We are witnessing the emergence of a gerontocracy, a powerful new old age. And we have the largest generation in American history barreling toward it.”More than any other time in history, you have the power to take your place in that gerontocracy. It all begins with understanding the Eight Myths and how to defy them.

A husband and wife, both sixty years old, were celebrating their thirty-fifth anniversary. During their party, a fairy appeared to congratulate them and grant them each one wish. The wife wanted to travel around the world.

The fairy waved her wand and poof!—the wife had tickets in her hand for a world cruise. Next, the fairy asked the husband what he wanted. He said, “I wish I had a wife thirty years younger than me.”

So the fairy picked up her wand and poof!—the husband was ninety.

According to the conventional wisdom, old age means a breakdown of the body’s systems. But advances in science and new discoveries about the power of lifestyle changes mean that age does not have to be a time of constant sickness and diminishing health. Only about 5 percent of seniors today live in nursing homes.

As with so much related to health, avoiding sickness in old age comes down to prevention. Most of the diseases that disable or kill older Americans—heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes—are in large part the result of lifestyles that include too much bad food, too little exercise, excessive stress, lack of rest, and killer habits such as smoking and drinking. By the same token, the factors that extend healthy life are also matters of lifestyle: eating lots of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts, getting plenty of regular exercise (including playing sports), drinking enough water, and so on. The problem is, it seems that many Americans lack the foresight to understand that doing these things when they’re fifty can keep them living well at eighty.

“Sadly, too much of modern medicine appears to still be driven by the pharmaceutical industry and the sickness model and does not concern itself with health, energy, and vitality,” wrote Australian antiaging physician Dr. Michael Elstein, author of Eternal Health, in response to questions for this book. “Many doctors are ignorant when it comes to matters of wellness, largely because they are unhealthy themselves.” Worse, what some call the “harmaceutical” industry is now focused on selling “continuity” drugs that you take forever. We remember when you took a drug for a week, got better, and stopped taking it.

In other words, sickness is as much a matter of the culture in our society as of the culture of bacteria. If you’re waiting to become ill before taking action, you’re going to be sick.

An Ounce of Prevention . . .Your vital organs, especially your kidneys, become less efficient with age (healing massage may help). Your metabolism slows down.Your vision and hearing become less acute (though some claim the Bates method may help prevent some sight impairment; learn more at http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_Method). These aren’t surprises to anyone, but it’s amazing that some people never make the changes necessary to compensate.

The keys to avoiding chronic sickness as you age are anticipation and prevention. This is why it becomes so vital not to deny old age but to accept and embrace it as a time when your greater freedom and possibility come with a price: investing time, planning, and money in measures designed to prevent the early breakdown of your body. There are so many things you can do that might seem insignificant but have an enormous cumulative effect on your risk of disease:

• Wash your hands regularly. Just using regular soap and water (expensive antibacterial cleansers are no better, according to the FDA) reduces your risk of infection by bacterial and viral diseases. Wash your hands as long as it takes to sing “Happy Birthday.”

• Regularly dust and clean bedrooms and other rooms where you spend lots of time to reduce the risk of allergic reactions, eradicate dust mites, and eliminate mold and bacteria.

• Get your annual flu vaccination, and make sure your grandchildren are vaccinated for pneumonia. Recent studies show that when children and infants are vaccinated against pneumonia, deaths among seniors from the disease drop dramatically.

• Talk to your physician about an “aspirin a day” regimen. It purportedly thins blood clots and thereby helps prevent strokes, aneurisms, and heart attacks.

• Get an annual checkup, even if you feel perfect.Men over fifty should always have a prostate exam, and everyone over fifty should have a colonoscopy at least every five years, more often if you are at higher risk.

As Elstein points out, today there is a remarkable battery of tests that measure risk factors for heart disease and other killer diseases: CT scans, glucose metabolism tests, “biological terrain assessments” that measure free radical levels, cellular acid/alkali balance, inflammatory levels, and more. Today’s advanced diagnostic tools can detect the root causes and inform the treatment of illnesses years before they cause symptoms.

Wellness Insurance? You may be familiar with “wellness medicine,” a collection of alternative therapies ranging from chiropractic to therapeutic massage. These types of health care focus less on treating illness than on reducing stress and getting the body in an optimal state to fight off illness and maximize overall health. Many Baby Boomers who came of age in the 1960s, and are big proponents of alternative care, still rely on wellness providers to help them stave off the ailments of old age. In fact, we invest three times as much on alternative therapies as we do traditional medicine.

You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. ⁶

Good news. The insurance industry has finally caught up with you. Through companies such as Health Action Network Society, you can purchase “wellness insurance,” which combines life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, and coverage that pays part of the cost of such wellness caregivers as massage therapists, osteopaths, naturopathic physicians, and psychologists. This makes it easier and more affordable to get the preventive care that can help keep muscles supple, reduce stress and detoxify your body, ease pain from injuries or arthritis, and recommend beneficial regimens of food, supplements, and nutrients that will truly enhance your well-being.

This is one of the classics: old people are brittle and fragile, and if they fall down, they’ll break a hip and be dead in a year. Is that true for some seniors? Yes. All stereotypes have some basis in fact. But it doesn’t have to be true for you. You can be active and robust and sturdy deep into the second half of life.

The most common villain when it comes to the myth of frailty is osteoporosis, the loss of bone mass that often occurs with age and affects millions of Americans. Women are four times more likely to develop the condition because of the effects of menopause, but it also affects men. Osteoporosis makes bones more brittle and easier to break, especially bones in the hip and spine. That’s why many seniors are so afraid of falls; a broken hip can result in severe disability, long hospitalization, and a heartbreaking loss of mobility and independence.

Relentlessly Active. It turns out that a lifetime of strenuous physical activity is not just good for controlling your weight and keeping your heart healthy, it also keeps you mobile and tough, keeping bones strong and muscles supple and flexible. Look at some of the isolated cultures that are known for their longevity:

• Natives on the Caribbean island of Dominica, which has the highest longevity in the western hemisphere and boasted the incredible Elizabeth “Ma Pampo” Israel, who died on October 14, 2003, at the unconfirmed age of 128.⁷

• Farm and sheep herding families in remote areas of Sardinia, like those profiled in “The Secrets of Long Life” by Dan Buettner, National Geographic, November 2005.

• Okinawans, also profiled by Buettner and the subjects of the Okinawa Centenarian Study.⁸

These people lead different types of lives, consume different diets, and have little in common but their advanced age. However, they do have one thing in common: agrarian societies where hard work goes on daily with no reprieve because one is seventy-five and feeling sore. It’s not uncommon at all to see men and women in their 70s and 80s in these regions putting in full days of work in fishing boats, on farms, or tending cattle work that would leave people in their 30s and 40s gasping for air and sore to the core.Ask these individuals about their daily regimens of walking,weeding, building walls, and hauling wood, and they inevitably shrug; such exertions are an ordinary part of their lives, and have been for years. It really does come down to, “Move it or lose it.”

The Stowe Foundation, under the direction of Dr. Lawrence Stowe, has discovered a type of pluripotent (meaning it can become any kind of cell in the body) adult stem cell existing in any individual’s own bone marrow. These cells can become any other tissue in the body. The foundation is developing a technique to harvest these Universal Pluripotent Stem Cells (UPS) and then rapidly reproduce them so that they can be transplanted in large number into a damaged organ. This technique of harvesting the bone marrow yields a significantly greater number of these pluripotent cells than any other source.

These cells may possibly be used in treating conditions such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and liver cirrhosis as well as knee and joint repair, spinal cord injuries, wound and ulcer repair, and tendon and ligament surgery. In addition, all varieties of cosmetic surgery will benefit from the healing powers of the UPS.

The FDA considers the expansion of the UPS to be the same as creating a new blood product, so current restrictions apply to actual use in the United States. Please watch the news or look online for the latest updates on restrictions and on possible new therapies involving these extraordinary cells.⁹

The 105-Year-Old Javelin Thrower. Case in point: John Whittemore, who set a record for his age group in the javelin throw in October 2004 before passing away in April 2005. Now, given that he was 105 when he made his record throw, his age group wasn’t all that big (685 men as of 2000, according to the Census Bureau), and his record toss of 11 feet wouldn’t have made the evening highlights on ESPN. But Whittemore had been competing in track and field—and setting records—since his boyhood. As recently as the autumn of 2004, Whittemore was working out with weights daily and still thinking about new records. Since his death, USA track and field is thinking about creating a competition group for athletes aged 105 to 109.¹⁰

You read that right: 105 to 109. It’s never too late. So says fitness legend Jack LaLanne, ninety-two, who has been preaching the benefits of diet and exercise for more than sixty years. LaLanne, who still works out for two hours every morning and has a forty-six-inch chest and a thirty-inch waist, tells people they can benefit from exercise no matter how long they waited to get started. “I hate to get up at 5:00 AM and leave a [warm] bed to work out in a cold gym,” he said in an interview for this book. “But I love the results.”

The Corrosive Power of “I Can’t.” A summer 2005 study at Yale University revealed that the more television seniors watched—the more they were bombarded by negative, derisive stereotypes of bumbling, decrepit old fogies—the more negative their ideas about aging became. Participants between sixty and ninety-two were divided into two groups and filled out viewing diaries for a week, with one group adding its views about how the elderly were portrayed on television. The characterizations ranged from “nonexistent” to claims that the aged were constantly the brunt of jokes.¹¹

This is precisely the kind of input from the wider world that makes seniors say the words that guarantee an old age of tragic decline: “I can’t.” I can’t play softball at my age. I can’t do a three-mile hike. I can’t lift weights. Those two words corrode the spirit and turn the idea of the frail, incapable senior into a self-fulfilling prophecy. In response we say, no, you can’t hike three miles today. But you can hike one mile.And if you do it three times a week, soon you’ll be hiking five miles and wondering what was the big deal.

Research from a wide range of sources agrees that it’s never too late to start a program of strength, endurance, and flexibility training. But just as important to a well-developed exercise regimen is the will to practice it. One thing we’ve noticed in common among senior athletes and adventurers is a defiant attitude. These are folks who relish the fact that other people are stunned when they reach the top of a mountain trail, do fifty reps on the bench press machine, or a perfect warrior pose in a yoga class. It’s up to you to cultivate that defiant attitude about exercise, movement, and activity.

Just Get Moving. Naturopathic physician Dr. Andrew Myers believes being fit and strong is less about exercise and more about movement. Movement doesn’t require the gym or expensive equipment. Movement means gardening, walking, dancing, or playing with the grandkids. For more information about Dr. Myers’s “Simple Health Value,” visit http://www.simplehealthvalue.com/simplehealth.asp.

• Do stretching exercises to elongate your muscles and improve flexibility and mobility.

Frailty comes with disuse. When you use what you’ve got, consistently and with variety, it won’t be a concern.

This is probably the most dreaded myth about growing old: the slide into dementia and the eventual loss of identity. That’s understandable. After all, we live between our ears; our bodies are tools evolved to follow the directives of our brains. If that marvelous, trillion-celled computer breaks down, the fittest body on the planet isn’t much good.

The best way to refute this myth is to look around at the millions of seniors engaged in demanding, thought-intensive activities all over the world. Seniors are running businesses, governing nations, making new discoveries, writing best-selling novels, and that’s just for starters. Their minds are as sharp and quick as when they were in their 30s.

As with most aspects of aging, some decline in your cognitive powers is inescapable; it’s biology. Cellular death happens in the brain as early as your 20s, and your brain shrinks for your entire life after that. But we’re discovering that old age doesn’t mean losing your marbles. For example, a 2003 Duke University study revealed that high blood pressure does not accelerate age-related cognitive decline as was thought. Your brain is tough.You can protect your mind and work your brain so that you’re gaining more cognitive ability than you lose. We’re discovering now that it is possible to train your brain and retain more of your memory and mental ability as you grow older.¹²

A Boot Camp for the Brain. Dr. Gary Small is Director of the UCLA Center on Aging, author of The Memory Bible and The Memory Prescription, and one of the medical minds on the vanguard of improving brain function and memory through specific activities and lifestyle changes. Later on, we’ll go more into Dr. Small’s work and other groundbreaking discoveries regarding keeping the brain and mind vital, but look at what the simple existence of his book, UCLA “memory boot camp” program, and books and programs like them tell us: just like you work a muscle to improve its function, you can work your brain to do the same. You’re not stuck with a fading memory any more than you’re stuck with small biceps. Dr. Small says in The Memory Prescription:

The search to uncover our risk for dementia and what determines the rate at which our brains age has revealed a startling fact: for the average person, only about one-third of this determination comes from genetics. So if two thirds of what determines our future risk has to do with our environment and the lifestyle choices we make today, we clearly have more control over our future than many might imagine—two-thirds control.¹³

That’s an extraordinary idea. But research backs it up. If you’re worried about dementia and memory loss as you get older, you can take action. And there’s no such thing as starting too late.

And the timelessness that only the passing of Time itself can give to objects both inside and outside the spirit is a continuing reassurance. ¹⁴

Age and Deceit Beat Youth and Speed. There’s a credo that goes,“Age and deceit will defeat youth and speed every time.” That’s a bit cynical, but there’s an aspect we agree with. As you grow older, particularly as you move into your 80s and 90s, you are going to lose some of your cognitive ability even if you never develop Alzheimer’s disease. You’ll find it harder to remember the events of a few days ago even though the distant past is crystal clear. Problem solving will be a bit tougher. Age happens. Changes will too.

With doctorates in physiology, biochemistry, and genetics from Rutgers University, Dr. Margolin spent decades in the pharmaceutical industry, holding research and director positions for several major pharmaceutical laboratories. He also has developed more than twenty FDA-approved drugs, including drugs carrying the brand names Dimetapp and Coricidin that are sold worldwide. So why start MARNAC in 1990 at age seventy, when most of his peers were retiring? To develop treatments that truly change lives for sufferers of multiple sclerosis.

“In my recent work with multiple sclerosis, I work with secondary progressive, the worst kind,” says Margolin. “These people are paralyzed: they either have to be in wheelchairs or can’t use their hands. We give them the drug and after three months or six months half of them start to walk again and use their hands.”

With his MS drug in the FDA approval pipeline, Margolin, a three-time winner over cancer, still works with his wife, a physician board-certified in internal medicine, on research and treatments for conditions such as restoring lung function to patients whose lungs have been scarred due to asbestos or smoking.

What keeps him going? “I’m ornery,” he says. “I’ve never had [retirement] in my blood. Because of my age, I occasionally encounter younger people who just find it hard to believe that an old codger should know so much. I don’t get upset about it. I just keep on pushing on, pushing on.

“Also, my sense of curiosity goes back to when I was three years of age. My mother told me that I once was out in the back yard on a little tricycle, and I was screaming and hollering, so she ran out to find out what had happened. I said, ‘Look. I’ve discovered where the clouds came from!’ There was a steam locomotive making steam, and that’s where the clouds came from. And that’s the story of my life.”

However, there are factors that can compensate for the loss in pure mental horsepower. When you’ve lived seven or eight decades, you have more experience, sounder judgment, and greater wisdom than someone who’s thirty or forty years younger than you (or you should). You possess the ability to judge people, assess a situation from all sides, and make a sound, rational decision. There’s no teacher like experience.

Why Reread the Same Books? Brain health professionals offer many recommendations for preventing dementia, and we’re going to touch on them in our chapter on the mind. But we feel like the easiest to do is also the most important and enjoyable: challenge your mind constantly. Research has shown that challenging activities such as travel, crossword puzzles, and learning to play a musical instrument can build up your brain and decrease your risk of developing Alzheimer’s as well as other, milder forms of dementia.

It turns out that testing your intellect can preserve your intellect just as exercise can preserve your muscle mass and bone density. But since many seniors become complacent as they age, not seeking out new challenges and learning new things, they don’t demand greater activity from their brains. Like any other part of the body,when the brain goes unused, it atrophies. There’s no excuse for it, especially with the array of educational programs available for seniors at universities and community colleges. For example, the Bernard Osher Foundation has enabled universities across the nation to create Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes, which offer courses for people over fifty in a huge range of subjects. Seniors can participate in university courses, attend lectures, go on field trips, conduct research—all marvelous ways to keep the mind vibrant and alive.

• Discover and challenge yourself to do something that can’t currently be done.

Anything that stretches your mind beyond the routines of your day and forces you to learn things you didn’t know yesterday is pure brain food.

Dig In Up to Your Elbows. Nothing we’ve seen appears to have a greater impact on mental sharpness into old age like a sense of passion, purpose, and involvement in something that you care about deeply. We encounter it all the time in discussions for this book: people in their 80s and 90s who are running businesses, running for office, and competing in sports are doing so with minds that are wonderfully keen and senses of humor that are remarkably nimble. The common denominator: they’re up to their elbows in life, doing something that they love doing, something they would pay to do if they had to.

One more thing: laugh. Tell jokes. One of the great things about being old is that the humor a forty-year-old couldn’t get away with is fine for a ninety-year-old. Never lose your sense of humor, particularly about yourself. It will keep you young.

Art Linkletter jokes, “At my age, the greatest form of contraception is nudity.” Funny, but why do we laugh? Is it because once you get past a certain age, you lose your sexual drive? There’s a common public perception that after age sixty-five, seniors don’t want sex, don’t have sex, don’t enjoy sex, and shouldn’t talk about sex. The younger generations don’t even want to think about the idea of senior sexuality. Yuck.

Let us set the record straight: married couples over fifty-five love sex. They want it, enjoy it, and talk about it. There is zero evidence to show that being over fifty-five means you stop wanting sexual activity. That’s the propaganda of a youth-obsessed culture that sees anyone over fifty as obsolete and anyone over seventy as dead. Too bad: just as Baby Boomers are driving changes in medicine, science, and finance, they’re bringing on some new perceptions about being sexy in your 60s, 70s, or 80s.

No Kids, No Pregnancy, No Problem! Sophia Loren once quipped, “Sex appeal is 50 percent what you’ve got and 50 percent what people think you’ve got.” Sex appeal is more than a matter of physical appearance—a fact that adults, as we age, come to know more clearly. The knockout without a brain in his or her head becomes less attractive as we get older and travel around the block a few times. Confidence, a sense of humor, wit, a romantic flair—these all become much greater aspects of sexual attraction as we hit middle age.

If sixty is the new forty, mustn’t sixty-year-olds be enjoying rumpling the sheets as much as today’s forty-year-olds? The answer is a resounding yes. A study on “Sexual Interest and Behavior in Healthy 80- to 102-year-olds” published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior back in April 1988 showed that 63 percent of men and 30 percent of women were still having sexual intercourse.¹⁵ More recently, a 2004 AARP study revealed that nearly half (49 percent) of Americans between ages 45 and 70 who had a regular sexual partner were engaging in sexual intercourse at least once per week. More important, 63 percent of them reported being extremely or somewhat satisfied with their sex lives.¹⁶

Perhaps more important is the enjoyment level of sex for seniors these days. Plenty of anecdotal evidence found in survey after survey suggests that senior men and women enjoy sex as much in their Second Prime years as they did in their younger years. And why not? If you’re physically healthy, there are plenty of reasons to enjoy sex more. You’re not worried about pregnancy.You’re not worried about the kids bursting in on you. You’re more familiar with what your spouse wants. You’re more communicative and a lot more experienced at romance and foreplay. You’re better at sex.

Rewriting the Rules. Exercise is changing the paradigm already. Seniors who haven’t worked out in years are discovering that no matter what your age, it’s never too late to get in shape. As a result, older Americans look better. They’re shattering the stereotype that old age means saggy pecs and scrawny knees and no energy. As they’re hitting the weights and doing lung-burning sessions on the stationary bike and elliptical, they’re also redefining what it means to be attractive in our society. Women like Sophia Loren, Lauren Bacall, Raquel Welch, and Julie Christie, and men like Paul Newman, Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, and Harrison Ford prove that older people can not only be sexy, but out-and-out hot.

If You’re Not, Why Not? There are valid reasons not to be sexual later in life:

Every one of these problems has a solution: exercise and diet, counseling, joining a social organization or dating service, and so on. Then again, maybe you’re just an old sourpuss who has decided that sex is for young people. If that’s your attitude, no wonder you’re not having sex! Sexuality is a very real, vital part of growing old and comes with a host of wonderful physical and psychological benefits.

One of the saddest myths about growing old is the picture of the wizened old man or woman, abandoned in a nursing home or left living alone in a dingy apartment, forgotten by family, never visited, depressed and alone, slowly decaying.And while that sort of thing, sadly, does occur, there is absolutely no reason for anyone, no matter how bereaved by a death or reduced by infirmity, to be alone in old age. More than ever before, there are countless opportunities for older Americans to get out, meet people, network, and rediscover the energy that comes with relationships.

Social Networks Are Good for You. The facts are in: having a close circle of friends helps you live longer. The Australian Longitudinal Study of Aging, which in 1992 began studying nearly 1,500 people to determine the impact of social, economic, behavioral, and environmental factors on health, has revealed that over ten years, having a strong network of friends increased longevity, even more than having close family ties. The researchers who conducted the study theorize that a tight circle of friends and confidants influences peoples’ habits more, boosts mood, and helps members of the group cope with life’s difficulties.¹⁷

Combine this with the common practice in Okinawan society of the moai, a mutually supportive circle of long-term (often lifelong) friends, and the pattern becomes clear: having a network of friends is good for your health. Being with other human beings lifts us out of depressing reveries and dwelling on the past, improves mood, motivates change, triggers the sense of humor, offers a path to new challenges, and reminds us that for all its vagaries, life is good.¹⁸

It gets better for social butterflies. According to a report published by Dr.Robert H.Coombs, professor of Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA, married couples enjoy greater longevity than the unmarried, need healthcare services less often, have an 8 to 17 percent higher rate of cancer cure than single people, and even suffer from schizophrenia less frequently.¹⁹ That’s for better, not worse.

A young man saw an elderly couple sitting down to lunch at McDonald’s. He noticed that they had ordered one meal and an extra drink cup.

As he watched, the gentleman carefully divided the hamburger in half, then counted out the fries, one for him, one for her, until each had half of them. Then he poured half of the soft drink into the extra cup and set that in front of his wife. The old man then began to eat, and his wife sat watching, with her hands folded in her lap.

The young man decided to ask if they would allow him to purchase another meal for them so that they didn’t have to split theirs.

The old gentleman said, “Oh no. We’ve been married fifty years, and everything has always been and will always be shared, fifty/fifty.”

The young man then asked the wife if she was going to eat, and she replied, “It’s his turn with the teeth.”

So Many Opportunities. There’s a staggering array of organizations that offer seniors the chance to meet others, do good works, and make discoveries:

• Groups like United Planet, Earthwatch,Meals on Wheels, the American Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, Operation Smile, Northwest Medical Teams, and Global Volunteers give seniors the chance to volunteer overseas for weeks or months, doing everything from teaching reading to participating in scientific research.

• Dating services like Silver Singles give seniors an easy, safe way to meet new people.

• Internet-based tools like Meetup.com make it simple for older folks to connect with like-minded individuals of all ages in their area.

• Organizations like the Red Hat Society simply offer women fun, companionship, some healthy silliness, and some wonderful events and perks.

• Venerable groups like the Elks, Lions, and Rotary perform important duties in many communities and give seniors a great way to connect with people in their area.

There are even organizations who recruit volunteers to visit lonely seniors who crave company! There is no reason anyone has to be lonely or isolated in later life, not when there are so many opportunities to make contact, achieve, and do good things. These days, if you’re alone, it’s probably because you choose to be.

People need purpose. It’s that simple. We all need something that gives us a reason to get up in the morning and lets us feel at the end of the day like we used our time wisely. That’s especially true for seniors. When the daily rigors of going to a job are over, the kids are gone, and there’s nothing more strenuous to strive for than making a hair appointment, it’s critical to your well-being to find something meaningful that challenges you, makes you feel needed.

With Baby Boomers likely to remain healthy and active into their 80s and beyond, their need to find purpose and make a difference will only increase. While there is no research to support the idea that having a demanding purpose extends life, look at the highest-achieving older people you’ve heard of, from celebrities to folks in the community. Almost all of them have a calling or goal that gets them moving each day and keeps them from giving in to age. There’s no reason you can’t do the same thing.

What Is Purpose? In his 1999 book, The Adult Years: Mastering the Art of Self-Renewal, Frederic M. Hudson provides an excellent list of the types of pursuits that can make up a purposeful later life. They include:

• Maintaining multiple tasks in parallel that add commitment and reward to your life

• Living on the edge of your possibilities and knowing how to lose, adapt, and recover²⁰

What is purpose? It’s that pursuit, goal, or activity that you feel like you were “meant” to do, something you could do all day, everyday, for no pay and not feel tired at day’s end. It’s your passion. It could be starting a company, relearning a hobby that you set aside fifty years earlier, volunteering, becoming a political activist or advocate for the homeless, setting the goal of running a marathon, restoring a sailboat so you can sail around the world, or any of a million other things. Purpose is something that gives back to you more than you put into it—that feeds your soul and dreams and desire to exceed your limitations.

When you’re younger, following your purpose isn’t always easy. The world is full of people who had passionate dreams in their youth but let them slip away on the currents of practicality and least resistance. You start a job, buy a house, get married, have kids, have bills to pay. Purpose and passion are forgotten. But then comes your Second Prime. No kids. No regular job.No mortgage.You’ve got time to fill, and you need ways to fill it.Now is the time when you should be questing for meaning, searching for your sense of purpose. What do you care about most? What group of people do you want to help? What do you want to change? What lofty goals would you set for yourself if you didn’t care what anyone else thought?

Volunteer. One of the most common and satisfying ways seniors discover their sense of purpose is through volunteering. By the time you’ve reached the later part of your life, you have a host of skills and talents that would be useful to others: business knowledge, trade skills, and teaching experience to name a few. With organizations like VolunteerMatch and Literacy Volunteers of America always on the lookout for people to fill needs throughout the country, there’s no reason why, if you’re healthy and mobile, you can’t find a way to give back through volunteering.

Purpose gives back more than you invest: according to the Council on Aging for Southeastern Vermont, people who volunteer—who gain the social networks that such activity brings—are in better health than non-volunteers. Volunteering builds self-esteem, teaches new skills, and has been shown to enhance health because of an increase in endorphin levels. Apparently, the satisfaction of volunteering can even reduce stress. Mark Victor Hansen wrote a book called The Miracle of Tithing, which states that you can contribute with four T’s: your thinking, your time, your talent, and your treasures. The greatest is your thinking. The best thinking for charities has not been done yet, and you can do it, helping them to solve problems and raising more money, awareness, and exposure.

Activism. Seniors who are of a political or environmental mind can also embrace activism as a way to discover a sense of purpose. When you’ve seen so much and have strong views, it makes sense to promote those views. Seniors have been a huge part of everything from the National Organization for Women and antiwar movements to the environmental movement. Why? They have the time, the money, and the expertise that younger folks lack. From AARP to the Gray Panthers, seniors are becoming a more powerful voice in politics and social change by virtue of their sheer numbers and economic power. Your opportunity to be heard and to make a difference is not only here, but growing.

Personal Goals. Purpose can be all about a cherished goal. What have you always wanted to do? Travel to Spain? Learn the piano? Lose fifty pounds? Write a bestseller? Paint a masterpiece? Once you have the time to devote to it, a goal like one of these can become your purpose. With dedication and discipline, you can turn a purpose into a way of life as well. For example, the exercise regimen required to get in shape to run a marathon will likely become a regular part of your life, leading to a healthier, longer life.

Many seniors discover a buried creative side after they shed the layers of work, debt, and children. The cities and towns of America are filled with gray-haired painters, sculptors, composers, poets, novelists, dancers, and radio personalities. Do you have a creative soul dying to be let loose?

Depression is commonly undiagnosed among seniors. It’s a debilitating clinical illness. Among people sixty-five and older, about 3 percent experience clinical depression. Fortunately, these people can be treated with a combination of powerful drugs and psychotherapy. But even for seniors who do not suffer from depression, old age can be a time of passivity and resentment.

It’s understandable when you look at all the negative aspects of old age: loss of loved ones, health problems, lack of mobility, difficulty making the transition from working life to retirement, and similar causes. Some people learn how to think about age from a negative, angry place, developing neural pathways in the brain that serve that purpose. For these seniors, the later stages of life are all about refusal, disapproval, and a sense of what psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman called “learned helplessness.”²¹

Defiant, Stubborn, and Willful. The opposite of being passive is not being active, but taking initiative. Seniors who get past the passivity myth are the ones who refuse to allow outside forces to wield control over their lives. Rather than sit around and complain, they find reasons why things aren’t working and develop solutions. The aging Boomer generation, with its strong-willed attitude and refusal to go gently into that good night, is likely to take initiative to a new level. You can do it. All you have to do is make a habit of saying:

“I am in control of my old age. No one can do anything to me without my consent, and if I see something that demands to be changed, I will take steps to change it.”

Defiance and stubbornness are not vices when they’re deployed in the defense of one’s own independence. You have a right to speak out, to act, to refuse to stand by and let things happen to you. Exercise it.

Remember “I hope I don’t outlive my money”? Living in poverty or dependence on family is a major fear of seniors. But you won’t be able to count on Social Security to bail you out if you fail to do the proper financial planning. Even defined benefit pensions, such as those offered by the government to public sector workers, are far in the red.

The hard truth is some seniors who have allowed themselves to become dependent on what they see as “guaranteed” entitlements may fall into poverty, which is certainly likely to spur government action. The fact that Americans are saving less than ever—about one percent of our incomes per year compared with 11 percent in the 1970s—is another factor that will put some seniors on the brink of financial ruin.²²

Choice One: Plan Wisely. The main problem is a good one: Baby Boomers are expected to live longer than any American generation that came before them. If you walk away from your regular job at fifty-five, you can reasonably expect thirty to thirty-five years of life ahead of you. That was a whole lifetime at the turn of the century. It’s a long time to keep paying out when you have nothing coming in. So unless you plan on winning the lottery, the first step to avoiding financial struggle in old age is planning and making some sacrifices while you’re working.

You would be wise to save 10 percent or more of your income, tithe 10 percent, and invest 10 percent. This is great lifelong advice. If you are starting late, you have to accelerate the amount of money earned, saved, given, and invested. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church and the richest preacher of his time, said, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”²³

You can’t have it all while you’re earning and live without financial worries when you’re eighty. It’s vital to retain the services of a good, smart financial advisor, preferably one who’s been certified by the American Institute of Financial Gerontology, an organization that specializes in the financial and investment issues related to aging. Work with this advisor on figuring out what kind of assets you’ll need to maintain the lifestyle you want when you retire, then figure out what you’ll need to save to accrue those assets. It’s really not more complex than that, though there is a dizzying array of investment vehicles. Sprinkle it all with some clarity and lack of self-deception about the return you’ll earn on your money, and you’re on your way.

Keep Working. Hold on. We’re not suggesting you never quit working for The Man. We’re also not suggesting that you take a desperation job at minimum wage. What we are suggesting is that you never stop creating, contributing, or working. Instead of retiring, you need to “refire” your passion and create a second career that allows you to make a living doing what you want. It doesn’t have to be much; a few hundred dollars a month might be enough to pay your expenses and let you enjoy your lifestyle. Whatever you decide to do, it’s time to become the CEO of You, Inc.

Now is the time to tap into your fondest interests or area of greatest expertise and start your own business! Whether it’s an online antique mall or a business crafting handmade furniture, there’s nothing stopping you. Okay, you may not be entrepreneurial and dislike the idea of working for yourself. No problem. Why not consult for your former employer or other companies in the same industry? Most corporations would kill to have access to a mind with decades of experience.Your expertise is an in-demand asset. Take advantage.

Maybe It’s Time to Cut Back. If you can’t increase your income enough, try the other end: lowering costs. Before you throw the book across the room because you think we’re asking you to give up the lifestyle you’ve worked so hard for, wait a moment. We’re not. What we are suggesting is that you look at simplifying.

“Simple living” is a growing movement that says, “We have too much stuff that we’re living to service, and we spend too much time running around. Let’s clean out, slow down, and really live.” It’s a great sentiment, and living simply works and saves money. Seniors who live more simply can lower costs while actually improving their quality of life by doing things like:

• Entertaining more at home with friends instead of having expensive nights out

You don’t have to give up all your expensive, guilty pleasures to live simply and save money. Just cut back. As you see from this list, simple living means living closer to nature and people and at a slower, more peaceful pace. And those are things that make life feel richer.

You Don’t Have to Be Rich . . . not to be poor when you’re old.You just have to plan: get a financial strategy, look at businesses you could start, look at ways to cut back and save more today.

That’s it for the Eight Myths. They have only as much power as you grant them. There’s not a single part of defying the myths that doesn’t lie in your control. It’s your choice how you want to grow old. It always has been. Now, here are the Eight Truths about your Second Prime:

• Technologies such as genetics and nanotechnology could allow you to slow the aging process.

• Digital technology will allow you to leave an oral and visual history to your descendants.

• The business world will welcome you back to employment on your terms, seeking to capitalize on your experience.

• The Internet will help you connect with others, make money, and learn in ways you’ve never imagined.

• Travel services designed for older people will open the entire world to your adventurous spirit.

• The culture is rediscovering your wisdom and creating new ways to share it with the young.

Don’t forget, you can find out even more about living your Second Prime at our Web site, www.SecondPrime.com. Meet other Boomers who share your interests, read about more Senior Achievers, and much more.

Let’s move on and take a look at the endless argument between genes versus lifestyle. Guess what? Somebody won.