Aging doesn’t have to mean slowing down
While you can’t stop time, you can remain young at heart.
Pursuing your passions — whether it’s chasing the call of the open road like Jim Davis and Carol Kondratowicz, or continuing the activities you love like the participants in the Tuesday Color Pin League at Sherwood Lanes — can keep life from getting stagnant.
Keeping involved and socially active is healthy at any age, but can become more difficult as the years pass. That doesn’t make it any less important.
Activities like senior leagues and clubs are an important part of the community. Not just allowing older adults the chance to socialize, but helping to pass on knowledge and traditions as younger adults age and begin to join. Those just beginning to look ahead at retirement in turn pass things along to those they know.
That passage of knowledge down through the years is, in a sense, it’s own sort of immortality. The lessons learned from a long and full life can reach down through generations.
Studies have also shown that happiness is healthy and leads to longer lives. The Harvard Study on Adult Development, the longest running study on the health effects of happiness, has concluded just that. It’s director, Dr. Robert Waldinger, said in an interview for an article on the Harvard Medical School website that about 40% of a person’s happiness is, to some extent, under their control.
Choosing to pursue the things you love isn’t just about enjoying yourself. It can have real, physical benefits.
It just goes to show, there is a fountain of youth and, with a little luck, you just might find it.
— JP
