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Childhood, youth, maturity, what’s next? Previously, after fifty, life ended or lost color. Now these years (or decades) are called “the third age”. How to create an exciting second half of your life today?
The current generation of 40-45-year-olds in Russia is unique not only because they witnessed the collapse of one country and the birth of another. This generation has every chance of becoming the first to be able to invent and implement its own … no, not old age. Your own third age. Yes, most likely, not everyone will succeed – Russia, alas, lags behind developed countries both in terms of life expectancy and the quality of medicine. But still. Those who think about their health and the means to take care of it will live long. Longer than their parents, grandparents. Are they ready for such a prospect? And do the Columbuses of the third age have a map and a compass?
positive example
In 2013, 70-year-old Catherine Deneuve starred in the bed scene in the film “For Cigarettes” (dir. E. Berko). Almost simultaneously with him, the action movie Escape Plan (dir. M. Hofstrom) was released. In which Sylvester Stallone (67 years old at that time) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (66) first beat each other with inspiration, and then with even more inspiration give cuffs to their common enemies. Rock singer and MBE Elton John became a father for the first time at 67, which is no surprise. How not surprising is the status of a sex symbol, with which the 56-year-old Madonna is in no hurry to part. Agree, something definitely happens with age.
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- Find out your inner age
And it happens not only in the cinema and not only among the celestials. Women and men in their fifties are increasingly entering universities, moving to other countries and starting new careers, marrying for love, and not for reasons of “a glass of water in old age” *. And if in classical literature characters over forty were referred to only as old men and old women, now the language does not dare to call sixty-year-old Europeans that way either. And not out of fear of hurting them, but simply because it would not be true.
In Russia, the situation is different. And we have to focus more and more on movie heroes – there are still few real examples before our eyes. This is, perhaps, the main difficulty for those for whom the “third age” is already quite close. “The life of the elders could be an example when the life of one generation almost without change repeated the life of another, repeating the life of a third,” says psychotherapist Victor Kagan. “But the speeds are accelerating, and today more changes fall on the life of one generation than before – on the life of several.”
Read more:
- “Old age can be the happiest time of our lives”
In the eye of the beholder
The experience of parents is a trap. Let’s be honest, for most of us, their old age is the expectation of pensions that are in no way commensurate with work and talents, illness, helplessness, fear of poverty, at best – fussing in the garden and caring for grandchildren. Is it any wonder that many of us are truly terrified of such a future?
However, negative stereotypes associated with adulthood are strong not only in Russia. They are strong and therefore dangerous. Psychologist Becca Levy from Yale University (USA) has observed several hundred people aged 20 and over for 50 years. The conclusion of the study was unequivocal: those who perceive the third age positively live on average 7,5 years longer than those who see this age as a source of weakness and a time of fading**.
There is a saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Apparently, the same can be said about age. “The attitude towards him is a matter of the difference between the view from inside and outside,” the existential psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova is sure. – A lot of fears are projected onto old age … All this is a view from the outside. You know, I’m sure that a woman in labor suffers less than her husband, who is present at the birth and holds her hand. She has protective mechanisms provided by nature, but nothing protects him. The same is true with older age, it has many protections – only its inherent advantages. But to look at it from the inside, in order to get rid of youthful fears and appreciate these advantages, you can only reach this age.
Why struggle with age? What’s wrong with it? Life is getting better and better. It is important to remember this and look forward with enthusiasm.”
Shares this point of view and Viktor Kagan. “It would be nice to stop hypnotizing yourself with myths like “old age is disgusting, illnesses and generally green melancholy,” he says. – You need to live, trying not to interrupt life, to allow yourself to want, to enjoy, to love and – yes, to suffer too. And at the same time, focus not on external measures of a full-fledged life, but on our own feeling, on how much it is valuable for us.”
Erasing the boundaries
Psychologist Erik Erikson has divided a person’s lifetime into 8 stages***. The last, eighth, stage in his periodization is the 50+ stage, which Erickson considered the time of revising and reevaluating the life lived and finding harmony with it. But today, fifty-year-olds not only continue to live actively, but often decisively change their fate, gaining completely new experiences. Does this mean that Erickson’s theory is outdated five decades later?
Not quite so, Viktor Kagan believes. “Erickson wrote that each age carries with it an internal conflict of experiencing oneself in one’s relations with the world. The emphasis here is on the word “experience”. Another thing is that life has changed a lot since the time of Erickson, and with it the age limits of the periods he singled out.”
It’s hard to disagree with this. After all, the task of finding oneself, determining the direction of life, building the foundations of a worldview, Erickson attributed to the age of 20 years. Today, many of us solve this problem closer to forty. Naturally, even sixty-year-olds continue to work, create life and themselves, gain new experience. And the task of finally finding harmony with the life lived is probably moving closer to the 75-year milestone.
Live beyond your years
How to feel younger as you get older? Gail O’Hara, editor of Kinfolk magazine, offers his answers: Invite friends over for a sleepover. Unroll your sleeping bags, fill the room with huge plates of delicious Mexican nachos, and have a retrospective screening of Mary Poppins, Bang Bang Oh, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Why not bring out the Ouija board at the same time? Play. Whether you want to build an intricate sand castle or paint an angel in the snow, the key is to let your inner child out. Get off the radar. Pack your bag full of provisions for the day and set out on an adventure for yourself and your loved one or your pampered Shih Tzu. Your imagination will come in handy on the way, but leave your phone at home – if you dare, of course. Do your homework. Get a book on a subject that has been of interest to you for a long time, whether it be the pyramids or the German language, and, armed with pens and notebooks, set yourself weekly tasks that will be a joy to do. Don’t get angry over little things. Pretty ridiculous advice, but it can come in handy when all sorts of useless nonsense starts to annoy you. * For more details, see the magazine’s website kinfolk.com
* See about this: V. Yakovlev “Another thing” (Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2014).
** Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002, vol. 83(2).
*** E. Erickson “Childhood and Society” (Summer Garden, 2000).
Freedom of maturity
The inside view that Svetlana Krivtsova mentioned has given us a lot of evidence about the benefits of adulthood. Here, for example, are the thoughts of 77-year-old family therapist Carl Whitaker: “Someone said that youth is such a wonderful time in life that it is a shame to waste it in youth. I would add here my recent discovery that old age is such a wonderful time that it is a shame to wait for it so long! .. The reason for this is freedom from all kinds of fears. The feeling of security in old age comes from the fact that everything is up to the light bulb. Other people are entitled to beliefs, but their beliefs cannot make me feel uncomfortable or change. I like my life and I can sit back and enjoy it.”****
This freedom surprisingly links the third age with youth. In both life periods, we respond more to the demands of the body than to social prescriptions. But if in youth new bodily possibilities and needs are so strong and attractive that for the sake of their satisfaction we forget about everything, then in maturity we simply do not need to look back at someone else’s opinions. We can focus on our own condition in order to adapt to change.
Declaration of self-worth
In order for us to succeed, we need a quality that psychologists call self-worth: how much we ourselves consider ourselves worthy of attention, respect and love. “Our mentality is characterized by a too utilitarian attitude of a person towards himself,” states Svetlana Krivtsova. – As long as I can do something, I am needed (by the state, those around me) and, therefore, I have value. And if I can’t, then, it turns out, I’m not worth anything anymore. We are accustomed to define our own value by achievements, actions, opportunities. And this is fraught with a crisis in maturity, when it seems that life is over. And deep sadness in old age. But when a person realizes his own value, first of all, as a person, any surprises of a late age are a reason to be surprised, be creative, look for and find an answer.
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- Are you afraid of old age?
Over the years, you become like a sponge – you absorb everything. You look less, but you see more
Perhaps self-worth cannot be learned. It is laid down by loving and attentive parents and continues to strengthen (or weaken) throughout life. But it is worth knowing at least some of its “terms”. “My personality is my personality! There is no other person in the entire universe like me,” exclaimed psychotherapist Virginia Satir. – There are people who have features similar to mine, but there is no one who would repeat me exactly. Therefore, all my manifestations are unique, and I chose this. Some of my parts cause me questions. I don’t know everything about myself yet. But having fallen in love with myself and made friends with myself, I can patiently and carefully discover the innermost in myself and gain new knowledge about myself.
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- Positive image of old age
Dictionary of life
But if self-worth cannot be urgently acquired five years before retirement, then what awaits 45-50-year-olds at the third age? And what can be done to make this age an age of joy, not sadness? “If people in such a situation turn to a psychotherapist for help, you can help them remember what they dreamed about in their youth, but what they could not afford,” says Svetlana Krivtsova. – It can be sports, dance, theater. Yes, they will not reach world heights. But they no longer claim it. But the enjoyment of all this will be cleansed of ambitions, reproaches to fate and oneself. In general, older age is remarkable precisely because it lives with pure values. I had one elderly client who at one time, due to her short stature, was not taken to a ballet school. This experience stayed with her for the rest of her life. And so we were able to return to her the joy of ballet. She started going to all the premieres that she previously avoided because of her drama. And she also dances – she became a dance teacher in children’s groups. You should have seen how she moves, how happy she is! Children adore her. And of course, it’s impossible to guess how old she is.”
There are no recipes for a happy old age – there is a search and creativity, Victor Kagan is sure: “I don’t believe books like“ 100 recipes for a happy old age. But I can share a few.
Old age is such a wonderful time that it’s a shame to wait for it so long.”
The first is the expansion of the vocabulary of life. Every skill is a kind of language. You can live in the language of music, literature, drawing, photography, collecting, repairing old furniture, making knick-knacks… The more languages, the better – the fuller, brighter, more interesting the new age will be. But while we are active and full of energy, we often do not have time for this, and in old age we risk being left without a language of communication.
The second method is attention to the elderly, no matter who they are to us. To be not just next to them, limiting yourself to physical help, but to be with them, accepting them and sharing the experiences of life with them. Feel their joys and learn how they overcome difficulties on the way to happiness. And the third is to make sure that the body retains the ability to dance to the music of the soul.
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- What if old age gives us a chance?
Young Old – what does it mean
The classic triad “childhood-adulthood-old age” no longer exists. The “third age” is to blame for everything, which pushed old age to the fourth, honorable place. Says sociologist Alexei Levinson *. “In the 1990s, the English demographer Peter Laslett proposed to divide the life cycle of a modern person into four stages. The last two stages, ‘third age’ and ‘fourth age’, correspond to ‘the Young Old’ and ‘the Old Old’. “Young old people”, which include people under the age of 75, differ from their peers half a century ago in good health and relatively high life expectancy, high educational status, relatively high level of well-being based on income in the form of pensions and accumulated over a lifetime funds. Their children grew up and most of them left the parental home. “Young old men” are energetic, active. Having received free time from society as a gift, many spend it on social activities or travel. Their number in countries with high life expectancy is constantly growing. The lifestyle of these people does not correspond to the stereotypical roles attributed to the elderly. Formal age limits limit their opportunities. Many of them would like and be able to continue working, and studies show that the quality of this work will be no lower than that of the younger generations.” * See For more details, see the article “Institutional Framework for Old Age” on the website of the Institute of Demography “Demoscope”, demoscope.ru
****TO. Whitaker, Midnight Reflections of a Family Therapist (Klass, 2004).
***** V. Satir “How to build yourself and your family” (Pedagogy-press, 1992).