Change, change, and more change

To everything, turn, turn, turn. There is a season, turn, turn, turn. And a time to every purpose under heaven.

The Byrds

Be the turtle

I’m giving a talk today and have been struggling. How do I make the topic of Changing Lanes an interesting one to an audience of mostly 70 and 80 year old women? 

It wasn’t until I ran into Christie, an 87 year old friend and neighbor, at our local country store that I understood how pertinent our topic is to everyone. 

Always active, Christie was now sporting a cane. I asked her if she was still recovering from her knee replacement.  “No,” she said, “it’s my hip. When the doctor replaced it more than fifteen years ago, he said it would outlast me. But I’m living too long!” 

Of course, if Christie would stop shoveling snow off her porch and leave the wood stacking to her neighbors who volunteer for the task without a second thought, her parts—both natural and man-made—might just keep up with her. 

And she’s as sharp as a tack. With a twinkle in her eye, she said “Happy Anniversary.” Christie wasn’t at our wedding, but mutual friends did give her one of our wedding mementos…a deck of cards embossed with our names and wedding date. Somehow that date has stuck with her. She also congratulated me on being selected Chairman of our local fire district board. Acknowledging my new role, she professed, “You know, change is good.” Then, tapping her skull, she winked and said, “You have to keep learning and thinking and changing, especially as you get as old as me!” (Needless to say, I agreed with Christie….see my April 21 blog.) 

Then, on the Saturday before my community talk, I read of a 115 year old Dutch woman who died in 2005. At 82, she called a university to donate her body to science. She called again at age 111—worried she might no longer be of interest. Instead, the scientists took advantage of her call and began to test her cognitive abilities at ages 112 and 113. 

Though she had problems with her eyesight, she was alert and performing better than the average 60 to 75 year old. Even more remarkable, the post-mortem analysis of her brain a couple years later revealed few signs of Alzheimer’s or other diseases commonly associated with a decline in old age—she had absolutely no signs of narrowing of the arteries called atherosclerosis. In fact, the number of brain cells was similar to that expected in healthy people between 60 and 80 years old. 

No one knows her secret, although it was reported that she joked that pickled herring might have something to do with it. They discovered that she finally had died from cancer.

Currently, there are more than 80,000 Americans 100 years of age or older, according to the US Census Bureau. That number is expected to rise to more than 580,000 centenarians by 2040. Yikes!

With the upcoming talk swimming around in my head, it made me think about the things that concern us as we age:

• Like Christie, our minds are sharp, but will our bodies keep up with us?
• Or, will we be firm of body yet suffer from Alzheimer’s or dementia?
• With either frail mind or body, will we be a burden on others?
• Will our money last as long as we do?
• Can we adapt to change throughout our lives? 

What are the changes that might face us, especially as we age?  

How about going through a divorce or becoming widowed? Losing a job or retiring. Needing to move in with your family to benefit from their assistance—or to an assisted living facility, away from all that was familiar in your home. Giving up the independence of driving and relying on others for those tasks you once easily mastered. Or seeing—and living with—the changes in the town you’ve always loved, especially in small towns that lose their luster and fade away or, in the case of Steamboat Springs, is shifting from one economic base (ranching) to another (tourism.) 

Change is all around us. 

So how do we deal with this phenomenon called change?  

Our advice is: Be the turtle. 

As Jane shares in our book, turtles represent longevity and good luck in Asia. Your genes and a healthy lifestyle (mentally, physically, and spiritually) will help you achieve the same. 

And as Aesop imparted, they are also slow and steady. By being the turtle, you, too, can deal with change by treating it in modest, incremental steps—achieving slow, yet steady, progress. To think clearly about change, slow down and stop your living your life on auto-pilot. It helps to have a quiet mind. 

If you go back to your elementary school studies, you might remember learning that the turtle’s hard outer shell can support 200 times its weight. My advice is to turn that around and look at your inner strength. With your own personal fortitude, you will be able to survive whatever comes your way. We are each stronger than we can even imagine. Add to that quality, another trait: when a turtle is upended onto its back, it can flip itself back onto its legs and go forward again. Think about that when you hit a bump in the road! 

Lastly, like the turtle that has to stick its neck out in order to move forward, take risks. Get out of your comfort zone. Go learn something new. Try something different. 

As I’ve talked to people at book signings, I’ve realized that our book is not just about career changing, it’s about LIFE changing. Neither Jane nor I, after all, changed careers….we each changed how we live our lives. 

Let’s hope we all never stop changing! 

Share your life change with us. Your transformation could help inform someone else’s.

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