Growing Old Slowly
Growing Old Slowly entails experiences both pleasant and challenging, while remaining active, engaged, and informed.
Note from William Barnett: I am happy to welcome my friend and former colleague, Raymond B. Williams[1], to Elder Vibes as a guest author. As he approaches 90 years of age, Raymond offers wise perspective on what that has involved for him and how he has coped. You can learn more about him in the first note below. As always, comments are open to everyone.
We read multiple headlines stating that people age rapidly primarily at two stages of life. Many studies refer to both physical and psychological aging which might be accompanied by social changes. Which specific changes were studied that indicate aging is not clear. I assume that they are persuasive and helpful to people at those stages and include suggestions about avoiding negative effects.
My elderly brother, during his 80s and 90s, often responded to the question, “How are you?” by exclaiming, “About the same!” If asked for an explanation, he would reply, “About the same equals not as good as it used to be, not as bad as its going to be, but I am getting their slowly.”
My experience of aging into my 90s has been the same. Hence, what I offer here reflects my experience of gradual and generally pleasant movement through retirement, post-retirement employment and travel, on toward more quiet aging. Perhaps this personal experience will provide some information and even hope for individuals at earlier stages.
Adjusting to Retirement
I had looked forward to the year 2000, hoping to experience the new millennium and turning 65 years of age, which was then the normal age of retirement for college professors. I pushed forward, honestly not expecting to live a long life. That date came and went but seemed to change only the calendar.
Retirement at 65 brings dramatic, rolling changes. One approaches retirement as an event but soon learns that it is a long process – the retiree emerging remade. Retirement implies freedom and potential. Release from previous duties and responsibilities permits decisions to shape the future with fewer external constraints.
The existential reality of freedom brings also some anxiety, psychological unease and, perhaps, terror because familiar, comfortable identity and meaning are removed and transformed. Some eastern philosophies and religions have words and categories for describing the final stage of life after a person’s social duties are fulfilled.
“Retirement” has been an empty category in the west. One challenge is that each person’s movement into and out of retirement is different. Moving out of retirement can include accepting a new job, part-time employment, or engaging in volunteer activities.
A common question is, “What are you going to do after you retire?” The deeper, implied question is who and what are you going to become?
My professional identity and social standing were sustained by roles: Reverend, Doctor, Professor, and a changing list of titles: Chair, Director, Editor. Retirement removed all those and the plausibility structures surrounding them.
What was left after emeritus is added? “Good” retirement left behind unpleasant duties associated with those offices such as grading and committee meetings. Fortunately, however, I and many other teachers are able to continue reading good books, engaging with other scholars, conducting research, writing, and delivering occasional speeches.
Retirement is a major rite of passage with transformative powers of a life-cycle ritual in a process of separation, liminality, and integration. It is a shared communal act performed by others in which the values of a community and organization are named, displayed, and reaffirmed, — in my case, those of my college. The transition involves empowerment of new teachers, administrators, and leaders. The result is a revision of the old admonishment, “Let go and let God” to, “Let go and let others!”
Our lawyer gave my wife, Lois, and me good advice when we were overwhelmed with retirement decisions. He said to take it slow and not make decisions for a long, uncertain future. Rather, he advised us to plan for what seems reasonable for the next five years and expect to revise the plan.
New Opportunities
Many retirees move immediately after retirement to an envisioned paradise. Another advisor recommended moving toward people and not location. It is awful to move to a lovely place and find yourself among awful people.
Some retirees move to be with loving family members, and others decide to remain in place where friends and institutions continue to anchor them.
Unless one’s workplace was restricting and toxic, imagined rejuvenation of skills and abilities rarely occurs. Our college president said he wanted to move where he could improve his golf game. A trustee warned him, “Your golf game will not improve after you retire.” After a year in retirement, he played golf with a couple of trustees. They played “best ball,” and he thought he played well. In the clubhouse, they laughed and pointed out that they had not played his golf shot once during the game!
One piece of advice comes from my own experience. We went abroad for a month, attended a friend’s wedding in London, and then took a cruise up the Norwegian coast. We left still emotionally tied to work and returned home fully retired. Soon after retirement, take a long vacation and travel somewhere.
The experienced reality is that the period after retirement is often not what one planned. Many people experience debilitation, loss, or early death. Unpredictable challenges and opportunities arise that are unique for each individual and to which each person responds differently.
I failed retirement, my friends say, because I continued part-time work. I had been involved in programs of the Lilly Endowment and continued as a consultant on several projects. After three years following my retirement in 2002, the college president asked me, at age 70, to serve as Dean of the College for a year while a national search was conducted. Because of my loyalty to the college and its mission, I agreed. A trustee friend congratulated me and remarked, “It will certainly look good on your résumé.” I thought, but did not say, the only résumé I am working on right now is my obituary.
In 2007, the Lilly Endowment decided to establish a new leadership program for young pastors and asked me to consult with them about their plans for the program. We met over several weeks and drafted models. Unbeknownst to me, they asked the president if the college would administer the program, provided that I would agree to direct it.
Since the program matched my commitments, I directed it for five years from 2009 to 2014. It proved to be much more enjoyable and rewarding than being dean. I continue as Senior Advisor to the present and undertake other consulting work. Remuneration provides adequate resources for our modest lifestyle. A good, long retirement causes us to feel very blessed and grateful.
Social and Personal Realities
When asked how we are, I copy my brother’s ‘about the same.’ We are still getting there slowly, and our experience has been of slow, multifaceted debilitation over decades of growing older.
One experience is social. The orbit of contacts of older people shrinks. Colleagues, neighbors, and friends retire, move away to be with relatives or into assisted living facilities, or die. Funerals become regular outings.
Colleagues’ former positions are occupied by younger people who share few natural relations with the elderly except proximity. Their vocabulary, interests, and commitments are often not understood or adopted by us. Young people speak with new idioms and communicate via new technology. The elderly struggle to keep up with new technology, and many are unable to do so. I’m still stuck in email. Generational divide is a vivid experience.
Young families live in a new world that is more a kaleidoscope than a simple three-dimensional image. The challenges are so different from our experience half a century ago that it is impossible for them or us to chart a clear course forward. We have memories of a world that once was and that will not come around again. About all we can do is encourage them and support their positive efforts to save their children.
The old saying, “Things fall apart,” describes my experience of gradual deterioration of physical abilities. Discussions with my physician often include the four S’s of slowly aging.
S1 is for declining physical Strength that limits how much one can lift, grasp, pull, push, or hold.
S2 is for Stamina that causes one to limit duration of physical work, exercise, and other activities.
S3 is for Stability that includes balance, falling, and even dexterity. My visit last week with my cardiologist included his lecture about using a cane and avoiding falling.
S4 for Smarts. Much is published about short and long-term memory, dementia, and Alzheimer’s Disease. Brains change at differing rates as people grow older, but the gradual changes become part of aging. Of course, memory is not the same as wisdom. One hopes that wisdom is retained. Some comfort and even humor is derived from “getting there slowly” and still being able to accomplish most essential tasks in one’s home.
A scholar studying aging suggests three insidious psychological plagues of growing older: loneliness, boredom, and depression. Those are more insidious because they are internal, unseen, and often unnamed and untreated. As social and physical limitations increase, the plagues become more dangerous. One must approach aging with some humor, otherwise the reality can become overwhelming.
Everyone seems to be overwhelmed by the current tsunami of news and commentaries about wars, rumors of wars, natural disasters, economic threats, and much more. The constant images portray the world “going to hell in a handbasket.” That is especially troublesome for the elderly because we spend too much time watching media despite shrinking ability to respond to the world’s problems. I have not been able to wean myself from the tube.
Concluding Advice
Perspective matters, and some actions and activities mitigate the doom and gloom that shadow aging. Specifics are vague because each person’s circumstance is unique. No one shares my perspective or response. However, some advice and suggestions now seem reasonable to me.[2]
We have little ability to fix problems around the world, but we can do a little. Bill Placher, my former Wabash colleague, now of Blessed Memory, once said in a talk to students, faculty and staff that if you say you care for the world, you [should] best love some small part of it with great intensity. As we become older, our world shrinks; so, it is best to start locally with those near at hand.
Stay connected as closely and as long as possible with family, friends and organizations that provide you with support, encouragement, and opportunities to do as much as you can to help those around you to flourish.
Focus on the present and not on dire predictions or the worst possible future outcomes of illnesses or challenges. Everyone tends to imagine the worst, so biblical wisdom reminds us, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Mark 6:34). Robinson Crusoe remarked that the fear of danger is much more terrifying than danger itself, when apparent to the eyes: "We find the burden of anxiety greater by much than the evil which we are anxious about.”
Be sure to recollect memories and stories that portray times of joy and success instead of ruminating on failures, suffering, isolation, or guilt.
Reduce tensions by being more patient and sympathetic with those around you even when they seem to be rude or uncaring. Other people carry heavy, unseen burdens.
Be kind to yourself. Don’t berate yourself because of your forgetfulness or clumsiness. Guilt and self-blame are especially counterproductive.
Don’t give in or give up as long as mental facility and physical dexterity permit. Appointments with my cardiologist regularly include his gentle exhortations to carry on being as active thinking, writing, exercising, engaging with others. He considers these essential to living long and well.
The suggestions form a long list of dos and don’ts! Don’t give up. Don’t give in. No one is perfect, but you can be better!
It is said that the value of writing is to organize and clarify one’s thoughts. This exercise in writing has been that for me. If it helps others to do the same, that is another blessing added to a long life — beyond all deserving.
NOTES
[1] Raymond Brady Williams, Ph.D. (University of Chicago), has enjoyed a long retirement since 2002 after serving as Professor of Religion at Wabash College. He was also Founding Director of the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion and of the Wabash Pastoral Leadership Program. He is the author of several books on a wide range of topics, including the religions of India, immigrants from India and Pakistan, and teaching religion. Nearing 90 years of age, he and his wife, Lois, live near the Wabash College campus.
[2] The section on retirement is adapted from the article, ‘The Teacher’s Career and Life, by Raymond B. Williams et al, in Teaching Theology and Religion, pp. 193ff.
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