Happy New Year & My Birthday Gifts to You
Today is my birthday.
And now I’m seventy-four.
Does reading those words make lines from a couple of Beatles songs, When I’m Sixty-four and Birthday, run through your head? Typing them sure did for me.
Yvonne and I have been spending the holidays as has become our way, celebrating last year’s ups, learning from a few things that could have gone better, and sketching out what we’d like to accomplish in this new year. And because my birthday follows right after, I find myself spending a little time thinking longer term, about where I’ve been over the years of life so far, and how I want the next few to go.
I say the next few, not out of any worry that there will be only a few (my target is 130, after all), but out of experience showing that so much will change that I’ll need to stay ready to change, too.
So here are my gifts to you of a few thoughts, quotes, and links to further reading that may help you take a more positive view of aging — which makes all the difference.
On Growing Elder
Words matter. The words we use out loud or in our heads influence how we think and feel about a thing. That’s why I’ve stopped thinking and talking about “getting older” and reframed aging as “growing elder” — emphasizing both words.
The one thing I always want to be planning for and working at is growth. In myself, in my relationships, in our business, the list is long. At the core of growth for humans is learning.
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
— Henry Ford
And “elder” because instead of decline, it carries nuances of authority and respect based on experience and accumulated wisdom. I don’t know about wisdom, but I do know the years bring experience you can build on.
Chip Conley wrote yesterday about this same distinction between older and elder in a post entitled, You’re Showing Your Age…and it’s Beautiful. He suggests that “getting older” makes us passive, while “growing elder” restores our personal agency, our ability to accomplish and contribute.
He throws us this challenge:
“In 2025, how will you recover your sense of agency, your ability to not do what’s expected of you, but to do what will astonish you?”
Back to Sir Paul
According to a 2005 CBS interview when he actually was sixty-four, Paul McCartney wrote the song when he was just sixteen and recorded it at the age of twenty-five. Some of the lyrics paint a dismal picture of what young Paul thought it would be like to reach the title age:
“I could be handy mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside,
Sunday mornings, go for a ride.Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more? …… yours sincerely, wasting away.”
And there’s that bit in the chorus,
“Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty four?”
As if he thought being a meaningful part of someone else’s life would be in doubt and he might not be capable of feeding himself.
But he’d learned much by the time he got there. He’d suffered the losses of his wife and two of his bandmates. And yet, asked why he was heading out on tour again, he talked about the work and the rewards of making an impact on his audiences, how he often was able to pick out individuals and feel their reactions.
This little story he told resonates with me:
“‘You know because I mean, I remember just in Europe — in Finland — I saw this very stately, older man — grey-haired man and his wife, a grey-haired lady. And he’s just sort of standing there and he just had his arms around her. Very emotional,’ McCartney says.
“‘And she was just on his chest, you know, and I was just doing — it was a Beatles song … and I just was singing it, and I caught them in the audience, and you do. And it’s just like a picture, it’s like a Rockwell or something. Very emotional.'”
Now in his eighties, Sir Paul is still seeking that emotional reward, which means still delivering his art to his audiences, wrapping up his 2024 “Got Back” tour and working on a new album for a 2025 release. Asked about retirement (don’t get me started), Paul has said:
“Why would I retire? Sit at home and watch TV? No thanks. I’d rather be out playing.”
Which brings us back to lines from Birthday:
“I would like you to dance (Birthday)
Take a ch-ch-ch-chance (Birthday)”
It may not rhyme, but I think Paul would agree you can replace the word “dance” with in any new, exciting, creative thing you’ve avoided or missed out on doing up to now.
No matter which birthday you’re celebrating with me today, or approaching soon.
More Inspiration
A few more quotes on aging from rockers and other visionaries:
“Getting old is a fascinating thing. The older you get, the older you want to get!”
— Keith Richards
“Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.”
— David Bowie
“Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”
— Betty Friedan
Picking up on Paul’s urging in Birthday and his example to us all,
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.”
— George Bernard Shaw
And, recalling those nuances of the word elder where we started,
“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”
— Madeleine L’Engle
Finally, to touch on the legacy we want to leave when we finally do leave the stage, I was moved by how these two quotes hover around people and things that we build up while we’re here.
“Legacy is not leaving something for people. It’s leaving something in people.”
— Peter Strople
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made…It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away.”
— Ray Bradbury, in Fahrenheit 451
Both capture some of the reasons we love what we do around here and how we chose the name Master Book Builders. Whether it’s in our own books or in helping our clients bring theirs to life, we believe that building books creates enduring legacies for the world.
In a recent AARP special report on emerging research toward greatly extending human “healthspan” — the years we live in good health and capability — scientists reported breakthroughs that may prevent or greatly delay diseases associated with aging from heart to alzheimers. But they remind us that there is much we can already do, including exercise, cognitive engagement (we recommend reading and writing books!), healthy eating, and social activities. (Link to AARP members-only online article access; link to American Federation for Aging Research, with listing of current research papers.)
For my top 7 books to inspire you, I’ll send you back to my post of a few months ago with this same theme, Getting Old or Growing Elder? And leave you with a statement from the subtitle of one of them, backed by years of research:
“Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long & How Well You Live”
They’re your beliefs. If you find them more in line with Paul at 16 than Paul today, learn what you need to change them. The science and a multitude of living examples are there to support you.
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