The thing about ‘ageing gracefully’: whatever you call it, I’ll do it my way | Well actually

I I started learning aging And age – prejudice and discrimination based on age – nearly 20 years ago, as she entered the 1950s. This is when it strikes me that this thing is already happening I. Soon, she stressed advice on how to age well. Many concepts, such as “active aging”, were clear. (Do not be the sofa potatoes.) Some, such as “successful aging”, were hateful. (In my opinion, if you wake up in the morning, you are progressing in old age.) One, “aging safely”, was interesting.

Although I wrote completely book About a lifetime, I was not sure that I knew how to aging safely. For beginners, it doesn’t seem as if you were eligible. When I was talking at a conference a few years ago, a woman in the elevator met my name from my evil. “Are you the person who talks about aging safely?” I asked. “If this is what you are looking for, you have got a wrong person.” My peach, like a sharp country, is legendary.

However, she loved her voice. Grace refers to more than the material world, of course. We can face it in a relationship, through worship, in nature, or while listening to music. The grace can be transformed.

So I started seeking to know the meaning of age safely. I have consulted my book shelves, friends, colleagues and the Internet. In order to synthesize, I even ran the phrase in the past, which told me that “aging safely” means “embracing the person’s age without excessive resistance or denial, care for general luxury, the cultivated purpose, joy and communication.” Looks great!

But this does not seem to be what it means in practice. In excessive Western culture, aging tends to spend money and time trying to see and move like younger publications for ourselves. It is not surprising, that many “dealing” with growth by elderly by relying heavily on denial. It is not a big strategy, but it is a human being. This is also the reason that the landscape is scattered with tilted files, such as “mature” and “experienced”, to avoid “ancient” awe.

“Aging safely” is one of these softeers. When I inquired from the critic in the culture of beauty and Guardian for us a columnist Jessica Devi About this phrase, it described it as “a particularly gruesome expression, because it means that anti -aging should be It seems easy“In fact, he told me anything, he told me via e -mail:” Aging safely “requires an incredible amount of effort, then demands more effort to hide the aforementioned effort.” What is more graceful, from a ballet dancer that depends on the lack of weight on contracts of hard education?

The contradictions everywhere. Getting old, but it seems not age. Stay positive but accepting restrictions. Be authentic, but correspond. Some of this very real complications reflect the aging: the need to adapt to changing bodies and the roles develop with survival as well as active and sharing as possible.

For some, “aging safely” means letting nature take its path: “embrace the natural signs of aging without visiting a plastic surgeon approved by the board Website. This approach is called “old” and urges potential patients to consider facial cosmetics, abdominal decoration and breast elevators. in video With the title “Stop telling women safely !!” TIKTOK Information Kill Lisa is recommended not to accept age -related changes. “I am tired of people who tell women how they should live their lives!” It is granted. “Get Botox. Get the filling. Get Botox. Lift them TittiesProstitute! “

One thing is certain: the phrase is Sex. There are a lot of tips for men about staying up and looking good in middle age and outside. But the search for “aging safely” gives a sea of ​​female faces, permeating it from time to time by George Clooney or Jake Gillnhal. Girls learn early to comply with sexual stereotypes that encourage compliance and “antiquities”. Girls also learn to be the harshest critics of each other, and the police never stop. As in the workplace – where women are very exciting, then very fertile, then – no – aging standards while females are impossible to meet.

“Aging safely” is also an age, because it means that there is something wrong in the aging of the past youth. But children are not fine either. The campaigns targeting the population combination that is ever tending to seek to achieve lifelong customers. In 2023, Carson Bradley, a teenager tiktok, went virus with a video Among her 25 minutes of skin care is to slow the aging process when she was 14 years old. ” Searching for “Baby Botox” – Small injection of normal botox and not actually for children, PHEW – produces amazing 91M results. In the hands of beauty and wellness industries, “aging safely” is just another positive phrase used to sell anti -aging products, such as luxury skin care company Estée LauderCampaign “Drafting the Conversation from Anti -Avenger to the Reverse Age. At any stage of life, the message is clear: aging is to be afraid and fight.

Then there is the ability. Over time, balance and work deteriorate well. It becomes difficult to stay moving, not to mention graceful. How is the person to adapt? Continuously, without complaint and perfect. Many elderly people refuse to use pedestrians or moving chairs because the stain of shame is very great, even if that means not to leave the house.

One thing I have noticed is that with their age, people tend to pay attention to the opinions of others, and they find it easier to confirm themselves. Sometimes this is free. Sometimes it is a response to ignoring it or waiving it. Gregorian that is not. “Aging safely” is “a means of saying” sitting and enjoying “,” Barbara, the teacher, is a colleague in my opinion. “Don’t struggle. Don’t be explored. Don’t call for change.”

and substitute? “Age is scary” – a phrase This was gaining strength in the media and popular culture since the beginning of the century. Challenge the “suitable age” expectations of what he says or wear and where to do so. Refuse and self -control! Be yourself! In other words, this club hit, wearing this short skirt, and ignoring stereotypes. Think of Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger, or fashion icons for Advanced pattern. More power for these rock octogin fashion; Aging is completely individual, and they embody the fact that we grow differently from each other over time. They spend a good time, and they are not about to mix the theater out of obedience.

I do not challenge the same way. I do not eat pole dance or skiing. I will never be among the grace, regardless of the difficulty of trying. Aging is complex, and we must find our own way through it.

My way lies in the refusal of DrumbEat who is able to age, sexual bias, able: the prevailing narration that the method of association with aging is its resistance. I discussed this with countless friends over the years, and I asked a good number of what they believed to mean age safely. My favorite conversation came with the organizer Julia Rhodes Davis. Julia said: “The more we turn into the truth and face the truth – that we all advance in aging, the death is coming to all of us – the more vibrant we become,” Julia said. “This is the definition of” aging safely. “

I consider. For me, this means that the greater growth is unusually, honestly and in society. I will call her aging with grace.