To me, Successful aging depends on what the norm of the society is. I define success in three different categories, where we stand in our society financially, physically, how satisfied we are with our lives so far. Society is a major cause of how to measure our satisfaction in our lives, such as, we cannot compare the lives of the people who live within developing nation to the ones that live in the developed nation. We have to compare people depending on their class, as different classes have different standard of satisfaction in life. Obviously in a developed nation people tend to live longer because they are well educated, while they get older, they know what is good and bad for their body. Similarly, the people who live within the developed
Knowing how to age successfully rather than searching for youth should be the key. According to Dan Buethner (2008), ageing only has an accelerator pedal and most American’s are pushing it too hard and too much!. Health and longevity are the key to living a progressive life and optimizing
The main definition of “aging successful” is said to be, “successful gaining includes three main components: low probability of disease and disease-related disability, high cognitive and physical functional capacity, and active engagement with life” (Rowe & Kahn, 433). The first component of low probability of disease-related disability does not only refer to the physical disease itself being present in the persons body, but also the severity of the risk of the factors of such disease(s). High cognitive and physical functional capacity depicts what the individual can do and not just what they do. Finally active engagement with life deals with how the individual interacts with others (interpersonal relations) and creating societal value without any return (productive activity) (Rowe & Kahn, 433). We are going to look into the lives of Roger Gentilehomme and Earl Blassingame and analyze if they are considered to be “aging well” based on variety of articles as well as personal opinion.
Humans are born already aging. There is know way to stop the process of getting older. As people age it is important that services and rescores are set up to
Knowing and having an understanding of what ageing stands for, remains an important step, growing-up or growing older and ageism are theories about older individuals. Ageism includes preconceptions that elderly are categorized for their age and perceived as weak, and incapable of performing tasks and needy of others (Quadagno, 2014). Another view about elderly individuals is the way they are looked down on by the younger society, i.e. elderly are not as intelligent as their younger competitive working force. People fear what they do not know and do not understand. Age transpires as something that must be lived through in order to understand what ageing means; looking back on one’s life and seeing accomplishments made,
In America, people are changing their views on aging and the elderly. Some of the reasons that the attitudes are changing could be due to more elderly people are remaining in the work place longer, as opposed to retiring early. Riffkin (2014). And there is the fact that we baby boomers are living longer. Even though the U.S. only ranks 53rd with a life expectancy of 79. That’s an increase of one year since 2010. (“The World: Life Expectancy” 2016)
I personally define positive aging, as having a positive outlook on life regardless of your circumstances. I also think that positive aging does not require perfection, but progression and growth. Those who have accomplished Erikson's eight stages or who are able to correct any area they might get stuck in and move on to have a positive life have accomplished positive aging. I am most happy when my mind, body and soul are healthy and at peace. I am happy when I make the choice to be happy regardless of the circumstances around me. The bible says there is nothing to do under the sun, but eat, drink and be merry. It also talk about being a peacemakers and finding joy in the work that you do, so I am most happy when I am spending time with family
I have never heard the phrase “successful aging” before reading these articles. In, Successful Aging: Perceptions of Adults Aged Between 70 and 100 Years, I appreciated the author’s clarification of aging success as individualized. In society we tend to want to “pidgeon-hole” everyone into neat, defined categories this portrays the value of diversity. Their participants reporting that they “selected activities that best suited their capabilities” and how over time they “compensated for losses” (Knight & Ricciardelli, 2003). This reveals a generation that seems to make more thoughtful, pragmatic decisions based on their individual capabilities. They have learned to craft their lives to their needs. The study also revealed that seniors may score
According to an article in the New York Times, aging wisely is all about how you feel, your attitude, health and how productive you are. Therefore if we have a positive attitude as we age we will tend to take better care of ourselves, exercise and eat healthy. Graham mentions in the article that the stereotype that as we age we become useless the attitude can become that person. On the other hand if there is satisfaction and production the older adult is more likely to work hard to be healthy and may even recover more easily from illness (Graham, 2012)
Society is big on staying and looking young. People are constantly working out, watching what they eat, and getting surgeries such as botox and breast augmentation. Our society is too concerned on looking youthful. Morrie had aging in better perspective, "The young are not wise, they have very little understanding about life. Who wants to live every day when you don't know what's going on? When people are manipulating you, telling you to buy this perfume and you'll be beautiful, or this pair of jeans and you'll be sexy It's very simple. As you grow you learn more. If you'd stayed at twenty-two, you'd always be ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, it's growth." Aging is more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die and that you live a better life because of it.
There are numerous ways to define successful aging. The word “aging” usually has a negative connotation. However, when putting the word success behind it introduces positive aspects that can essentially promote a long-term developmental outcome for an individual. Happening around midlife and late adulthood, successful aging is simply when an individual has complete development and maintenance of control throughout life, has achieved in the selection of goals and purposes, as well as maximization of gains and compensations of failure. This is the complete and ultimate goal for those in their late adulthood and is quite fascinating to developmental scientist. Those who engross themselves with attempting to achieve a successful aging will most likely have characteristics which in turn encourage and advocate for things such as health, growth, and vitality, maintaining social encounters and productive activities, and lastly maintaining high physical and cognitive functioning. Two developmental scientist, Vaillant & Mukamal, have discovered the factors that predict satisfaction of life are those an individual is able to control. These factors include are health habits, marital stability, years of education, and coping strategies. On the other hand those factors that are out of an individual 's control can not predict the level of happiness or satisfaction with life. These include the length of life of a family member, early health status, parental SES, and family warmth in
Successful aging is a complicated and multifaceted concept that varies contextually among individuals, disciplines, and even time. Gerontologists have traditionally considered a person to have aged successfully upon having reached old age with their physical health, mental well-being and spirit still intact. Ultimately, successful aging is a matter of personal perspective, largely influenced by an individual 's values and experiences. Even those within America 's elderly population hold conflicting perspectives on what it means to have aged successfully. A qualitative study published by Reichstadt and Sengupta titled Older Adults ' Perspectives on Successful Aging, concluded that “older adults viewed successful aging as a balance between self-acceptance and self-contentedness on one hand and engagement with life and self-growth in later life on the other” (Reichstadt, "Older Adults ' Perspectives on Successful Aging: Qualitative Interviews", pp. 567-575.)
I agree on Western culture on the definition of successful aging. In China, there has some different for successful aging. I ask my mother what kind of successful aging for her. My mother told me that I have the stable work and the income. Also, I have a lovely home and a lovely family. You may not know people have their own house and their own car is very important in China. If you don't have a house that means may be nobody gets married to you. Definitely, peephole must have the house and car in their successful aging, it seems like a standard configuration. In order this, young people need work hard in the city to make a fortune to earn a successful aging in the
World history is full of stories of people trying to find eternal youth. Wealthy people going to private centers for magic elixirs. Many people who take high doses of certain vitamins, drink green tea, use coenzyme Q10 etc., hoping to find the "fountain of youth". Let's take a look more closely and see what happens in our bodies when we age.
Aging and being old was dominated by negative characteristics and conditions such as illness, depression, and isolation for a long time (Eibach, Mock, & Courtney, 2010). At first glance the terms “success” and “aging” seem to be in conflict to each other. When asking people about aging, their answers have many facets that are also found in psychological definitions: successful aging is seen as health, maturity and personal growth, self-acceptance, happiness, generativity, coping, and acceptance of age-related limitations. In the psychological sense successful aging is also often seen as the absence of age-associated characteristics (Strawbridge, Wallhagen, & Cohen, 2002). It seems that successful aging means is not aging.
Like most people in American society and culture, when I hear the term aging it is almost always thought of negatively. Americans have become obsessed with finding ways to live a longer and healthier life and when one of those people here the term ‘aging’ it is viewed as a detriment to their thought of living longer. It is often a scary thought because people assume that the best years of their life are behind them. I personally do not feel physically as old as I do mentally. I am weary, however, as life goes on that my body will eventually catch up to my mind. I hope however that I can be healthy all around at an older age because I would hate to be ill and not be able to enjoy life at its greatest potential. I believe that most people, including myself, have the perception that aging limits your mobility. People often assume that the once you get to a certain age you will be limited to where you can live and must be forced into a retirement home. This perception more than likely is false, and perhaps coming from individuals that have seen loved ones not being cared for and have taken a similar path. This perception most likely comes from observation of adults telling younger ones by word of mouth however untrue it may be.