Every conversation about aging eventually seems to circle back to the same question: Can we afford it?
An aging population
is often framed as a looming burden on healthcare, on housing, on public
services. The language is heavy with concern and cost. What rarely makes it
into the conversation is a different way of seeing things: not as a problem to
manage, but as a resource to value.
This is where the
idea of the Longevity Dividend comes in. It invites us to ask a better
question: What becomes possible when people live longer, fuller lives, and
are included rather than sidelined?
I saw a living
answer to that question at the Tri-City Seniors’ annual Christmas gathering.
The room was warm,
crowded, and alive with conversation. People gathered around tables, cups of
coffee in hand, sharing stories that moved easily between past and present.
Someone talked about Christmas mornings growing up. Another remembered the
sound of boots on frozen sidewalks and the sting of cold air on bare cheeks.
One story kept
resurfacing, spoken with a particular kind of fondness, the wooden crates of
Japanese oranges.
For many, those
oranges were the unmistakable sign that Christmas had arrived. They were rare,
precious, and shared carefully. A small luxury that marked the season and
stayed in memory long after the holidays passed.
As the stories
flowed, something else became clear. These weren’t just recollections. They
were threads of lived history, of immigration, resilience, community, and
change. Knowledge carried, not in textbooks, but in voices, laughter, and
shared recognition.
Then the
conversation shifted.
Today, one of the
signs of the Christmas season isn’t oranges in wooden crates. It’s the growing
need at the food bank.
Without fanfare, the
group had acted. The seniors collected 134 pounds of food and over $300 in cash
donations for the local food bank. It wasn’t a symbolic gesture. It was
practical, immediate care.
Many of these same
people remembered walking to school every day, regardless of snow or rain, in
towns across British Columbia and Canada. They remembered winters that were
cold but predictable. And almost all of them shared the same reflection: no
matter the weather, they didn’t worry about whether there would be food on the
table.
That memory matters.
It connects past
stability with present concern. It fuels a sense of responsibility, not out of
guilt, but out of gratitude. These seniors weren’t acting because they were
asked to. They were acting because they care deeply about the community they
helped build and the future being shaped by the next generation.
This is the
Longevity Dividend in action.
When older adults
are fully included, they bring more than time or availability. They bring
perspective. They bring continuity. They bring a long view that connects what
was, what is, and what could be.
Too often, we frame
seniors as recipients of care, of services, of support. And yes, support
matters. But that frame is incomplete. It misses the daily acts of leadership,
creativity, volunteering, caregiving, and quiet generosity that sustain
communities.
The Longevity
Dividend isn’t just economic. It’s social. It shows up in mentorship, in civic
engagement, in the passing on of traditions, and in the willingness to notice
when something isn’t right and do something about it.
What made that
Christmas gathering powerful wasn’t nostalgia. It was relevance. These seniors
weren’t living in the past. They were using the past to inform present action.
When generations
come together around shared values, care, fairness, responsibility, the
benefits flow both ways. Younger people gain context and grounding. Older
people remain connected and purposeful. Communities become more resilient
because knowledge and care aren’t siloed by age.
Reframing aging
doesn’t mean ignoring challenges. It means refusing to define people solely by
what they might need. It means recognizing what they already give, and what
becomes possible when we invite them fully into the story.
At that Christmas
gathering, the Longevity Dividend didn’t appear as a policy or a statistic. It
showed up as food on a scale, cash in an envelope, and hope quietly passed from
one generation to the next.
And that kind of
dividend keeps paying forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment