Be in the moment, but it is so much easier to just... not.

 I have been thinking about what I wrote yesterday, about life being a question and our job being to answer. And I have been thinking about the emails and phone calls I have received since, from people my age who nodded along but admitted something I think we all feel sometimes.

"I know I should answer," they say. "But I am so tired. And it is so much easier to just... not."

And I understand that. Lord knows I understand that. There are mornings when the question arrives at my door and I pretend I am not home. When the phone rings and I let it go to voicemail. When the newspaper comes and I set it aside because I just cannot face one more piece of news that makes me feel helpless.

There is a part of us that believes, deep down, that if we can just avoid the hard things, we will find peace. That if we pull back far enough, close enough doors, turn off enough noise, we will finally be left alone with the quiet we have earned.

Funny, isn't it? Not ha-ha funny. Strange funny. The kind of funny that makes you shake your head at yourself.

Because if we are honest, really honest, we know that the peace we have now, the moments of contentment we actually treasure, did not come from avoiding anything. They came from walking through. They came from the challenges we faced, the ones that felt impossible at the time, the ones that made us wonder if we would make it.

Think back with me for a moment.

I remember The first job I lost, it felt like the end of the world. I remember the feeling well. The panic, the shame, the fear that I would never find my footing again. And then I remember what happened next. I got up. I made calls. I took something less than I wanted just to keep going. And eventually, I found your way. And now, decades later, that loss is just a story I tell, a chapter that gave me compassion for others who lose their way.

The marriage that struggled. The child who worried you. The health scare that stopped your heart for a moment. The parent you had to care for even as you were raising your own. The friend who drifted away. The dream that died.

Every single one of those things was a question. A hard question. A question you did not want to answer. And every single time, you answered. Maybe not perfectly. Maybe not gracefully. But you answered. You showed up. You were responsible toward the life that was asking something of you.

And now here you are. Still standing. Still breathing. Still able to read these words and think about what they mean.

So why, after all of that, do we still believe that avoiding the next question will finally bring us peace?

I will tell you why. Because we are human. Because the memory of pain is real, and the fear of more pain is real, and the body gets tired in ways it did not used to, and the mind gets weary, and there is a voice that whispers, "You have done enough. You have earned the right to rest. Let someone else carry it now."

And that voice is not entirely wrong. We have done enough. We have earned rest. There is no shame in stepping back, in saying no, in protecting our limited energy for what matters most.

But here is what I have learned, and I say this gently because I am saying it to myself as much as to you.

Rest is different from hiding. Peace is different from silence. And the kind of rest that actually restores us is the kind that comes after we have shown up, not the kind that comes from staying away.

I have a friend, Harold, 82 years old, lost his wife of 58 years, three years ago. For the first year, he barely left the house. He told me he just wanted peace, wanted to be left alone with his memories, wanted to stop having to answer questions he did not know how to answer. And I understood. We all understood.

But something happened. The peace he wanted would not come. The quiet just got quieter. The memories, instead of comforting him, started to feel heavy, like stones he was carrying instead of light he was holding.

Then one day, his granddaughter asked him to teach her how to bake his wife's famous apple pie. And he said no at first. Too hard. Too many memories. Too much.

But she kept asking. Kept showing up. Kept being the question he did not want to answer.

And finally, he said yes.

He told me later that the first time they baked together, he cried the whole time. Could barely see the flour through the tears. But his granddaughter just kept mixing, kept handing him ingredients, kept being there.

And somewhere in that mess of flour and tears, something shifted. The question he had been avoiding, the question of how to keep living after losing the person he loved most, got answered. Not completely. Not forever. But enough. Enough to get through the next day. Enough to find a sliver of the peace he had been looking for.

That is the funny thing. He found peace not by avoiding the question, but by walking right into the middle of it. By being responsible toward the life that was standing in front of him in the form of a granddaughter who needed to learn how to make pie.

When I say we need to be motivated to answer the questions asked of us, I am not saying we need to go looking for trouble. I am not saying we need to take on every burden, fight every fight, carry every weight. I am saying we need to pay attention to the questions that are already there, the ones knocking softly, the ones we have been pretending not to hear.

The friend who calls less often now because you stopped calling back. That is a question.
The grandchild who stopped asking you about the old days because you seemed too tired to answer. That is a question.
The project you used to love, the hobby that gave you joy, the garden you let go because it felt like too much work. Those are questions.
The news that makes you angry, the injustice you read about and then scroll past because what can you do anyway. That is a question.
The quiet hour in the morning when you sit with your coffee and wonder if any of it mattered. That is the biggest question of all.

And here is the hope I want to leave with you today. You have answered hard questions before. You have faced things that would have broken people half your age. You have walked through fire and come out the other side. Not unscathed, but here. Still here.

That is not nothing, that is everything.

The peace you are looking for, the peace that actually lasts, is not the peace of avoidance. It is the peace of having answered. It is the peace that comes from knowing you showed up, you did what you could, you were responsible toward the life that was given to you.

It is the peace my mother had at the end, when she told me, "I made mistakes. Lots of them. But I never walked away from anything that mattered." It is the peace my mother had, holding her grandchild for the first time, smiling at the continuation of something she helped start.

That peace is available to us. Not all at once. Not without effort. But every single time we choose to answer instead of hide.

Today, this morning, right now, there is a question being asked of you. Maybe it is small. Maybe it is just deciding whether to call someone back. Maybe it is just deciding to get dressed and go outside and let the sun hit your face. Maybe it is just deciding that today, in this one small way, you are going to be responsible toward life.

Answer it. Not because you have to. Not because anyone is keeping score. But because answering is what you have always done. Because answering is how you got here. Because answering is the only path to the peace you seek.

And if you forget everything else, I have said, remember this. The challenges you face today are the peace you will know tomorrow. They are not the obstacle. They are the way through.

Funny, huh? How we keep needing to learn the same lesson over and over. Not ha-ha funny. But maybe, just maybe, the kind of funny that makes us shake our heads and smile and get on with the business of living, with hope and affection. As I like you, am still learning to hear the questions and to answer.

Who are you going to be in this moment?

 As seniors, we have lived through more seasons than we can count. We have seen the world through war and peace, through depression and prosperity. I, like you went through times when the newspaper landed on the porch with news that made my father sigh, and times when it brought stories that made my mother cry with joy. And here I am, still here, still watching, still wondering.

And I must tell you honestly that these past few years have tested me. The constant churn of negativity, the anger that seems to echo from every screen, the sense that the world I helped build is somehow crumbling or worse, was never any good to begin with. It weighs on me. It settles in my bones like a damp chill.

But here is what eighty years of living has taught me. Living itself means nothing if we don’t question. Our whole act of being is a response, a way of being responsible toward life.

Let me say that again because it took me most of these years to truly understand it. We are not here to simply exist, to eat and sleep and pass the hours until we are gone. We are here because we ask question and are asked questions. Every morning the sun rises and asks us, "What will you do with this day?" Every headline shouts a question at us, "How will you respond to this?" Every person who crosses our path, whether they are rude or kind, is asking us, "Who are you going to be in this moment?"

And here is the beautiful, liberating truth. We get to choose the answer.

When I was a young man, I thought life was about accumulating. A good job, a nice car, a house with a lawn, a retirement fund. And those things are fine. They are comfortable. But they are not the answer. They are just the furniture we arrange while we are figuring out what to say.

The answer, the only answer that has ever mattered, is how we show up for one another.

I watch the news some days and I want to turn it off. The world seems so angry, so divided, so certain that everyone on the other side is the enemy. And I understand why people my age pull back, close the curtains, and wait for it all to pass. But I have come to believe that is the wrong response.

If living is about asking and answering questions, then withdrawing is refusing to answer. And I believe seniors have too much wisdom, too much experience, too much living behind us to stay silent now.

Do you remember what it was like before all of this? Before the Internet taught us to fear one another? I remember a time when we knew our neighbors by name, when we left our doors unlocked, when a stranger on the street was met with a nod and a hello, not suspicion. That world is not gone. It is just hiding. And we are the ones who can call it back.

Not through grand gestures. Not through protests or speeches or social media posts that disappear in an hour. But through the small, stubborn act of being responsible toward life exactly where we stand.

I have a neighbor, younger fellow, probably 50, works too hard, always in a hurry. For months he would walk past my house with his head down, earbuds in, lost in his own world. And one day I decided that his indifference was a question. "Are you going to let me disappear into my screen?" it asked. "Or are you going to remind me that I am human?"

So, I started waving. Just a simple wave from the porch. The first few times, he didn't even see me. Then he started glancing up, surprised. Then he started nodding. Then, one day, he took out the earbuds and said, "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

That is responsibility toward life. That is answering the question.

We worry so much about the state of the world, about politics, about the economy, about whether the young people are going to be okay. And those are real concerns. I am not suggesting we ignore them. But I am suggesting that we cannot fix them from a distance. We can only fix what is right in front of us.

The checkout clerk who looks exhausted. The grandchild who needs to hear a story about when you were young. The friend who lost a spouse and doesn't know how to fill the silence. These are the places where the question meets us. These are the moments where we get to answer.

And here is the hope. When you answer in those small ways, when you choose kindness over complaint, presence over withdrawal, hope over despair, something shifts. Not in the world, not all at once, but in you. And a changed person changes the people around them. And changed people change the world. It is slow. It is almost invisible. But it is the only way it has ever worked.

I think about the darkness I have lived through. The Cuban Missile Crisis when we truly believed the world might end. The assassinations. The riots. The wars that sent boys over and brought them back different. The fear of disease before we understood it. And through all of it, what carried us was not politics or policies or promises from people on television. What carried us was one another.

It was the neighbor who brought soup when you were sick. It was the friend who sat with you when you couldn't stop crying. It was the stranger who smiled at you on the worst day of your life and reminded you that you were still here, still breathing, still part of something.

That is what it means to be responsible toward life. Not to fix everything, but to tend to what is yours to tend. To answer the question that each day asks you with the only thing you truly have to give, which is yourself.

If you are feeling the weight of the negativity, if the world seems too loud and too angry and too far gone, I understand. I feel it too. But I want to offer you something I have learned in my 80 years.

The darkness is loud. It always has been. But the light is persistent. And persistence wins.

You do not have to solve everything. You do not have to argue with everyone. You do not have to carry the weight of the whole world on your shoulders. You just have to answer the question that is right in front of you today.

Maybe that question is, "Will you call your sister who is lonely?"
Maybe it is, "Will you smile at the teenager who looks lost?"
Maybe it is simply, "Will you get out of bed and put your feet on the floor and decide that today, in this small corner of the world, you are going to be kind?"

That is enough. That has always been enough.

We are being questioned, every one of us, every single day. And the beauty of being 75, 80, 85 and older is that we have spent a lifetime learning how to answer and to ask our own questions. We have the wisdom they cannot teach in schools. We have the perspective that only comes from watching seasons change and people come and go and the world keep turning.

Let us use it. Let us be responsible toward life, not by fixing everything, but by loving what is ours to love. By tending what is ours to tend. By answering the question with the only thing that has ever mattered, which is a heart that refuses to stop hoping.

The world needs us. Not our worry, not our fear, not our resignation. It needs our hope. It needs our stubborn, hard-won, seventy-years-in-the-making belief that morning always comes, that people are basically good, that love is stronger than fear.

That is our answer. Let us give it generously.

 

Yes to Life

As the years go by, many of us are noticing a quiet, sobering truth: more and more of our friends are passing away. It’s a fact of life that I, and so many of you, are slowly getting used to. Yet, within this undeniable reality lies a profound and powerful secret. The very fact that we are mortal, that our time here is finite, our possibilities limited, our days numbered, is precisely what gives our lives meaning. It is the background against which our existence becomes a responsibility. It compels us to act, to seize a possibility and make it real, to occupy our time with purpose and passion. Death is not an end to fear, but a call to live fully.

Everything depends on the individual human being, no matter how small our circle of like-minded friends may seem. It rests on each of us to creatively make the meaning of life real through action, not just words, in our own being. We are not here to simply sit back and let things happen. We are here to question, to learn, and to make ourselves useful, to our families, our friends, and our community. Life is for champions, heroes, and lovers. And we are here because we prevailed. We won an ancient race over fear, doubt, and uncertainty, and we did so in realms long forgotten. We saw clearly. We remained strong in spirit, deep in character, and quick to fall in love. Because of these extraordinary qualities, anything we can now imagine, we have already earned the right to pursue.

It is easy to think that the little things we experience alone, the arrival of spring, the flutter of a sparrow, the delicate dance of a dragonfly, are just random moments. But they are not by chance. They are gifts, whispers from the world inviting us to pay attention. The song of a bird, the beauty of a lily, the warmth of a shared laugh, these are the textures of a life fully lived. They remind us that we are still here, still capable of wonder, still able to connect.

As we age, we may find ourselves haunted by questions. It is not only the young who wonder; we do too. Questions like, “What can I expect from life?” or “What does life still expect from me?” or “What task is still waiting for me?” may linger in our minds. But here is a shift in perspective: perhaps we have been asking the question the wrong way. The true question of meaning is not one we ask of life; it is life that asks the questions of us. Every day, life directs its inquiries toward us through the people we meet, the challenges we face, and the opportunities we encounter. Living itself means nothing other than being questioned. Our whole act of being is a response, a way of being responsible toward life.

With this mindset, nothing can truly scare us anymore, not the future, and not even the apparent lack of one. Because now, the present becomes everything. It holds the eternally new question of life for us, waiting to be answered. Each morning brings a fresh opportunity to respond with courage, curiosity, and care.

So, what does this mean for us today? It means we are not done. We are not finished. There is still work to do, still love to give, still wisdom to share. Whether it is volunteering for a local program, mentoring a younger person, joining a  seminar program like our Tuesday Talk, or simply being a listening ear for a neighbor, we have a role to play. We are contributors, not spectators. We are builders of community, keepers of stories, and champions of connection.

At our upcoming events, we are creating spaces for exactly this kind of engagement. Play Bingo and share a laugh with old friends and new. Join a bus excursion and rediscover the joy of adventure. Attend a seminar and let your curiosity lead the way. Bring your ideas, your questions, and your energy. Let us show one another, and ourselves, that aging is not about stepping back, but about stepping forward with purpose.

Life is asking something of you. The only question is: how will you answer?

Seniors and Technology: Dispelling the Myth

 Several years ago, I delivered a workshop on Technology and Seniors to a group of older adults in North Vancouver. In the audience were Grade 6 and 7 students participating in an intergenerational project.

I began with a simple statement: Seniors can learn just as effectively as young people.

It may take us longer, but we can learn, and we do.

I noticed a few surprised expressions from the students. That reaction is exactly why this conversation still matters.

The collective body of research continues to show that creativity, neuroplasticity, and learning have lifelong potential. Studies have demonstrated that older adults who engage in productive learning, especially learning new, challenging skills, show improvements in memory and cognitive function compared to those who engage only in passive or non-demanding activities.

Learning does not stop at 65.The myth that seniors do not use technology simply does not match reality.

As of recent Canadian and North American data:

• Roughly 80–85% of adults aged 65–74 use the internet
• Adoption continues to grow in the 75+ age group
• Smartphones and tablets are now the primary access points

Older adults use:

• Desktop computers
• Laptops
• Smartphones
• Touchscreen tablets (such as iPads)

Touchscreen tablets remain especially popular because they are intuitive, portable, and relatively affordable. With a tap or swipe, users can:

• Browse the web
• Video chat with family
• Send emails
• Manage photos
• Access banking
• Attend virtual events
• Take courses
• Play cognitive games

Technology has become more user-friendly, and seniors have become more tech-confident.

Health information continues to be one of the most commonly researched topics among older adults online.

However, not all online information is reliable.

I always remind people:

• Be cautious about what you read on social media.
• Be critical of miracle cures or sensational headlines.
• Check credible sources.
• Always consult a healthcare professional before making health decisions, including beginning new physical activity programs.

Digital literacy is not just about using devices — it is about evaluating information wisely.

One of the greatest opportunities technologies provides is access to lifelong learning. Here are updated platforms that are active and widely used today:

Khan Academy

A nonprofit organization offering free courses in math, science, computing, history, economics, and more. While often associated with school-age learners, many adults use Khan Academy to refresh skills or learn something new.

Cost: Free

Coursera

Partners with universities and organizations worldwide to offer online courses. Many courses can be audited for free, with optional paid certificates available.

Subjects range from psychology to artificial intelligence to art history.

Cost: Free to audit; fees for certificates.

Stanford University (Online Learning)

Stanford now offers online learning through Stanford Online and Continuing Studies. Courses are available in a wide range of subjects.

(Some older references to iTunes U are no longer current, as Apple discontinued iTunes U in 2021.)

YouTube

YouTube has evolved into one of the world’s largest informal learning platforms.

You can find:

• University lectures
• Language lessons
• Technology tutorials
• “How-to” videos (everything from hanging a picture to using Zoom)

Many universities and experts maintain educational channels.

Cost: Free (ad-supported)

Senior Planet

A nonprofit organization offering free technology training for older adults, including live online classes on digital skills, financial security, creative arts, and wellness.

Senior Planet has become one of the leading organizations dedicated specifically to older adult digital literacy.

Cost: Free

OpenLearn

Operated by The Open University (UK), OpenLearn offers free access to a wide range of short courses and learning materials at introductory and intermediate levels.

Cost: Free

(Note: The former Open Education Consortium is now known as Open Education Global, which continues to support open educational resources worldwide.)

Digital Learning: Mind and Brain Games

Many seniors enjoy brain-training apps. While research shows mixed results regarding long-term cognitive improvement, these programs can be enjoyable and mentally stimulating.

Elevate

Offers 40+ games focused on:

• Vocabulary
• Reading
• Writing
• Math
• Processing speed

Available on iOS and Android. Free with optional premium subscription.

Mind Games

Provides a variety of browser-based brain exercises targeting attention, flexibility, and arithmetic skills.

Free basic access; optional paid features.

Dakim BrainFitness

Designed particularly for older adults. Often used in senior living communities. Subscription-based.

PThis reflects an important truth about technology:
Platforms evolve. Some disappear. New ones emerge. Seniors adapt — just like everyone else.

Seniors are:

• Taking online university courses
• Video chatting with grandchildren
• Managing investments online
• Streaming movies
• Writing blogs
• Using health portals
• Learning languages
• Joining virtual fitness classes

The issue is not ability.
The issue is access, support, and opportunity.

Given time, encouragement, and practical instruction, older adults learn effectively and confidently.

Technology is not a “young person’s world.
It is a human world.

And we are fully capable of participating in it, at any age.