How do you see the world?

This was sent to me by a friend of mine, the author is unknown so if someone knows who wrote this, let me know so I can give them credit. This story is a reminder that how we see the world is something that we can control. So take control and hopefully start to see the world as a positive place.

Sometimes l just want it to stop. Talk of COVID, protests, looting, brutality. l lose my way. I become convinced that this "new normal “ is real life.

But then I meet an 87-year-old who talks of living through Polio, diphtheria, Vietnam, protests and yet is still enchanted with life

He seemed surprised when l said that 2020 must be especially challenging for him. "No", he said slowly looking me straight in the eyes, " I learned a long time ago to not see the world through the printed headlines, I see the world through the people that surround me. l see the world with the realization that we love big. Therefore, l just choose to write my own headlines.

"Husband loves wife today. "

"Family drops everything to come to Grandma's bedside." He patted my hand “Old man makes new friend”

His words collide with my worries, freeing them from the tether I had been holding tight. They float away. I am left with a renewed spirit. My headline now reads “woman overwhelmed by the spirit of kindness and the reminder that our Capacity to love is never-ending “

Puns for fun

As I put my car into reverse, I thought to myself, “This takes me back”

I asked my cat, “what’s two minus two” He said nothing

You can’t run through a cap site you can only ran, because its past tents

Every time I leave the house I keep getting followed by a bird with long legs. I think I am being storked.

At a job interview, I filled my glass of water until it overflowed a little.

“Nervous?” Asked the interviewer, “No I always give 110%”

I recently took a pole and found out that 100% of the people in the tent were angry when it collapsed.

How did the hamburger introduce her girlfriend? Meat Patty!

What do you call a bulletproof Irishman? Rick O’Shea

Why did the gardener never want to leave?

Because it was the only place, he’d ever mowned.

I have decided that from the start of next week I am going to dress as a different kind of bread every day

Roll on Monday

I am going to have my spine removed. All it does is hold me back

I just got a job making plastic Dracula’s. There are only two of us on the production line. So, I have to make every second count.

  

Someone asked if I was Russian, I said: “I’m not, I’m taking my time.”

99.9% of people are idiots. Fortunately, I belong to the 1% of intelligent people.

Someone broke into my house and stole a limbo stick. How low can you go?

Most people write “congrats” because they don’t the spelling of “congrajulashions”

I broke one of my fingers at work today, On the other hand, everything is OK.

If a dentist makes a mistake….is it acciDENTAL?

What do you call a girl who sets fire to bank loans?

Bernadette

What do you call a goat that acts immaturely? A silly billy.

What do you call a magician that has lost his magic? Ian

What ‘s blue and smells like red paint? Blue paint

Yolds and expectations

As yolds, we are not just any group of old people, we are challenging the traditional expectations of the retired as people that will disrupt consumer, service, and financial markets.

We are one of the fastest-growing groups of customers of the airline business. We are vital to the tourism industry because we spend much more when taking a foreign holiday, than younger adults. We are also changing education. Harvard has more students at its Division for Continuing Education (for mature and retired students) than it does at the university itself. And, because of the importance of pensions, we are transforming insurance companies from passive distributors of fixed annuities to financial-service providers for customers who want to manage their pension funds more actively.

Many who are out of sync with reality (some bosses and many hr departments) think productivity falls with age, but studies of truckmaking and insurance firms in Germany suggest older workers have if anything, slightly above-average productivity. The research also shows that teams of workers from multiple generations are the most productive of all. Our society will be better off because public spending on health and pensions will be lower expected, as people work longer, need less medical care.

An ideal state, but the changes will happen over time, the first and one of the most important is public attitudes towards older people and the expectation that 60-somethings ought to be putting their feet up and quietly retiring into the background. Yolds continue to work even though many companies discriminate against older workers by offering training only to younger ones, or by limiting part-time employment and job-sharing. We through sheer numbers will demand that companies become more age-friendly and, in the process, help change attitudes towards ageing itself.

We vote and we will not be tolerant of government policies that work against our best interests or politicians who do not take us seriously. So, policies will change, too. The retirement age will rise to give people the option to work or to retire as many people need to or want to work longer.

This Pandemic has shown us that we can work together to lower the curve and protect ourselves from getting sick. I think this will lead to a change in health spending. Most diseases of ageing are best met with prevention and lifestyle changes. But only about 2-3% of most countries’ health-care spending goes on prevention. That will have to rise because although the yold cohort will constitute a bulge of comparative health and activity over the next decade, by 2030 they will hit 75. If we as a cohort have not stayed healthy, then the research shows that we will decline very quickly. Many economics will not be ready to treat us because the medical system will be able to cope. If we have policies in place that help us stay healthy and prevent many of the diseases of ageing, and we as a cohort stay healthy to 75 then the rate of decline of yolds will be slower and as we flatten the curve the medical system will be able to cope

Are you YOLD?

Among the many terms that describe the various generations – Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials and now iGeneration or Generation Z – there appears to be a new name for people like me. I am not young, and I am not old – I am yold.

Welcome to the word some of us have been waiting for even though we were not aware we were waiting for this word. The word is “Yold”.

The Japanese call people between the ages of 65 and 75 “yold,” the young-old. We are a highly influential group of and while some of us have presumably retired, many more will do so in the coming decade. But as I and others have stated many of us are avoiding retirement. We hope that by continuing to work and staying socially engaged, we as the young old will change the world, as we have done several times before at different stages of our lives.

I was born in 1946, toward the beginning of the baby boom. As I came along, new schools were built to accommodate our entry into the world (our demographic bulge). The economy started to grow and by the time the last of the boomers came along, (1960) it grew to the point that there were jobs for them. This Pandemic has highlighted a flaw in our system that would have been exposed in a few more years. The issue is the lack of beds and care for the elderly. Boomers have always put strains on the system and because we are political (we learned how to win political battles in the turbulent sixties) the system has responded to our needs. So, there will be enough long-term care beds to handle the impending influx when my youngest brother gets to that stage. It is not only a great time to be alive, but it is also a historic time to be yold. As a recent article in ‘The Economist’ explained

The year 2020 will mark the beginning of the decade of the yold, or the ‘young old’, as the Japanese call people aged between 65 and 75. The height of the baby boom, the period of high fertility in rich countries after the second world war, was 1955-60. The traditional retirement age is 65, and 2020-25 is 65 years later. One might, therefore, expect peak retirement for baby-boomers in the coming years—except that they are not retiring. By continuing to work, and staying socially engaged, the boomers, in their new guise as the young old, will change the world, as they have done several times before at different stages of their lives.

The yold are more numerous, healthier, and wealthier than previous generations of seniors. There will be 134million 65- to 74-year-olds in rich countries in 2020 (11% of the population), up from 99million (8%) in 2000. That is the fastest rate of growth of any large age group. Health worsens with age, but the yold are resisting the decline better than most: of the 3.7 years of increased life expectancy in rich countries between 2000 and 2015, says the World Health Organization, 3.2 years were enjoyed in good health. The yold are also better off: between 1989 and 2013, the median wealth of families headed by someone over 62 in America rose by 40% to $210,000, while the wealth of all other age groups declined.

Whether we continue to work for pay or not, many of us will have more time than we ever did to pursue personal interests and passions. A German study found that people who remain at work after the normal retirement age managed to slow the cognitive decline associated with old age and have a cognitive capacity of someone a year and a half younger. While it is important to be intentional about how we spend our remaining years – ideally focusing on family, friends, fitness, fun– we should also decide how we can make a difference in these challenging times. For those of us contemplating retirement right now, here are some of the many challenges we could face:

·        How do we make this the best chapter of our lives?

·        How will we collectively change the world?

·        How can I, personally, change this world for the better?

We have not been raising children, building careers and businesses, creating art, or pursuing lifelong learning for nothing. We can now draw on the full power of our life experiences to make things better, not just for ourselves, but for the Millennials and iGens, as well.

To do this, we need to be bold and positive about the future. Instead of bemoaning the way things have changed since we were young. Why don’t we use our voices to bring about even more change? By engaging in our communities, getting involved in politics, standing up for those less fortunate, using our social media channels to spread encouraging messages, or doing our part to preserve the environment, we can go from strength to strength as seniors. We certainly have strength in numbers.