This Chair Rocks

 If you want to know more about ageism, here is a great resource with good solid information. The author has been recognized as one of the worlds most influential women, her name is Ashton Applewhite, and she is fighting a war against ageism that all of us face. You can help by visiting her site called This chair rocks and by buying her books. On her site she says the following. People are happiest at the beginnings and the ends of their lives. Only 2.5% of Americans over 65 live in nursing homes. Older people enjoy better mental health than the young or middle-aged. Dementia rates are falling, fast. So how come so many of us unthinkingly assume that depression, diapers, and dementia lie ahead?

That the 20th century’s astonishing leap in life expectancy is a disaster-in-the making? Underlying all the handwringing is ageism: discrimination that sidelines and silences older people. So, I’ve written a book. I blog about it. I led the team that developed Old School, a clearinghouse of anti-ageism resources. I am the voice of Yo, Is This Ageist? (Go ahead, ask me.) I’ve written a consciousness-raising booklet. And I speak widely. All tools to help catalyze a movement to make discrimination on the basis of age as unacceptable as any other kin

She also defines Ageism

What Is Ageism?

Ageism is stereotyping and discrimination on the basis of a person’s age. We experience it any time someone assumes that we’re “too old” for something—a task, a haircut, a relationship—instead of finding out who we are and what we’re capable of. Or “too young;” ageism cuts both ways, although in a youth-obsessed society olders, bear the brunt of it.

Like racism and sexism, ageism serves a social and economic purpose: to legitimize and sustain inequalities between groups. It’s not about how we look. It’s about how people in power assign meaning to how we look.

Stereotyping—the assumption that all members of a group are the same—underlies ageism (as it does all “isms”). Stereotyping is always a mistake, but especially when it comes to age because the older we get, the more different from one another we become.

Attitudes about age—as well as race and gender—start to form in early childhood. Over a lifetime they harden into a set of truths: “just the way it is.” Unless we challenge ageist stereotypes—Old people are incompetent. Wrinkles are ugly. It’s sad to be old—we feel shame and embarrassment instead of taking pride in the accomplishment of aging. That’s internalized ageism.

By blinding us to the benefits of aging and heightening our fears, ageism makes growing older far harder than it has to be. It damages our sense of self, segregates us, diminishes our prospects, and actually shortens lives.

What are the antidotes?

¶   Awareness: the critical starting point is to acknowledge our own prejudices about age and aging. (Download a copy of Who me, Ageist? How to Start a Consciousness Raising Group.) Then we can start to see that “personal problems”—such as not being able to get a job or being belittled or feeling patronized—are actually widely shared social problems that require collective action.

¶   Integration: connect with people of all ages. An equitable society for all ages requires intergenerational collaboration.

¶   Activism: watch for ageist behaviors and attitudes in and around us, challenge them, and create language and models that support every stage of life

Stretching Your Retirement Savings

There is what they call in the business world a “paradigm shift” when you move from the working world to the world of retirement.  A paradigm shift means that the rules you live by and the economy that regulates your lives will change dramatically.  Whether you have a large retirement package or you have retirement savings that are going to take some care to stretch out, you will begin to live on a fixed income and stretching your retirement savings will become a hobby, a passion, and a lifestyle that you will get good at over time.

If you are just stepping into the retirement paradigm, learning the ropes from the old pros at the skill of stretching the retirement dollar will serve you well.  It will be these old experts that will know how to have a fun evening out on the town for under twenty dollars, when the right time it is to buy at the supermarket and how to leverage coupons to your best advantage.

If you have left the active working world, you may need a way to focus your attention since all of that business energy can be used well to focus on how to use your retirement funds to your best advantage.  One way to use all of that business expertise is to take on the challenge of what is commonly called “home economics” to learn the best ways to economize and cut the expenses of daily life.  Home economics is something that is commonly associated with young women preparing to become housewives but the wisdom of how to recycle household items, how to take care of household utensils and tools to reduce the amount they have to be replaced and other important economic tips can go a long way on cutting down on expenses, so you see that retirement nest egg gets depleted more slowly.

Little things mean a lot when it comes to home economics.  Turning off lights and not running the heater when you can put on a sweater seem like petty savings but by not consuming power, you are not only saving on utilities, but you are also living green as well which is good for the earth.  Similarly, you may be able to do more without going out in the car than you thought.  Perhaps you can walk to the store rather than drive.  Perhaps you can take public transportation for a low cost rather than use up expensive gas and cause more wear and tear on your vehicle.  These little things can do a lot to stretch your funds, so they are there for the important things.

Another way to use your business sense is to find ways to supplement your income or use your retirement savings intelligently.  With the internet, you may be able to find ways to invest your savings more shrewdly so you can actually generate revenue by making your money work for you.  You can even find part-time jobs that can be done from the internet or perhaps in town that do not put stress on your “retirement status” but bring in a nice little revenue stream while giving you a chance to get out and be with people.  Lots of businesses like to use senior citizens in this way so everybody wins.

By taking on the challenge of stretching your retirement savings by both becoming a guru of home economics and finding new revenue streams, you can protect that precious nest egg, so it continues to be there for you year after year assuring that you are cared for and have everything you need to live a happy and productive retirement lifestyle.

Punography

 

1.          Yesterday I accidentally swallowed some food colouring. The doctor says I'm OK, but I feel like I've dyed a little inside.

2.          I wasn't originally going to get a brain transplant, but then I changed my mind.

2.   Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.

3.          I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

4.          Why don't some couples go to the gym? Because some relationships don't work out.

5.          A friend of mine tried to annoy me with bird puns, but I soon realized that toucan play at that game.

6.          I'd tell you a chemistry joke but I know I wouldn't get a  reaction.

7.          Have you ever tried to eat a clock? It's very time-consuming.

8.          I once got into so much debt that I couldn't even afford my electricity bills, they were the darkest times of my life.

9.          Did you hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a can of soda? He was lucky it was a soft drink.

10.    I've got some unemployment jokes, but none of them work.

11.    PATIENT: Doc, I keep having these dreams. First, I’m a teepee; then I’m a wigwam; then I’m a teepee; then I’m a wigwam. It’s driving me crazy. What’s wrong with me?

12.    DOCTOR: You need to relax. You’re two tents.

13.    I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure!!

14.    A friend said she did not understand cloning. I told her that makes two of us.

15.    I once heard a joke about pizza. It was cheesy though...

Liminal Space

 We cannot discover new oceans unless we have the courage to lose sight of the shore. Anonymous     

The word “liminal” comes from the Latin root, limen, which means “threshold.” The liminal space is the “crossing over” space – a space where you have left something behind, yet you are not yet fully in something else. ... Deep in the night, it seems that there are no boundaries between realities, time, space, and thoughts.

I predict that most of us have had the experience of being in a physical liminal space. But I suspect with certainty that all of us have inhabited an emotional liminal space, not once but many times in our lives. They occur at any point of transition from:

·       one home to another

·       married to divorced

·       employed to fired or retired

·       with children at home to an empty-nester

·       the end of one decade to the start of another (i.e., age 59 to 60)

·       a loved one in your life is gone from your life through death

Each of these examples and there are many others, find us betwixt and between. We have left what was, but haven’t yet inhabited what’s next.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Walking through an empty parking lot late at night is terrifying. Still, it’s got nothing on the fear we experience during some of life’s more challenging transitions.

As a result, most of us will avoid making a transition with everything we’ve got in us. We will stay in the lousy marriage, wait a few more years before moving, or postpone our retirement date until we have amassed more money. When we finally do enter a transition, many of us will try to get through it as quickly as possible, leaping to what’s next so we can feel comfortable and sane once again.

Transitions actually have three parts, only one of which is the liminal space. The three parts, which overlap rather than occur sequentially, are:

Making an Ending. This involves more than just leaving your job, or waving bye to the kids as they move out of your house. A good ending requires that you let go not only of what you used to do, but of who you used to be. For example, when I first retired, I immediately start working again as a teacher on call to keep my hand in as did many of my friends. While some of made the argument that it was a bit of extra money and an opportunity to continue to work with colleagues and students, it was not it was about our self-identification as a teacher. After eight years I realized that I no longer self-identified as a teacher and so I began the ending and was able to make the transition to retirement. If there is no end, there is no possibility of transition and no new beginning.

Inhabiting the Neutral Zone

This is the crux of transition, the spot I think of as the pre-eminent liminal space. Once I started the transition to retirement, in the beginning, I felt I was in a time of chaos. This is a liminal space, and it is or can be terrifying. But it is also chock-full of creative potential, a time of possibility.

Making a New Beginning

When beginnings come after a definite ending, and time hanging out in the liminal space, those beginnings have great power. This doesn’t mean that new beginnings, the ‘what is next’ of our transitions are easy. Every new beginning confirms that the ending we experienced was real. I know that I felt a real sense of loss and I did worry that this won’t be the right new beginning for me. Some believe they might fail, I never believed or felt that feeling.