Guest blog from my friend, author Howard Englander

You’ve heard the saying about aging athletes – he’s lost a step but he more than makes up for it with experience. It’s true in life as well. At about the time the Social Security check arrives most of us have looked into the mirror and recognized we’re not the person we used to be.

But what’s important is to see past your reflection and honor yourself for man you are. Senior citizen is not a synonym for old person! Being old is a function of age; being senior is a subtext of attitude. It depends on how you look at the term; seniors in high school or college for example, are student leaders, the respected upperclassmen called upon to pass on their experience to the younger undergraduates.

It behooves us to ignore society’s perception of “old people” as obsolete and irrelevant. You do not lose the beauty of who you are no matter what your age. As the poet Martin Buxbaum wrote, “You merely move it from your face into your heart.”

When you embrace the person you are and become comfortable in your own skin, the possibilities are endless. How rewarding it is after years of working nine to five to finally put less emphasis on “doing” and more on the pleasures of “being.” That doesn’t mean to shut down the plant and put your abilities in mothballs. It means take a good honest look at paths to fulfillment that are not relentlessly tied to dubious achievement, driving yourself to outdo the other guy and feeling elated or depressed dependent on the applause from others.

Too many retirees move from the corner office to a corner of the den and feel diminished by the loss of the props that shored up their self-esteem, the big time job, a top spot in the pecking order, the external “stuff” you accumulate as perks of the endless grind. For these men and women retirement is more of a punishment than reward for years of hard work.

The secret is to have something to retire to rather than be left adrift when your time card is called from the rack. I’m not talking about a “bucket list” of stuff to do before you die. It’s reviving the dreams that necessity and circumstance and timidity and naivety forced you to store in the “What If” file, closed shut so many years ago you can barely remember where the key is.

Your eyesight may dim as you grow older but you can see things infinitely more clearly as you acquire the capacity to look inside yourself. My inquiry meant an honest appraisal of my career in advertising, an evaluation of what I enjoyed most and what I liked least, not only about the job and the work it entailed, it’s redemptive values and how I felt about myself in relation to my moral principles. Doubt about the field’s unrestrained goal of creating consumption – often from faux desires more concerned with vanity and ego than genuine need – made it clear that phase of my life was over. Still, I had thoroughly enjoyed the creative side of the work. I decided that writing commercials for Doritos and Phillips 66 gasoline and literally hundreds of advertised brands was foundation for transferring my creative chops to a more rewarding endeavor. So I decided to write a book as a way to feel useful and productive. Plus I wanted to dispute the societal assumption that older people are like used cars ready for the junk heap. My characters definitely are not looking at the odometer!

It would be presumptuous to pose as the voice of the country’s senior citizens, but there aren’t many authors my age writing candidly about the regrets and revelations that accompany the aging process. But each main character in the collection of short stories entitled “73” is, in fact, age seventy-three, and the hero or heroine of storylines that provide insight into the pain and pleasure of living life as a Septenarian. The stories taken all together paint the full portrait. After almost two years the book is still being sold at Amazon.com and other on-line book sites.

I’m not an Internet guru selling advice on how to age properly. Candidly speaking, I skip those web sites. Usually they’re corny, relying on tired bromides and trite generalities. But sometimes all of us need some help to re-assess, re-focus and face the bedrock truth of what you really want to do, and what’s realistically possible.

Age is opportunity no less,
than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away,
the sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from a poem written for the 50th anniversary of his college graduation.~

Further commentary from Howard Englander can be found on his blog at http://www.howardenglander.wordpress.com
He can be reached at howardenglander@sbcglobal.net
Information about his book, 73, can be found at http://www.howardenglander.com