Embracing Change?

Are You Keeping up with this Changing World?

We must adapt.

Over a century ago, the father of evolutionary biology, Charles Darwin wrote, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

More recently, journalist and social commentator Thomas L. Friedman, in his Thank You for Being Late, has argued that we are not merely facing rapid change, but the change itself is accelerating, making it ever more difficult for us to keep up. The changes in technology, globalization, and nature are affecting work, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and community.

Technology

One humorous TV commercial has two youngsters approaching their grandparents’ home, and the kids are greeted with requests to repair and adjust the computer and cell phone that are baffling the elder couple.

Our own sons have generously given me advanced technology as gifts, and the big screen monitor and television sets perform their functions without problems. The iPad and related computer-like gadgets sit unused, needing to be re-charged, their passwords lost or forgotten, testimony to my lack of a need for them. I am mostly at home; I have yet to explore what they can do. I already have a desktop computer…what else do I need?

Similarly, my cell phone is an antique, almost screaming for a rotary dial. Well, not quite that ancient, but only the next step up from a big-digits Jiffy. I guess I could take and send pictures with it, but pictures of what? Even with the latest digital cameras, one is not sure that the photographs will be viewable a few decades in the future, the way a conventional photo album would be.

A writer friend living in Israel idiosyncratically refuses to have a mobile phone, baffling most acquaintances except a select few who suspect he is a happy man, one not perpetually available, not always on call, not straining to converse in public or seeming to snub callers he cannot answer conveniently. Even his religiously conservative wife demurs: they need an iPhone; they mustn’t be left wholly behind.  Wisely, for family harmony, he bought her an Android…one he admits he might someday also use himself.

Beyond the evolution of the gadgets is the rapid change in their computing power, doubling or more every couple of years. What took a room-full of computers decades ago can be done with a hand-held device. With this awesome capability has come the ability to record and analyze almost all we do, with a near-complete loss of privacy, unless we are lucky, very careful, or deemed too insignificant to spy on.

When we do find ourselves baffled, we may feel diminished. It’s time to find a YouTube video to explain it to us or a TED lecture or Udemy course to help us catch up.

Still, the convenience of a cell phone is hard to beat when out and about, and for that we are thankful.

Globalization

Friedman, in his earlier The World Is Flat, noted that transportation and communication barriers have almost disappeared. That’s nice when we want to go “there.” Not as welcome, perhaps, when they want to come here. Or when our jobs leave. Or when we are assailed by Too Much Information.  

Poet Robert Frost wrote, somewhat ironically, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Without some boundaries, we are in each other’s hair.

Division of labor, specialization, mass production, increased productivity… these allow us better goods and services at lower prices than we would have otherwise. However, we have competition from people overseas who can produce some things and get them here at lower costs than if we were to produce them. “Made in China” by some maidens in China is fine when we are purchasing, not so fine when we hoped to produce and sell the same things ourselves. As consumers, we benefit, as producers, we may find markets or we may be underpriced and fail.

Breaking down barriers helps us find where to live, what to buy, where to vacation, etc. with ease. Rides from Uber and Lyft and short rentals from Airbnb create bargains by harnessing underused capacity. Unfortunately, the same access to information can submerge us. Want to know what to watch on your television? Your options are almost infinite, thus overwhelming at times, like drinking from a fire hose.

Yet, variety enriches our experiences.

  

Climate Change

As part of a recurring cycle, ten thousand years ago the glaciers receded. We are now in an interglacial period. Lately, some of that warming is due to mankind’s activities; how much is a matter of debate. Technological changes in the future may slow this warming, and migration can mitigate some of its harms. We must adjust.

It is unlikely that developing countries will decide to endure poverty by reducing their carbon emissions, and further reductions by the developed countries are not likely to affect the warming trend appreciably. Climate will change, not necessarily as rapidly as predicted, and there will be benefits as well as losses.

Flexibility Will Be Key

In this world of accelerating changes, Darwin is correct: adapt to thrive, or else.

Questions

What changes are you noticing most? How have you handled them?

Join the discussion.

Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D., is a former Harvard science professor. He still publishes, and he helps others write and publish their books via his business website, http://WriteYourBookWithMe.com. His life's central theme has been his half-century romance with his wife, Tina Su Cooper, now quadriplegic for over a decade due to multiple sclerosis, receiving 24/7 nursing care at home, as discussed at their website here.

###


Published in somewhat edited form in http://sixtyandme.com/keeping-up-with-a-changing-world-after-60/

A HOLE IN MY HEAD

 MY TOASTMASTERS INTRODUCTION SPEECH  

Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D.

douglas@tingandi.com

     “I need this like I need a hole in my head,” I was tempted to say to my neurosurgeon, Michael G. Kaplitt of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Soon he would be drilling that hole in my head. I wanted all his good will I could muster, which ruled out a typically wise-guy comment from me. I would not want to induce a “Freudian slip” in the vicinity of my brain.

    Several months before this, in late spring of 2008, my neurologist, Dr. Baradaran, had listened to my litany of new symptoms, sent me for some tests, evaluated them, and had given me, gently, the bad news: I had hydrocephalus, “water on the brain.” If not treated, I would likely experience dementia, depression and death. Outside of that, I joked, nothing to worry about. I needed a hole in my head to relieve the internal pressure from the improper flow of my cerebral-spinal fluid. My investigations led me to choose Dr. Kaplitt and his group at New York - Presbyterian.

     The operation was September 4, 2008. Dr. Kaplitt and team drilled a hole, perhaps a quarter of an inch in diameter, into the upper right-hand region of my forehead, penetrated the dura matter protecting my brain, made a passage through my gray matter to a cavity, the right lateral ventricle, and put one end of a tube there. Several inches from that end, a pressure-regulator valve was attached to the tube, followed by more tubing that was run under my skin, “tunnelized,” back behind my ear, along my neck and chest, finally into my abdominal area.

    I learned that this was not my first brush with death due to hydrocephalus. In fact, I had the condition at birth and nearly died. It cured itself almost fully, spontaneously, perhaps due to my mother’s fervent prayers, as the doctors at Manhattan’s Mt. Sinai Hospital had told her to give up on me. So advised my father, her first husband, an accountant and a drinker. That was the last straw for her. They had conceived me “to save the marriage,” which I definitely did not! 

         My brain was not damaged, fortunately. I attended Hunter College Elementary School, based on passing a rigorous admissions test, and I went on to academic success in high school and college, ending up with a Ph.D. in engineering from Harvard University. I had a three-decade career in the environmental science field including positions at Harvard and at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY.  

         Perhaps my mediocre amateur athletic career can be partly attributed to my over-pressured brain. I played football in high school, as a very light defensive end, but baseball and basketball required more skill than I had. Dancing eluded me. Drafted into army after graduating from Cornell with a Bachelor of Arts in physics, I handled Basic Training successfully, but my marksmanship was barely passing.

         I’ve had little trouble with the hole, the valve, and the tubing since the September 2008 operation. My initial valve pressure setting was average for an adult, but subsequent computerized tomography (CT) scans of my brain showed my brain had gotten so used to the higher pressure it had for so long, that the valve setting needed to be at or near the maximum pressure.

      I emerged the Bionic Doug. No longer was I experiencing three classic symptoms of hydrocephalus, a.k.a. “water on the brain”: trouble walking, urinary incontinence, short-term memory deficits. I had a fourth symptom that was fixed, also, a narrowing of my emotions, less cheerfulness, less gloom, a dull, mellow emotional middle ground.

Upon recovering, I preferred my faster thinking and my ups and downs to that emotional numbness, which had not been all that bad.    

         Helmet or no helmet? For a week or two after resuming driving, I wore a helmet, as I did not want the valve in my head to hit the windshield. Soon I stopped this as being inconvenient, considering an accident unlikely.

         Hat or no hat? The bump on my head is where the valve is. I find it quite unattractive. One could wear a bandage or a hat. I finally decided to go hatless, to the disadvantage of those who have to view my bump. A book I read recently on looks, and the importance throughout our lives on physical attractiveness, made me perhaps too aware of the shortcomings of my appearance, but I had never been particularly good-looking anyway.

We play the cards we are dealt. I am lucky to be alive and relatively well in twenty-first-century America, married to the woman of my dreams, financially secure and still interested in life.

    Almost nine years later, I feel fine. I can walk our dog and get some other exercise. Retired, I’ve become a freelance writer and writing coach.

I thank Dr. Kaplitt and his staff and my own neurologist, Dr. Baradaran of Middletown, NY, for this successful outcome.

Turned out, I did, indeed, need a hole in my head.

Mourning: Beyond "Closure"

We’ve reached a stage in life where death is closer to us than it ever was: death of parents, friends, siblings, associates. When it happens, we are often given advice to obtain “closure,” defined as a sense of finality.

Within the past year and a half, I have lost my mother, my sister, and a favorite nurse. I do have a sense of finality, closure, but I would like something more. If my long-ill wife should die soon, I want more than just “coming to terms” with it.

A lovely book I recently read, Reflections from the Soul, by former nurse Dr. Eboni Ivory Green, aims to take its grieving readers beyond closure to “homeostasis,” meaning “a sense of equilibrium,” not a shutting off, but a co-existing with. We are encouraged to connect with persons, places, things that remind us of the deceased and of the good associated with our relationship.

In her Introduction, she writes, “Matters of the heart are never truly closed. The sadness associated with losing someone you love never goes away completely. Yet, there is hope that one day the deep sorrow will now take a place in history.” Sorrow can be replaced by fond reflection and reminiscence.

The Power of the Pen and of the Mind

Dr. Green’s many losses moved her to write both prose and poetry, and she recommends that others write, too: remember how the departed once enriched your life, how certain objects or places or activities can bring back the connection you fear you have lost.

Outstanding individuals live on in our collective memory, many even past “the second death,” when the last individual who knew them personally has died.

The Risks of Falling in Love

When we love, we risk the heartache of death. As Helen Keller wrote, “All that we love deeply becomes part of us.” When a loved one dies, part of us dies.

Robert Frost wrote that “nothing gold can stay.” We have life, and love, on temporary loan.

Dr. Green quotes a line from the film Meet Joe Black, “To make the journey and not fall deeply in love---well, you haven’t lived a life at all.”

No Woman Is an Island

Even the deaths of strangers diminishes us. We view their obituaries with concern. Poet John Donne advised us to ask not for whom the church bell tolls its death knell: “It tolls for thee.”

Dr. Green wants us to distinguish between isolation, loneliness, and solitude. Isolation comes from our losses, loneliness a possible reaction to them, but solitude can provide the opportunity for acknowledgment, inspiration, reflection, and thus renewal.

“Men Get Mad. Women Get Sad.”

That generic adage does not well cover our responses to death. Sadness and anger at the death of a beloved are not exclusive responses of either gender. Sadness is typical, but anger is not uncommon.

How would death make you angry?  Perhaps it seems so unjust. Perhaps someone should have behaved better. Perhaps there is, or should be, guilt or regret?  

Dr. Green gives some sage advice on dealing with the emotions commonly accompanying the death of a loved one. Several chapter titles summarize her advice: Do That Which You Think You Cannot; From Isolation to Communion; You’ve Committed No Offense by Surviving; Cultivating Life-Enhancing Spirituality; Remembering You Makes Me Smile; You Do Not Need to Walk Alone; God Sets the Lonely in Families; Dancing Beautifully with a Limp.

Even within a family, there will often be a wide variety of responses to death, depending on: life experiences, position or station, personal relationships. Dr. Green describes ten common and quite different personas and reactions. She hopes that by understanding these differences the tendency for grief and anger to divide some families can be resisted.

Coming Up for AIR

Dr. Green recommends we breathe deeply metaphorical AIR: Acknowledgment of our loss; Inspiration from others; Reflection by ourselves. Her writings, quotations, and exercises help focus our efforts.

Beyond Closure

Cicero wrote, “The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”

Those we love who have died we still want to keep in mind, rather than forgotten, closed off from us. So, let us not forget them, and to that degree, we allow them to live on. 

Questions

Whom have you lost? How did you come to terms with that loss?

Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D., is a former Harvard science professor. He still publishes, and he helps others write and publish their books via his business website, http://WriteYourBookWithMe.com. His life's central theme has been his half-century romance with his wife, Tina Su Cooper, now quadriplegic for over a decade due to multiple sclerosis, receiving 24/7 nursing care at home, as discussed at their website here.

First published in somewhat edited form at 

http://sixtyandme.com/mourning-in-maturity-going-beyond-closure-after-losing-a-loved-one/

RETIREMENT? NO, REFIREMENT! Pt 1

Part One

An Introduction

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

Section 1

Retirement

Age is a fundamental law of life.

You have aged, just as you are aging and as will continue to age. Perhaps not a pleasing fact, but one we have to look dead in the eye; we will suffer a degree of pain, and isolation. Our bodies will become sluggish, our skills less sharp, and - in case there’s any doubt - our lives will come to an end.

Take just a second, Imagine that as you die you reflect upon, or confront, the story of your life. It would be, one would hope, a story that we would be happy for our children and grandchildren to tell well into the future. This book is about creating that story.   

And imagine, if you can, what it would be like to think your final thoughts. It would not be, one would hope, a vicious piece of gossip, a concern about finances or a worry about social status. If able to really put ourselves into the seriousness demanded of that moment, there would probably be one or two thoughts worth having, and hopefully no regrets - no unexpressed guilt, gratitude or love.

This is also a book about wiping that slate clean, so that ‘the final thought’ can be unpolluted by nonsense, noise and ego…leaving the world without regrets.

Although that was a rather morbid introduction, this is a book about living.

Living, as opposed to winding down, closing up, stepping back, or switching off.

Living, as in fighting back: against expectations, against fear, against misery and gloom.

Living, as in doing that thing you always meant to do.

Retirement is not what it once was. Every day medical researchers from all around the world push themselves to raise the ceiling of our life expectancies, our levels of comfort, and our capacity to act.  People are living longer, and are active longer.[1, 2, 3]

These days ‘Retirement’ almost seems to be the wrong word, given that it can account for quarter of your life. At the age of 65, it is predicted that we have another 20 years in us! [2,]It’s even possible, if you retire early and live a long life that retirement can take up half of your years on this planet! 

So, lifespan has increased, but has life-style adapted?

No. In most cases, not yet.

What’s more is modern freedom;  The freedom to work as we please, where we please, and if we please - the freedom to learn for free, in the convenience of our own homes, that for which only decades ago you would have needed a pricy teacher. Work and information are there to pick up and to put down as we please, today there are online teaching programs, architects can design houses online and so forth. In a sense, you are the current result of the path human civilisation has taken. Centuries of work and progress have resulted in whatever health and freedom you now have. We have now, unique to history, the opportunity to become what we dream of becoming. Even the strictest of pessimists has to agree with that:

Nobody has lived in a world as modern as the one you live in today.

And here’s the hypothesis this book aims to explore:

Nobody before us has had the same luxury of freedom as we have today.

The question is: How are you going to make the most of it?

The Question:

Have I done my best to make use of the freedom and opportunity that retirement brings?

What This Guide Covers

I’ve heard it said (I’m afraid I can’t remember where) that many motivational books and speeches do have a significant short-term effect on their audiences, but that people essentially need ‘topping up’ with optimism after this wears off.

Our goal is quite different - We don’t aim to motivate you through emotive, but ultimately content-less language, but rather to present a series of facts and findings that hopefully allow you to come to the same conclusions that we have - That retirement can be the beginning of something hugely satisfying.    

Alongside our general points we have created some ‘case-studies.’ These can’t exactly be called fictional or nonfictional, as they are a collage of real people and problems, ‘tuned-up’  in order to bring out their emotional context – normally, anecdotal evidence carries no persuasive heft, and those who prefer cold statistics just roll their eyes; we make no claim to objectivity in these sections.

Such anecdotes, in giving a human face to the issues, will hopefully help you empathise with them. But it’s important, as you read this book that you pause and imagine the emotions such events and actions would cause in your own life. 

In structuring this guide, we faced a question of balance: how could we write a guide that doesn’t shy away from certain dark realities, that doesn’t patronize our readers by sugar-coating them, but also ultimately leaves them with a grounded optimism?

With that in mind, this guide or at least sections of it should be visualized as a journey into a dark forest, which although daunting, does indeed have an exit.

So, if you are to accompany us any further, please make sure to push through to the other side…!

The Question:

In reading this guide, am I prepared to do my best to consider both the upsides and downsides of retirement, so I make the very best of the upsides and minimise the risks of the downsides?

If You Only Read One Page of this Guide…

Have a plan.	And make it brave.
Confront hard truths.	Your debt will not disappear just because the bills do. Undiagnosed problems are uncontrollable problems.
Expect Hiccups.	The timing and manner in which you retire may not go as planned - don’t let it get to you.
Delay nothing.	Get started. It’s never too late. (Until it is.)
Maintain balance and stability.	These are crucial to maintaining key functions in your day-to-day life and in giving you full autonomy.
Express what you want and need.	Do not assume others can read your mind. As we age, we have to become more forthright and direct in communicating our difficulties.
Have a simple story.	One that can easily convey your limitations to others, without causing heartache and concern each and every time.
Ask yourself daily questions.	Stay on track. (We have a list of these in many sections of this book.)
Make the most of helpers	Accountants, doctors, personal trainers, coaches. These are people there to help you be the best you can be.
Automate as much as you can.	Take things off of your mind. Fall asleep each night without the weight of having to do something the next morning.
Find purpose.	In whatever way it’s meaningful to you, personally, find the thing that gets you out of bed.
Stay engaged, active and connected.	Keep the skills you have spent a life honing. Share. Interact. Give back.

The Question:

If you only read one page of this guide, will you do your best to implement one item that would help you and those closest to you benefit from your retirement?

The Push and Pull

‘I have never liked working. To me a job is an invasion of privacy.’

Danny McGoorty

Approaching retirement is a tumultuous time in our lives. It’s perfectly natural to feel a mixture of emotions at this stage - and not all positive!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest push into retirement is job dissatisfaction [4], but more than this, it is a lack of engagement. [5]

This isn’t necessarily accompanied with an explosive finish; a screaming match with the higher-ups and a dramatic scene where you ‘hand over your badge.’ Many experienced people bow out of the workforce after years of a gradual ‘squeeze,’ not from one dastardly individual, but rather changes in the entire industry, shifting in the background like the tectonic plates beneath our feet.

Companies need an inflow and outflow of members. As these changes occur, senior members begin to feel uneasy - especially in technology-centred fields - they feel they are the viewed as expendable. 

There’s the double-edged sword of seniority - the most senior members, being the most experienced, are more prone to feeling undervalued, but also more capable of sensing when other members of the team are guilty of poor reasoning.

Along with any growing resentment a dangerous thought gradually creeps in:

‘Hey... I don’t have to put up with this anymore…’

For an increasing number of people, retirement is involuntary; maybe no one person has had a difficult conversation with them….

The biggest pull into retirement is marriage satisfaction. There’s an old joke of a wife, on hearing her husband has chosen to retire, saying, ‘I said I’d stand by you for better or for worse - not hanging about in your pyjamas.’  

And also health - retirees have more time to invest in their own health

and wellbeing. [6]

The Question:

As I move into requirement, will I do my best to learn from and forgive whatever pushed me into retirement and celebrate and build on what pulled me into retirement?

(Mis)conceptions of Aging

Is retirement the ‘winter’ of your life?

That might seem like negative wording, but in some ways it is apt; retirement does take up roughly a quarter of your life span. (And, personally, winter puts me in mind of snowballs and Christmas with my family, so I’m happy with the concept.)

But this is a book about bravery: about facing our problems with optimism. Ultimately, you are an individual and will have to judge your problems and will have to set your own goals and limitations. You will set the standards, because now you have the freedom to invest your own time.

The freedom to invest in:

●     Your purpose

●     Your health

●     Your friends

●     Your hobbies

●     Your family

●     Yourself.

In the next section we will see some individuals who had the audacity to break some of those rules - The Exceptions.

They show us that if retirement truly is the winter of your life, let’s not forget about Christmas and snowball fights!

The Question:

Will you do your best to find a purpose, big or small, that will motivate and fulfil you throughout retirement?

A Questionnaire

Give yourself a score from 1-10 on each of the following areas, 1 meaning that you’re rock-bottom hopeless, and 10 meaning you’re a master of the area, someone we should all go to for help of the subject:

Area	Score
Your sense of purpose in life
Your sense of identity
Your sense of autonomy
Your health (overall) And specifically on ●     Your cardiovascular capacity ●     Your weight ●     Your mobility; ease of movement.
Your level of stress
Your quality of sleep
Your satisfaction with your everyday environment
Your feeling of accomplishment.
Your satisfaction in your hobbies
Your confidence in your financial situation And specifically on ●     Your spending ●     Your saving ●     Your ability (or willingness) to pick up more work if needed
Your confidence your social skills
Your sense of connection to those important to you (children/grandchildren/partner/friends)
Your confidence that you yourself, or those around you, would react quickly and responsibly in an emergency.

 

Exceptions

Nowadays exceptions to the trends are not hard to find.

The most immediate to hand is that despite both being past the age of retirement, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump fought it out over the position of President of the United States - the most powerful, responsible position on the planet.

And there are no shortage of rock stars who, despite having abused their bodies for decades, still live their lives to the fullest whilst pushing eighty. (Recently, Mick Jagger has had his eighth child, despite being 72 - not that this is really advisable.) 

But let’s have a look at some of the greats - and of course, maybe you’re not quite in the triple digits yourself, but what inspiring precedents they set!

Yuichiro Miura	Holds the record for being the oldest man to climb Everest, at 80.
Jeanna Clement	The oldest verified human being (despite being a smoker from the age of 21 until 117!).
Dorothy Davenhill Hirsch	Travelled to the North Pole, despite being 89.
Doris Self	Competed in video game competitions until she was 80.
George Weiss	At 84, invented the game Dabble.
Hikekichi Miyazaki	On the day after he turned 105, ran 100m in just over 42 seconds.
Doris Haddock	Between the ages of 88-90, walked across the United States.
E. Bruce Heilmann	87, travelled 10,000 miles by Harley-Davidson.
Frank Shearer,	100, loves water-skiing.
Irving Berlin	Was 95 years old when his single ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ got into the top ten.
Johanna Quas	The world’s oldest gymnast at 86, having picked it back up when she was 57.
Don Pellman,	100, has set five track and field records.
Madeleine Scott	Started teaching at 40 but continued until 100. When asked about retirement she simply said: ‘Oh, that’s a bad word….’

The point of all of these examples is that, although there are general rules to aging, there are people who refuse its terms, whether due to passion or just some automatic compulsion of theirs.

So, before you resign to an armchair and pipe, consider the fact:

You could still show us what is possible.

The Question:

Am I going to do my best to find some role models that will guide me in my retirement? (They may, of course, be very individual and different to the role models others choose.)

###

This is the continuation of a weekly serialization of this new ebook on active retirement, by Wamala and Cooper, which book is available through amazon.com for $0.99: 

https://www.amazon.com/RETIREMENT-NO-REFIREMENT-surviving-continuing-ebook/dp/B06XV52HPQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490748919&sr=8-1&keywords=retirement%3F+no%2C+refirement%21