Most discussions about memory in older people concern deterioration and loss, but such discussions miss an important phenomenon. Our minds become less cluttered and more concerned with essentials. We...
I tell them, Americans are very serious about two things—time and money.
Good stories build good lives. When we are lonely we can remember our good times with loved ones, a blazing sunset, or our sixtieth birthday dinner when everyone told us precisely what they loved abou...
Feeling grateful is not a moral injunction, but rather, a healthy habit that we can learn to employ with greater frequency.
Developmental psychologist Bernice Neugarten made this distinction between young-old age and old-old age. As long as we can do most of what we want to do, we are young-old age. When our health fundame...
Coalition members learned to make our points via stories. It is impossible to argue with a story that simply reflects the experience of the storyteller. People like stories and remember them. They cre...
At that time, our mothers were alive, our hair was brown, and we liked to stay up past midnight.
Certain respect for resilience and the indefatigable nature of hope. Looking back on our own lives, we can see an endless cycle of crisis and growth.
Without a certain number of these attributes, a newcomer is unlikely to make it in America. The attributes of resilience are Future orientation Energy and good health The ability to pay attention Ambi...
When they shook the box and poured out its chances, you were appointed to be happy.
We wither, sag, wrinkle, crinkle, tatter, and become marked by life’s events. Time and gravity, air and water wear us down, each into a unique and precious beauty, every bit as beautiful as a landscap...
We can take responsibility for our attitudes and focus on our strengths and our joys.
W. S. Merwin . . . traced our attitude of dominion to the beginnings of agriculture. He argued that settling down in permanent places gave us the illusion of possession. That fateful moment in our hom...
Via our machines— be it phone, television, or computer— we receive an enormous amount of information every day. But we don’t have the time, the energy, and the emotional resilience to deal with all of...
This life stage requires a constant process of adjustment and accommodation
Sleeping beside a purring cat is the equivalent of three glasses of wine. Note: I just made that up, but, based on my experience, it seems about right.
One of our most effective coping skills is simply sticking together. In a 2011 New Yorker article called Social Animal, David Brooks writes, Research over the past thirty years makes it clear that wha...
Older people could see themselves as part of a circle of caring that begins with our oldest living relatives and flows down to the youngest baby.
Of course, the world is not divided into two types of women: those who grow and those who don't. All of us fit into both groups almost every day of our lives. Some of the time, we are good copers and...
Newcomers are taking American jobs. In fact, they are filling jobs that Americans won't take and thus enabling businesses to prosper in a time when minimum-wage workers are hard to find.