Purpose! Passion! Pep!

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It’s amazing that for untold millennia people managed to age all by themselves. Today, though, we Boomers have been discovered by the self-help industry, which has wrung all it can from Bringing Up Baby and Dealing with Difficult Colleagues and has moved on to Rescuing Retirees. I can hardly skim a magazine, website, or blog without some blaring headline exhorting me to live out my golden years with Passion! Purpose! Pep! Apparently, we have to take classes to improve our minds, exercise daily to improve our bodies, and do good works to improve our society. With all this rushing around, retirement makes the office look good. At least there we could sit down occasionally.

I noticed, too, that all this advice assumes we’re dissatisfied with our lives. Let’s face it, if there’s no angst, there’s no article because there’s so little to say to the happy. Perhaps that’s why yuppie writers are trying so hard to make us feel that we’re doing it all wrong if we don’t follow “The 10 Commandments of Retirement,” “The 8 Best Places to Live for Seniors,” or “The 15 Tips That Will Help You Live Forever.”

I wonder if these young advice-givers have actually ever met anyone over 65? I ask because they seem to think of us as pathetic wallflowers who are perpetually disgruntled, sitting by the TV set for hours hour until we can shuffle off to our 5:30 dinner. This scenario doesn’t bear the faintest resemblance to the Baby Boomers I know. In fact, we seem to be a lot more gruntled than the younger generation with their opioid prescriptions, caffeine addictions, and social media distractions. More often than not when I try to book my friends, they’re already engaged mentoring a high school student, attending a board meeting, planning a gala, playing bridge, swimming 20 laps, or marching for the greater good. I don’t know when they sleep.

Whereas Buddha used to be the symbol of what senior citizens aspired to, now it’s the Mexican jumping bean. Catching Tony Bennett at the MGM Grand was considered strenuous enough for people our age, but now we’re expected to hike down the Grand Canyon, sign up for an archeological dig in the Sahara, or jump out of a plane like George Bush, Sr. if we are to be “relevant.” According to the self-appointed aging gurus, if we aren’t constantly in motion or feeling some vague dissatisfaction with our lives that only Getting Out There will cure, we’re missing out. To all of which I say, “Whoa!”

Now, perpetual motion may be fine for some Boomers, but what of the rest of us who would prefer to stop and smell the roses? Why must we be sucked into competitive aging? Advice givers be damned, I’m all for life in the slow lane. If you are, too, say it loud and say it proud! In fact, it’s a crying shame that rocking chairs have gone the way of the dodo bird because I could really do with a good rock right now. And as for that afternoon nap . . .