In growing older, continuity with past performance standards, even one’s own, is difficult to keep up. In futile attempts to be just as before, older age groups feel compelled to chase the chimera of youth.
The transition to middle adulthood actually begins in the early to mid-forties. The change in era, beginning around age 40 through 65, culminates in ‘senior citizenship’ of their organization, community and society. Elders need to take stock of their self as transitioning in time, and change habits and perspectives in synchrony with their life change.
Studies on ageing have indicated some important correlations:
- Changes in the individual’s activities link to predictable changes in affect. As the number of activities and ability decrease, the negative affect increases. Positive affect becomes higher with increase in activity frequency, ability, ease and future intentions.
- The older the age group, the higher the expectation of happiness and lower the threshold of negative affect and despair with feared outcomes.
- Engaging in “hope-related activities” generates increased positive affect and a higher probability of survival measured over 10-year period.
People tend to overlook the fact that biochemical and metabolic changes occur in the body approaching older age that disprove claims of continuing to be “the same person” over time. With this mindset, habits acquired over years resist change.
Their persisting with past practices in life and work does not repeat earlier successes. Hence, thwarted expectations and ineffective adaptability fuel cycles of negativity and de-motivation. The frustration anger associated with elders is the outcome of the inability to anticipate the onset of ageing, or personally come to terms with its effects.
In issues of health for example, the results of years of neglect begin to show. The body loses its elasticity and energy production is impaired with the decline in the activity of body’s energy-producing “powerhouse”, the cellular mitochondria.
A study conducted to discover the effects of exercise in advancing age obtained dramatic results.
…exercise [in the elderly] resulted in a remarkable reversal of the genetic fingerprint back to levels similar to those seen in the younger adults.
Science Daily reported conclusions by Melov and Tarnopolsky, the scientists who conducted the study at the McMaster University Medical Center in Hamilton, Canada, that exercise (or the lack of it) directly influences the aging process:
The fact that their 'genetic fingerprints' so dramatically reversed course gives credence to the value of exercise, not only as a means of improving health, but of reversing the aging process itself, which is an additional incentive to exercise as you get older.
Yet surveys, conducted on national scale in the US indicate that only about one-third of the elderly exercise regularly. This is less than any other age group, although the benefits of exercise up the age ladder are clearly immense.
Ageing involves passage from one stage of life into another. There is a new reality to adapt to on physical, mental and emotional planes. As in the other developmental phases of the lifespan, the transition can be turbulent. From the developmental viewpoint however, the middle-adult years are the times for consolidation of interests, goals and commitments.
Author Empfield writes about the positive side to ageing, from the viewpoint of a professional sportsperson:
My endurance capacity hasn't markedly fallen off. I've got more patience and wisdom to leverage across training and racing. Most of all, I've got an accumulation of technical and motor expertise that I didn't have as a younger man.
In the t20 cricket league, IPL 3 currently underway in India, for example, players of the old school, regarded as legends of the game, show the way to the youngsters struggling to find their feet in international company. Within the teams that have clicked together, age is not perceived as a barrier across different cultures, origins and nationalities.
The acceptance of this new stage and structure of life enables a new level of stability. Ageing should lead to active changes in roles, like moving from being solely specialist to being a wider-spanned generalist. The older age groups can become strong, motivational forces guiding and nurturing the development of younger, less experienced co-workers, conceptualizing and designing efficient policy, providing thought leadership, i.e., giving direction and sagacious counsel to channelize group efforts.
During this later period in lifespan, qualities such as wisdom, breadth of perspective, judiciousness and compassion also emerge. These are the strengths of age, and the ingredients of effective, fulfilling mentorship that ageing individuals need to prepare for.
Giving back to society the nurturance they may (or even may not) have received in earlier years win them a place in the future as respected role models for the next generation of adults. For the process of self-renewal in the new avatar to be effective, there is need to widen horizon and think outside the box. Expending creative energy in new directions generates wellbeing not only for themselves, but also for the society at large.
Maturity in ageing is to discover the self in others. The change includes taking on greater responsibility for work processes. The conceptual expertise that evolves from experience and knowledge now focuses on mentoring collective performance. The continuity sought in standards is forged across generations, like a bridge that connects the past and the future.
This requires as much objective planning and dedication as might any organizational venture, with implementations in a slow, cautious, and graded fashion. In the critical aspects of ageing performance, self-directed motivation is key. The step-by-step approach to attaining new goal sets would include at each point, the systematic discarding of old, dysfunctional habits or ways of behaving, along with learning and inculcating more effective replacements.
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