Live Long, Die Short (38 page)

Let’s say you have a family history of heart disease but no evidence that you have it. You don’t smoke, you keep fit and lean, and you get your lipids and blood pressure checked regularly. This is
primary
prevention. You get
some chest pain. You undergo an exercise-tolerance test and perhaps a cardiac catheterization and some X-ray studies. They find some early athero-sclerotic heart disease. They insert a stint and prescribe some medication, exercise, and diet. This is
secondary
prevention. You have a heart attack and some of your heart muscle dies and you begin to get short of breath. They take care of the fluid backup, give you oxygen, and insert a pacemaker and prescribe cardiac rehabilitation exercises. This is
tertiary
prevention.

So, I’ll say it once again, for it is critically important to understand. Aging successfully is about avoiding or preventing occurrence of a disease or condition whenever possible,
or
identifying it early to prevent it from taking hold,
or
, if it does become established, limiting its negative effects. Beating yourself up about the fact that you do have the condition is useless, destructive garbage.

Even death is not failing. We’re all going to die. There is nothing we can do that will change that. But
how
we die—now there is something we can do something about. When? Maybe we can have an effect. But how? That
is
something we have a say in. For most of us, what our last days, weeks, even years are like can definitely be influenced by our actions, our attitude, our lifestyle. As my leaf metaphor and the title of this book suggest, we can do something about whether we end our days in a long, drawn-out, expensive, physically and emotionally painful and degrading process, or whether we minimize the time we are impaired. How we live our lives now has a very high probability of influencing the overall quality of our final curtain call.

And as you move toward authentic health and successful aging, you will be part of a changing world: a world awakening to the possibility that aging is a privilege; that the current story of aging is one-dimensional, negatively deterministic, and wrong; that an aging population offers not only problems but solutions to the challenges of a quickly evolving society.

Live Long, Die Short
is a call to action. Each of us, the organizations we belong to, the towns and cities we live in, and the societies that we have built—none of us can ignore the fact that we are aging, that usual aging isn’t good enough anymore, and that much more is now possible. This not only calls for us to acknowledge this new reality but also presents us with a moral imperative: We must fundamentally shift the paradigm that marginalizes our older adults, that sees older adults as “accounts payable,” and that
takes a paternalistic view of the old. This paradigm shift will, as they say, “rock our world,” as well it should. We must advocate for a public policy that acknowledges the potential of older adults not only to grow but also to become the solutions to many of our seemingly unsolvable challenges.

Together we
must
act. For each of us. For our grandchildren. For our community. For our world. For a world where aging is a revered part of our life’s journey. And now that we know it’s possible, don’t we all have a responsibility to bring it to reality? We in Masterpiece Living are committed to bringing a culture of growth and successful aging not only to retirement communities but also to all living in their homes in towns and cities throughout this country and beyond. When you succeed in your life, when others succeed, when organizations succeed, when towns and cities succeed, it becomes a movement, paving the way for changes in public policy that will make aging a journey of wonder, adventure, and continued growth, policy that will make aging as colorful as New England fall leaves, where everyone has the possibility of living long and dying short.

APPENDIX

MASTERPIECE LIVING PARTNERS

I would like to express my deep appreciation to these partners in the Masterpiece Living Network for their total dedication to improving the lives of older adults everywhere. The following are senior living systems and communities who have partnered with Masterpiece Living to become places where older adults can age more successfully.

Introduction

1.
 John Wallace Rowe and Robert L. Kahn,
Successful Aging
(New York: Dell, 1998), 38.

Part I Introduction

1.
 Merriam-Webster online, s.v. “authentic,”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/authentic
.

Chapter 1

1.
 René Dubois, introduction to Norman Cousins,
Anatomy of an Illness
(New York: Bantam Books, 1981).

2.
 Jon Kabat-Zinn, address to Cape Cod Community College, August 2, 2012.

3.
 BrainyQuote,
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ quotes/j/joandving224859.html
.

4.
 Jared Diamond,
The World Until Yesterday
(New York: Viking Penguin, 2012.)

5.
 Robert Wright,
The Moral Animal
(New York: Vintage, 1994).

6.
 David Brody,
The Other Side of Eden
(New York: Faber & Faber, 2001).

7.
 Marjorie Shostak,
Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).

8.
 Simone de Beauvoir,
The Coming of Age
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1970).

9.
 
PBS.org
,
American Experience: The Richest Man in the World: Andrew Carnegie,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/ carnegie/sfeature/mf_steelworker.html
.

10.
 Liam J. Donaldson and Raymond J. Donaldson,
Esssential Public Health
(London: Radcliffe, 2005), 105.

11.
 Wright,
Moral Animal.

12.
 Paola Scommegna, “U.S. Growing Bigger, Older, and More Diverse,” April 2004,
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2004/ USGrowingBiggerOlderandMoreDiverse.aspx
.

13.
 Ken Dychtwald,
Age Wave
(New York: Bantam, 1990).

14.
 Ken Dychtwald,
Age Power
(New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher / Putnam, 1999), front cover.

15.
 Dychtwald,
Age Power.

Chapter 2

1.
 Robert Butler,
Why Survive? Being Old in America
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975).

2.
 James Freis, keynote address to the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, October 1982.

3.
 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Death and Mortality,”
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ fastats/deaths.htm
.

4.
 Dan Buettner, “The Secrets of Longevity,”
National Geographic,
November 2005; Buettner,
The Blue Zones
(Washington, DC: The National Geographic Society, 2008).

5.
 Buettner,
Blue Zones.

Chapter 3

1.
 Thomas Perls and Paola Sebastiani, “The Genetics of Extreme Longevity: Lessons from the New England Centenarian Study,”
Frontiers in Genetics
3, article 277, November 2012.

2.
 James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente,
The Transtheoretical Approach: Crossing the Traditional Boundaries of Therapy
(Melbourne, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company, 1994).

3.
 Robert Maurer,
One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
(New York: Workman, 2004).

4.
 Maurer,
One Small Step.

5.
 Ian Robertson,
Mind Sculpture: Unlocking Your Brain’s Untapped Potential
(New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 2001).

6.
 Maurer,
One Small Step.

Tip 1

1.
 Joan Vernikos,
The G-Connection
(Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2004), 57.

2.
 Y. Nigam, J. Knight, and A. Jones, “Effects of Bedrest 3: Musculoskeletal and Immune Systems, Skin and Self-perception,”
Nursing Times
105: 18–22, 2009.

3.
 D.L. Waters, R.N. Baumgartner, and P.J. Garry, “Sarcopenia: Current Perspectives,”
The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging
4 (3): 133-139, 2000.

4.
 Frank W. Booth and Manu V. Chakravarthy, “Cost and Consequences of Sedentary Living: New Battleground For an Old Enemy,” President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports’s
Research Digest,
series 3, no. 16, March 2002.