Find your passion and you’ll find your fountain of youth – Dale Peacock

For some, old is the new young and passion is its driver

I’ve been meeting a lot of interesting older people lately. I’m not even sure what older means except that it is always some years in advance of where I happen to be at the time.

I spent time with a remarkable 90-year-old woman and my daughter-in-law a week ago and although we spanned three generations, it was like being with peers. It helped that we are all liberal thinkers and more than willing to offer an opinion but a sort of timeless quality crept into the afternoon. If someone had heard us talking but couldn’t see us, I think they would have assumed that we were all around the same age.

If I’ve learned anything through these encounters with the exceptional elderly it is that we need to toss out many of our persistent beliefs surrounding growing old. It’s not about denying the fact of aging although baby boomers do seem to be attempting it. All we need to do is attend a concert by one of the many rock icons of our youth. It’s energizing and wildly exciting to see Springsteen, at 65-plus, blaze through ‘Crush on You’ or 69-year-old Steve Tyler’s distinctive rasp on ‘Helter Skelter’, to think that maybe we’ve still got it too.

In a way I do think that the rock gods have the road to the fountain of youth figured out and it’s not young wives or sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It’s about having an overwhelming conviction for something.

I’ve been chatting with seniors with a passion for art, a passion for music, a passion for the environment, a passion for volunteering and a passion for learning; they are so vital and alive. I’m not talking about appearance either. I’ve seen lots of passionate people who look every one of their 80 or 90 years and others who seem to have found the fountain of youthful appearance. And while good health is a huge bonus, I’ve met seniors in wheelchairs and retirement facilities who are still consumed by interests other than themselves.

The thing that drives you doesn’t seem to be a nice, low-key kind of interest. Passion is an emotion to be acted upon. It is the fuel of the fire of action and that’s what these people all have in common. They do. They act. They live.

Statistics Canada reported that, for the first time ever, the number of older adults in Canada exceeded the number of youth. The 2016 census counted 5.9 million adults over 65 years of age and 5.8 million youth under 15. Even more startling, the 2016 census reported a 42 per cent increase from the 2011 census in the number of centenarians – people 100 or older, numbering 8,230 in Canada.

We are living longer but only some of us are living well. Boomers especially like to think we are different than any senior who has gone before us and there is some research to back that up. Older adults are becoming more active, often part of an older ‘sandwich generation’ who are supporting both aged parents and adult children and their families, and sharing their life experiences with their communities through volunteering and making significant donations to causes that they care about. Environics Analytics report that baby boomers (50 to 69 age range) control the bulk of the nation’s wealth and spend 66 per cent more on goods and services than millennials do.

People of my boomer generation thought of those who were the age I am now as old. Period. We just lumped anyone over 50 in the same basket and kind of wrote them off. That attitude is reflected in the phrases of our youth: Hope I Die Before I Get Old and Don’t Trust Anyone Over 30. But now that we are older we will not be dismissed so easily.

Anyone in the senior range that lacks passion or just hasn’t found it yet has plenty of opportunity to develop it. We aren’t a one-size-fits-all group.

If we chase a few diverse interests we might find a passion in a new late-stage career or by mentoring young people or actively volunteering for a cause. If your kids are doing well, you might launch a foundation to preserve the whales or the wolves or planet earth. Or maybe you just take up the oboe or learn a new language or start weight-lifting or running triathlons.

There is no right way to be old. But with more than half of their lives behind them the people I’ve been meeting seem to have found a way to ‘live their best life’ in their 60s, 70s, 80s and well into their 90s.

Just look at David Suzuki, Hazel McCallion or Betty White. They used to be exceptions but there are lots of people in our own community who have figured out that following their passion is the route to the modern day fountain of youth.

So … live boldly and blossom. The flower of your youth may be gone but if you haven’t been metaphorically dead-headed yet you still have time.

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Following a career in the hospitality sector and the acquisition of a law and justice degree in her 50s, Dale embarked on a writing career armed with the fanciful idea that a living could be made as a freelancer. To her own great surprise she was right. The proof lies in hundreds of published works on almost any topic but favourites include travel, humour & satire, feature writing, environment, politics and entrepreneurship. Having re-invented herself half a dozen times, Dale doesn’t rule anything out. Her time is divided equally between Muskoka and Tampa Bay with Jim, her husband of 8 years and partner of 32 years. Two grown ‘kids’ and their spouses receive double doses of love and attention when she’s at home.