Four
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
—MARK TWAIN
Introduction
Growing Old Is a New Phenomenon
It may come as a surprise to many, but growing old is a relatively new phenomenon. We are living almost thirty years longer than the longevity numbers of just 100 years ago. People who lived only to age 49 or 50 died before their bodies experienced many of the marks of aging most of us face today, like hearing impairment, loss of mobility, and dementia.
For 99.9 percent of the time humans have inhabited the Earth, average life expectancy topped out at thirty to forty years. In 1900, the average life span in the United States was forty-seven years. Just over a century later, the average life span has skyrocketed to almost seventy-nine years. For older age groups, life spans are even longer. If you are 65, your life expectancy is eighty-four years.
A silver tsunami is sweeping America. More than 10,000 people per day in the United States are turning 65. The senior population—those 65 and older—is projected to reach 88.5 million by 2050. That is more than double the population of 39.6 million seniors in 2010. By 2050, at least 400,000 seniors will be 100 or older.1
Aging Occurs Throughout Our Lifetimes
Aging doesn’t just happen when we reach 65; it begins in our 20s. According to Robert Kail and John Cavanaugh, sensory abilities peak in your early 20s. Hearing begins to decline by your late 20s, while vision typically begins to deteriorate in middle age. The muscle strength in men and women peaks between 20 and 30, and resting metabolism, which accounts for a major part of daily energy consumption, peaks in early adulthood. According to Valerie Gladwell, your endurance peaks at age 22, while memory peaks at 28.2
Suffice it to say that we are physically and mentally deteriorating for the majority of our lifetimes. But for most of us, aging doesn’t begin to have a significant impact on the quality of our lives until after we pass 50.
Learning How to Age
Most of us begin life believing we are immortal and assuming that nothing bad will happen to us. As we grow old and encounter the physical and mental hallmarks of aging, the reality of our mortality and the concept of finality creeps into our thoughts. Time marches on; there is no slowing life.
Although
