Proactive Aging – it’s in the soul

 

 

Recently I took a trip to Nashville and Memphis. This part of the country is the heart and the soul of the American music scene. The blues, rock and roll and country music all sprung out of the south. I did the tourist things visiting all the great music museums, as well as Sun Studios where the first blues song was recorded and rock roll was born.

One of the great blues singers was Muddy Waters. As soon as I heard his name I flashed back to my younger days when my ex-husband and I and a group of friends spent hours listening to Muddy Water and the Blues. I suddenly felt very young, hip and in the groove.

I looked around the room and noticed that most of the people on this tour were over the age of fifty. Everyone was nodding and swinging to the small excerpts of music our guide was playing as he told us the history of southern music. We were all flashing back in time.

After this we went to BB Kings bar in downtown Memphis. Memphis Jones was playing that night. He took us on a ride through time playing songs from all the great legends of Memphis blues and rock and roll. Again I looked around. The bar and the dance floor were full of people just like me, fifty and older.

On the dance floor I watched a couple do the jitter bug. They were really good. You could tell they had been doing this for a long time together. The whole place was alive with youthful energy, Good music does something to your soul that electrifies the mind and makes the body get up and dance.

For a short time we all forgot about our arthritis, our aging bodies and tired souls and began to dance, sing and applaud.   Music has a way of making time stand still and agelessness a reality. It’s in the soul!

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com

http://www.facebook.com/DrLynnAnderson

Gum on My Shoe - Proactive Aging

 

 

 

I left the gym today and stepped into hot melted gum that had been spit out and left stuck to the parking, lot.  How rude, I thought, that someone would spit out their gum. The pavement was hot so the gum stuck all gooey mixed with bits of dirt to the tread of my shoe, immediately I thought of Singapore where it is a crime to chew and spit gum in pubic. It should be a crime here in the US, I thought to myself.

Imagine if it was against the law to chew and spit in public. The chewers of the world would proclaim their right to chew. I would proclaim my right to not have the ground polluted with their gooey mess and to keep my shoes from sticking to the carpet of my car.

 Now I had to go home and dig the gum off my shoe. This is an imposition.  But what does this have to do with proactive ageing?

The older I get the more I am aware of how our behaviors and habits can negatively impact others. I think about respect and kindness. I don’t consider the pavement to be my right, but the right of everyone to be able to walk without having your foot stuck to the cement by someone else’s chewed and spat out gum.  Not 3 feet from the place where I contracted the gum was a trash can. Couldn’t the gum chewer at least spat the gum in the trash?

I take the attitude that every little bit that we all do to make the world a little cleaner and l a little better for everyone is a good thing. But some people take the attitude that, well the worlds a mess; I might just as well contribute to it. That seems immature to me.

This is not the first time I have had gum on my shoe and probably won’t be the last. Proactive aging means tolerance, acceptance and respect.  It also means I would like to take this gum chewer and stick hot gooey gum to the soles of his or her shoes and smile as they clean up a gooey unsanitary mess left by someone else.

Proactive aging also means speaking up when something is harmful, disrespectful and downright rude. So to all you gum chewers; it’s damn rude to chew and spit. You’re polluting the environment and you are disrespecting others. If you must chew think and chew at the same time. Swallow your gum and clog your own internal system or simply find a trash can and If you need to spit- spit in the can!

Thank You!

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com