Conscious Aging vs Positive Aging

Which camp are you in – conscious aging or positive aging? My sense is that we are more drawn to one than the other. This is a great topic of discussion for us Boomers in particular, as these two philosophies of life: consciousness and positivity were expanded during our generation.

My impression is that people perceive conscious aging at one end of the aging spectrum and positive aging at the other end. For some, conscious aging seems more serious, internal, quiet and difficult in the process of engaging with the aging process. Positive Aging, on the other hand, is seen as more fun, easy and lively in the pursuit of staying upbeat about the aging process. I present to you my own views and challenge you to see, after reading this article, whether you have changed your viewpoint and position about conscious aging vs. positive aging?

Positive Aging

I’ll start with how positive aging is, in part, the culmination of the 50-year positive thinking movement. Being positive became the New Age mantra of the Boomer Generation. We saw the road of positive thinking as the way to achieve happiness {think The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale).

The premise of positive thinking is that thinking positive will clear the negativity in our life, wherever this might be: relationships, work, finances, what we want in our life. When we start having negative thoughts, we refocus on creating positive ones. As long as we believe we can do it, we will succeed and be happy. We then need to stay focused on what we want and do whatever it takes to achieve it.

This theme continued to develop and reached its apex with the book The Secret in 2006, where the concept of the Law of Attraction stated we will get literally anything we want by just aligning our intention to get it, whether it is a car, house, job or a relationship. Its philosophy is that like attracts like and therefore if we think negatively, we attract negativity as well as the reverse is true.

I am by no means saying that there isn’t some truth here. However, some of us believe that by being positive and aligning our intention to get what we want, we will always get it and without any struggle. If we struggle, this means we just didn’t think positively enough, or our intention is misaligned, or this is just not in alignment with where we should be.

How has our view of positive thinking influenced our relationship to aging? It is not surprising that as the boomers aged, we wanted to continue to feel positive about our own aging although many of us saw aging as something very negative: our body falls apart, we lose our mind, and we land up in a nursing home in a wheelchair staring at the walls. I may be exaggerating somewhat but the fear of aging has been palpable. The solution has been to focus on being positive about aging by remaining youthful. The attention moved to buying the anti-ageing products, removing anyone looking old from commercials, movies, and magazines. Normal-looking old people disappeared.

In its place, the old person now looks slim, young, energetic, smart, productive, with white hair. We will take all the recommended supplements, eat well and exercise to keep our body youthful. This also includes undertaking any activity that will keep the mind youthfully sharp. The most common comment I’ve heard about people over 60 is: you’re only as old as you feel, age is just a number, you don’t look your age and I feel the same as I did when I was 16 years old.

Those in this camp may say: what is wrong with that? I do not want to feel or look old! It’s depressing! I have not heard anyone…and I have been observing this for over 10 years…who is looking forward to being old and definitely not seeing looking old as something beautiful, something to look forward to. I beg to differ.

Old is incredibly beautiful. Some have beautiful old bodies and those who don’t, many are very beautiful on the inside! If we stopped for a minute and looked at old friends, old faces, heritage buildings, our ancestors, we may notice they have an inner beauty and depth that is not present in what is young and new. Because we don’t see the beauty in being old, we do not see it as positive and therefore we must change old into something more appealing, more positive, by remaining youthful while aging.

In case you think I’m exaggerating, I looked at the best-selling books on aging and these are some of the titles: The Longevity Paradox – How to Die Young at a Ripe Old Age; Young Forever; Lifespan – Why we Age and Why We Don’t Have to; Younger Next Year – Live Strong, Fit, Sexy and Beyond; Super Ager: You can Look Younger, Have Energy, Better Memory. These titles do seem to demonstrate how being young is key to becoming old, like old is not an option, it’s too negative.  I am not saying we shouldn’t strive to stay healthy in mind and body. However, doing what it takes to be a healthy aging person is very different from doing what it takes to be a young aging one.

Conscious Aging

Conscious awareness on the other hand, became popular in the 1970’s with Ram Dass and many others like him who brought the Eastern philosophy of mindfulness to the West.  Mindfulness is a means of seeing how we live our life through introspection, observing our thoughts and transcending them. The intent is to fully experience life – by being conscious/present to whatever life brings us; the good, the bad and the ugly. Regarding conscious aging, Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, one of the founding fathers of Sage-ing International, was a pioneer in conscious aging. He wrote a seminal book called From Age-ing To Sage-ing” A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older. After many years of grappling with aging himself, he modeled and explained the process of how to age consciously and become a conscious elder.

He, and many others, showed us a way to become more our authentic self and resilient in dealing with challenges we face with aging. As we are moving towards death, we look more consciously inward at what we need to clear up, need to resolve, what we wish to leave as a legacy as well as consciously look at what is left for us to live, experience and express as well as be of service as an elder.

Ram Dass also expressed in his book Still Here, what it means to live consciously in old age after a stroke left him partially paralyzed and speech impaired. He did the difficult inner work to reach the point where he accepted being incapacitated as well as dependent on others for his care. He was actually grateful that he had a stroke because of the deep transformation that occurred within him because of it.

What I have noticed is those who live a conscious, contemplative, authentic life, have a tendency to be more resilient, open, caring, humorous, with an inner light that shines through.

My own experience of ongoingly doing the inner work has helped me deal more effectively with the challenges of aging as well as see more clearly its unique beauty that is not present in youth. I am enjoying being old (I am 70) and looking forward to continuing the process of developing my inner elder.  And it is not always easy.

I would like to finish with this quote: “It is age that teaches us to enjoy life, to savor every moment of it, to spend our time on what counts, to be present where we are and to see it for the first time.” Joan Chittister

So, time to choose. Are you in the positive aging or conscious aging camp or where are you on that spectrum?  Something to ponder?

Questions and comments can be sent to sage-ingtimes@sage-ing.org