Tips for Preparing for Being Old
I originally wrote this article on June 26, 2014.
I work part-time in a nursing home. From observing families at my job, having interacted with and observed my ex-parents-in-law and their adult children, noticing areas that could easily be improved with awareness, plus getting my own life in order, I have come up with suggestions for making life smoother for yourself and your family—benefiting everyone involved right now and later.
Stuff
Get rid of your a lot of your stuff before you get too old to make your own decisions about it. Find pleasure in not having stuff surrounding you, smothering you, and serving as an illusion of your security and identity. Don’t have a bunch of stuff for your family or Power of Attorney to have to deal with, haul around, and then decide what to do with it. Focus on having healthy, enjoyable relationships with the people you love; and let that be your legacy, not your stuff.
Secrets
If you have secrets or very personal things you don’t want on display for the world when you pass away, I suggest having a sort of good-bye, letting-go ceremony with yourself in front of a bonfire. Burn your private journals, love letters, hate letters. Delete emails and texts. Release it all and feel good about the emotional and fresh space you’ve created.
Legacy
If you’re saving certain items for people to have after you die, why not just give the items to them now? Make sure they actually want the items first, and certainly don’t guilt them into it. Remember that something which is sentimental or valuable to you isn’t sentimental or valuable to everyone. Keeping a thing doesn’t keep the person around; the person being around, or your memory of them being around, keeps them alive.
Storing Others’ Stuff
If you’re storing other peoples’ things in your home, those things have got to go too. Let the respective parties know they have x number of days to pick up their stuff. If they don’t remove the items after a reminder notice, call a non-profit to pick up the items; and recycle and trash the unusable items.
Junk Mail and Subscriptions
Remove yourself from all junk-mail lists and cancel any magazine and newspaper subscriptions–the ones which you don’t finish reading and recycling prior to the next one coming to your door. Don’t worry about missing out on saving 49 cents on an item; coupons can be time, space and energy suckers and absolutely not worth saving 49 cents, or a dollar, or sometimes even ten dollars—your peace is priceless.
Finances
Get your finances and bills in order, in one convenient spot, with an easy and traceable system. Know where your money comes from and where it goes. Pay off your debt. Spend less as a way to enjoy more (by the way, no sacrificing or playing-the-victim about money is allowed). Do automatic bill-pay where ever you can. Make a list of all your bills and insurance, account numbers and contact information. I keep a spreadsheet list of all my bills and expenses, and annotate when a bill has been paid and the date paid. Only keep hard-copies of receipts, pay stubs, and W-2s for tax purposes and only for the required length-of-time. Don’t leave a huge mess for others to have to sort through and figure out.
Will and Power of Attorney
Get a will written for peace-of-mind. You can periodically edit it as needed. Here’s an easy-to-use free will-generator site; if anything, you can just see what information is in a will and then type up your own. Also, add information about what you want for your funeral arrangements, if anything; remember that the funeral or memorial is for the living people who want to mourn their loss and celebrate your life. Communicate plans with loved ones and eliminate financial or emotional strain pertaining to your service or burial. Think about who you will want to act as your Power of Attorney. Don’t select someone based on not wanting to offend anyone; select someone based on how responsible they are with their own life and finances as well as their sensitivity to you and your needs. Also, think about who you want to decide if you should live or die.
Photos and Paperwork
Gather all your photos and store them in one place. Let interested parties know where the photos are in case they want to see them. Perhaps set up a viewing table next to a bookshelf where you can put your photos. Also, include on the table pens and permanent markers so viewers can annotate any information they recall on the back of the photos. Create a photo album with the most-current photos of the people who matter to you.
Purge unnecessary paperwork. Store necessary paperwork in hanging files in a small file cabinet or bin. Let the people you trust know where the paperwork is and explain why you need each of the files.
Scan all your important documents and photos and store on external hard drives. Be sure to physically label the hard drives, and store in a safe and dry space. Update: I’ve changed my thoughts on scanning items; unless you have ways to encrypt your information and securely store it, I would no longer recommend digital storage.
To-Do Lists
Start to take action each day to knock off items on your to-do list. One of the actions can be to delete items on your to-do list! With practice, you’ll begin to see that not everything on your to-list is really necessary. Make a game out of trying to have the shortest to-do list you’ve ever had.
Dump the Bucket (List)
I don’t believe in Bucket Lists. Live in the moment, nurture yourself and whoever or whatever is in front of you. Life is now. Life isn’t a to-do list of things to get over with. This is it. Embrace the belief that right now is all we have. Yes, you can still go to Bali or Machu Picchu or Vegas in the future. But you don’t need a list to continuously remind you of what you haven’t done and to distract you from where you are right now. If anything, make a dream board full of images and key words and phrases which inspire you; just looking at your dream board will generate the feeling of possibility and you can start to identify how your current life is matching up to what is possible.
Cleaning Up Relationships: with Yourself and Others
Do you have regrets about anything? Are you holding grudges and resentments that feel crappy? Have you held back what you need to say? Are you being controlling with anyone in your life? Do you speak without consciously thinking? Do you blame others for that which is your own responsibility? Do you mentally or physically abuse anyone (or at least have been told you do)? Do you drown yourself in guilt, obligations, restrictions, rules, fear, self-loathing, body-loathing, or people-pleasing? Clear these things up right now. When you’re old, these things will come back to haunt you; and you won’t necessarily have the zest and language to clear them up then. Plus, you don’t want to spend another minute of your precious life in resistance. I’m not talking about confessionals and beating yourself up; I’m talking about creating freedom where there currently isn’t any. Learn to live consciously and love yourself unconditionally.
Healing Your Parent-Child Relationships
Address your relationships with your children now. Are you manipulating, controlling or interfering with them? Do you expect them to coddle you and feel sorry for you? Do you let them walk all over you? Do they expect you to appease or still parent them? These issues need to be addressed as soon as possible. Get whatever help you need in order to tap into why you created these type of relationships and how you can heal your deep-rooted pain in order to respect yourself and respect your children as competent, capable, free, and separate-entity adults. Create brand-new healthy relationships with your children before you are old.
Creating Simplicity in Relationships
Create simple, drama-free relationships with your loved ones, where just being together is enjoyable. Learn to be affectionate so holding hands or an embrace feels natural. Be approachable and make it easy for the people you love to express themselves and to be themselves with you.
Stay Curious
Don’t stay in a growth rut. Keep learning about yourself, be curious, plan to be surprised. Being curious about ourselves can bring us back home, the home within ourselves, and can keep us from being needy. There’s a difference between truly needing help and being high-maintenance needy.
Briefing Loved Ones about Aging
Start a dialog with your children about the end chapters of life. Tell them that when you’re old or on your death bed, you might not want to or be able to speak much at all, and might even seem like a different person. Remind that your spirit will still be alive regardless of your condition; so speak to your spirit rather than just your body. Just being present with them, being read to, listening to calming or memorable music together, touching their hands, having your face touched, or your head rubbed might be all that will be needed express and share love and appreciation with each other.
Elders in Traditional Cultures
Study traditional cultures and the roles their elders played in their community. For example, many elders were a contribution to, and honored by, their tribe: they spent their waking hours among their people, watching, telling stories, and mentoring the young. Think of ways to begin to foster similar-type settings for yourself—such as finding a multi-generational community-friendly living environment instead of only hanging out with people your own age who will also be old the same time as you will.
Mentoring
Be a mentor. Start building a new community of people who find great value in knowing and learning from you. All of us have something to joyfully offer another. These will be the people who will want to invest their time in you when you can no longer go to them. The experience of being-a-contribution makes us feel alive!
Cell Phone and Address Book Use
Get set up with a decent cell phone and inexpensive cell phone plan. Learn how to work the address book; make sure you have everyone you care about in your address book/contacts. That way, you’ll be able to reach people from all over the world with ease in your old age. Note that I recommend using a corded land-line as much as possible for your health. So, also keep a legible address book near your main phone; also put a copy of your address book in your hanging files.
Listen to Your Body
Pay attention to your body, its cues and its needs. Notice when you need fuel (low energy, irritability, hunger) and eat. Rest when you’re tired. Move when your body tells you to move. If you feel pain or exhaustion, take heed; and address and heal underlying emotional causes now. Appreciate and speak kindly to your body.
Exercise
If you aren’t already walking every day, start. As long as your body holds out, you can walk your whole life. Start walking while it’s still relatively easy so you can build up muscle and endurance now—which will help you later. The same goes for stretching; being agile and flexible is so important as we age. Squat instead of bending over whenever you think of it. Simple yoga poses and tai chi might be good options. Strength-training is great for keeping your bones supported; get a consultation with a personal trainer to learn how to use weights and equipment (you can apply the instructions to using every-day household items as weights—plus your own body and gravity).
Alternative Transportation
Get used to getting to places on foot, bike or transit. Get some items delivered, if you can, for minimal or no fees. Don’t make your driving a car your only source of independence and pride. Make peace with the fact that eventually you could be a hazard to yourself and others if you try to drive when you’re old.
Simple and Lively Interests
Find other interests besides watching TV. Find joy in simplicity, nature, stillness. Even people-watching, with its sporadic interactions, can bring joy and make you feel more alive than watching a box with massive visual and audio stimulation (this is especially noticeable when you’ve lived without a TV for a while).
Handwork Hobbies
Handwork provides movement for your hands, hand-eye-coordination, and simple entertainment. See if you can find one handwork hobby to learn which you could bring into old age and still continue it as long as your hands are able to work. Examples: knitting or crocheting or hand-stitching, painting, assembling kits, making rope knots, tying flies for fly fishing, creating clay sculptures and pottery, gardening and pruning.
Easy-Living Home
Well-before getting around your own home starts to become more challenging, start making plans for living in a home and lifestyle that works for you and your aging body. Some examples are opting for one-level living, outsourcing yard work, renting instead of owning so you don’t have to tend to and pay for every little thing that needs fixing, moving to a warmer and/or dryer climate, live where you have plenty of close-by activities and shopping which you can get to on foot, bike or mass transit.
Spiritual and Emotional Well-Being
While, in your older years, you might lose some of your physical freedom, you will still have free thoughts, feelings and spirit. Begin to nurture your spirit now. Embrace your emotions now; honor your emotional life now. These are the only areas you’ll be able to bring with you where ever you go, at whatever age you are.
Take care of yourself and your life starting today.
Warmly,