Have you noticed that some of your friends are less bold than they used to be? The older people get, the more things they seem to be afraid of. Some people are afraid of aging, but many more people exhibit what I call the “Aging of Fear.” Wise people tell us that fear is natural and healthy, but it can also be unnatural and unhealthy. The healthiness of fear depends on two things.
First, how realistic are your fears? The reality of fear can be thought of as a form of risk analysis. We all conduct our lives with an intuitive analysis of the risks that our behaviors either entail or might entail. Frequently, these risks are distorted by emotions and perceptions. If I live in Wisconsin, I should be more worried about bee stings or a tick bite than a shark attack or a tiger eating me. It would be unrealistic to worry about things that are less likely to happen. Surprisingly, many people are more afraid of things that have a low-risk potential than things that have a higher risk potential. (What’s the Risk?)
Second, what are you going to do about your fears? Fear is an adaptive mechanism. It helps to keep you alive. If you are in the woods and walking down a trail and see a large bear or cougar coming towards you, it is quite healthy to have some degree of fear. But fear alone is not going to save your life. If you are paralyzed with fear you may just be eaten. Fear is an alarm. An alarm sounds to wake us up. The next step is to do something. Doing something is a risky effort with no guarantee of success. Sadly, there are few guaranties in life, but the evidence seems to suggest that doing nothing is worse than doing something. This is where forethought and preparedness come in. One of my favorite quotes is by the Roman philosopher Seneca (died 65 CE) who once said that “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
People who think ahead and try to identify potential negative consequences of their actions have a better chance of survival than people who do not plan ahead. The Titanic is a great example of poor planning brought on by hubris. They were so confident that the spotter in the Crows Nest did not even have a pair of binoculars. In chess, a good player looks at lines of play to see what might happen given any particular move on their part. Strategic thinking entails looking into the future to see how our behaviors or actions will play out. If I do this, what might happen? The more we look into the future the greater the odds become in our favor for getting the results we want. It is of course impossible to identify every conceivable consequence either intended or not of our actions. Life is frequently about dealing with unintended consequences but there is little doubt that the Boy Scout motto of “Be Prepared” has a lot going for it.
The “Aging of Fear” is what I see in so many people who grow more and more afraid of life with each passing day. I have friends who will not travel anymore. Some of my friends are afraid to travel by plane. Some have purchased concealed carry permits to protect themselves against an unknown assailant. Every day more and more people in America seem afraid of something. There are efforts to protect ourselves as we get older that make sense. I have given up motorcycling. Most of the people I used to ride with have also given the hobby up. Falling off a motorcycle at the age of 75 or older will likely bring many more injuries to the human body than falling off the same motorcycle at the age of 25. Anybody over sixty getting up on a roof in winter needs to have their head examined. Older bodies are not as resilient as younger bodies.
Knowing when to hold them and when to fold them is one of the secrets of growing older gracefully and living a long and healthy life. But planning for unintended consequences is equally as important. There is a balance here that we need to find, adjust, and continually readjust as we get older. It is a not a static effort that you do today and that is the end of it. Each day requires rethinking and readjusting what we can do and what we should do. The conscious reflective activity is crucial. Without an intelligent appraisal of life, fear can put us in an early coffin.
The coffin might be our bed or our home or our neighborhood. A coffin is a metaphor for a set of boundaries. The realism of our boundaries is vital. Too many boundaries and we are not living but too few and our lives can be cut short much sooner than then they need to be. One of my favorite motorcycle aphorisms was “If I ride like there is no tomorrow, there won’t be.” I would tell myself this each time I got in the saddle of my Yamaha Super Sport R1 and went for a ride.
Dylan Thomas said, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” I don’t know about the raging part of his poem. I prefer thinking about my life as I get older and not raging. But he makes a good point. It is all too easy to give up on life as we age. We can live in memories of what we used to do, or we can find new activities and new levels to pursue old activities at. For instance, I may not have the stamina to play tennis or racquet ball anymore, but I can still play pickleball or go for a short ride on my bicycle. I used to do six-minute miles in road races. My personal best was 38.48 on a 10K. The race I ran for Frederic Family days this year on June 12, 2021, I averaged 10.14 per mile for a 5k. Quite a bit off of my pace from years ago but I still got my t-shirt. I run for t-shirts these days and not trophies.
To conclude. Don’t let aging or fear rob you of living. Well thought out days with lots of contingency plans can help you to continue to live a full and happy life. Look around you for the 80, 90 and even 100-year-old elders who are still out there enjoying life. What keeps them ticking is not giving up but meeting each day as a challenge to live life to the fullest.
Aging Capriciously 