Implying that at some certain age we have reached the peek of our usefulness and our lives are slowing or fast in some cases sliding down that slippery slope on our way to being helpless.

This is the picture depicted on party favors, cards, advertising and yes they even made a movie, “The Over The Hill Gang.” This starts about around age fifty, you know the jokes, the smiles and shaking of heads, the AARP cards arrive in the mail and you are given discounts at stores, restaurants . movies and perks for achieving such a great age. I do not find this in any way amusing, helpful, (except for the perks.) to be of value to anyone.

Our obsession with youth and all it’s glory is way over rated. I was unhappy, struggling, and climbing those hills and still climbing hills at age fifty seven. I used to use my body to do things that I learned along the way I could use my mind to archive in a way I never did in youth. My footing is surer and stronger than it was in my twenty’s thirty’s and yes even in my forties. I no longer keep doing the same things and expecting a different result of my actions. Nor do I see life as a point when we say all is done, all is finished, I have climbed that hill, nothing left to do but slide into old age and give it up. Why do we allow this? Some might say they find it funny, amusing and an endearment of projecting that someone over fifty is done.

This is done by our society, advertisers, movies, television and yes even we are guilty of doing it to ourselves. Why let others define who you are? Why let some silly saying give you thought that you are no longer of use to this world? Why indeed.
Because the very people that are promoting this foolishness are over fifty, not some young up and coming executive. It is the mainstream media that shows us that only young, thin, beautiful, rich people with glamorous careers are worth anything. I think in this culture, we are entirely youth-obsessed, and so we view aging as a catastrophe — that it only brings negatives. When you look in other cultures where aging looks different. The aged are sages and treated as such.
I had thought that turning 50 was going to be the big milestone. But, in retrospect, it wasn’t, I just had a another party.

Vanity has been one of the best reasons to sell anything, from healthy food, skin care, hair conditioning, gym accessories, botox, silicone and so on.
We have a “look” culture and beauty stereotypes that do not allow us to appreciate beauty of aging, and this is a fact that most of the companies in beauty business take advantage of.

Since life expectancy has increased in last decades, I think most of the people should for instance consider the conditions in which they are going to get old and not the number of wrinkles and gray hair they are going to have when becoming old people. In this point I believe the concept of healthy aging should be more important as culture, life style and attitude towards our own future life conditions than physical look.

Anyway, we all agree we cannot stop the marching onward of time nor can we turn back the clock. But we can stop buying into the notion that as people approach a certain age, they are done. We have reached the panicle of the mountain top and all that is left is the old folks home.

We do need recognizable ‘names’ to come along and start a revolution that aging is to be embraced. That those with lines and wrinkles still have a life, are still worth something. Since the majority of the USA is baby boomers, shouldn’t we start this revolution? It’s not about beauty, it’s about character and how that character is presented. There, you have your first slogan now go climb that hill.

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