If you read my blog because you are interested in sage-ing or positive aging, then I wanted to introduce you to Dr. Bill Thomas. He was one of the sages I interviewed for by book Leading With Wisdom: Sage Advice from 100 Experts and truly is one of the experts in the movement to change the image of aging. In fact, he is currently on a tour that he has named Age of Disruption 2015 Tour. He is going to 30 cities with his Age of Disruption Tour that he says “is a collaborative effort brought to you by passionate organizations committed to helping people transform their lives, their work and their communities.” If he were coming closer to Des Moines, I would be there for sure.
Dr. Thomas writes a great blog titled “Changing Aging” that helps keep me current on the trends in this movement. Recently, he had a post reflecting on what aging has taught him. It made me think about what aging has taught me. These were some of my thoughts:
- Become the person you want to be and not someone whom you think others want you to be.
- Most of the time “it is not about you.” Don’t take things so personally.
- Most people are good and want to do good things.
- If you want to get to know someone and cultivate a relationship, ask questions and listen.
- If you want to feel better, do something for someone else.
- Most people have good intentions, but be someone who acts on the good intentions.
- Don’t borrow money unless absolutely necessary. And if so, pay them back ASAP. Don’t owe people money.
- If you make a mistake, own it and apologize.
- Learn something new every day.
- and the list goes on.
I have thought about would I want to be younger or rewind time and relive parts of life. And I don’t think so. While I would do some things differently, for the most part, I was doing the best I could at the time and doing what I wanted to do. One of my favorite quotes comes from Maya Angelou — “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
I try to learn something new every day and that is easy now that I am my own information technology person (IT)! And in sage-ing work, the goal is to process life experience into wisdom by reflecting on what we are doing so we can learn from it.
What has aging taught you?
Would you really want to rewind your life?