Declare Your Independence and Choose a Better Way to Age

There are plenty of references and role models for a better way to age.

Harland Sanders, best remembered for starting Kentucky Fried Chicken, now KFC, was 65 years old when he began his business. The story is that, when he looked at his Social Security check of $105 a month, he realized he did not want to try to live on it alone. Until he was fatally stricken with leukemia in 1980 at the age of 90, the Colonel traveled 250,000 miles a year visiting the KFC restaurants around the world.

On July 24, 1987, Hulda Crooks became the oldest person to climb Mt. Fuji in Japan. She was 91 years old at the time. Upon doing so, she exclaimed, "You always feel good when you make a goal."

Ray Kroc, a mixer salesman, met the McDonalds brothers and began his fast food empire when he was well into mid-life. He noted later, "I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns, but I was convinced that the best was ahead of me." Even with his health challenges, he remained active in his business and lived to be 82 and today, there are some 24,500 McDonald's restaurants in 115 countries.

Buckminster Fuller, bankrupt at 32 years of age, went on to receive international recognition for his geodesic dome as he approached 60. And in 1970 he received the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects at age 75. "Bucky" is rumored to have said, "A man doesn't even get good until he's 80!"

Aside from the financial side of the retirement equation, and perhaps more important, is the issue of losing our sense of purpose for living. While our work is certainly not all that defines who we are, it is essential for us to feel that we are making some contribution to society. Feeling as though we are "in the game" and not just sitting on the sidelines, watching life go by.

This became painfully apparent to me while visiting my mother in Melbourne, Florida one Christmas season. I happened to be in a Wal-mart store completing some last minute shopping. As I was about to get in line to pay for my purchase, I noticed an older couple moving in the same direction and motioned for the man to go ahead of me. He looked and said, "No, you go ahead. I'm retired. I have nothing better to do." I vowed, then and there, to never let my life be reduced to a situation where standing in line in a store was the highpoint of my day.