A time for every purpose

 

Everyone should have the pleasure of walking through my local high school at this time of year, checking out the seniors' mission statements & personal codes.  Uplifting beyond words.


This week, I moved forward with my Final Wishes & Heart Song (formerly Choir) projects, have put Gnashing of Teeth, Sr. out for people to mull over.  Now, it's time to start giving serious thought to modifying the high school's mission statement & personal code project for MY kind of seniors - my older friends. 

It never occurred to me that older people might feel like they didn't have any purpose in life.  I think about "Grandma" Rose & Morna Hyatt, Viola Ridgeway & Otho Heilman, and so many friends in their 80s & 90s who never seemed to doubt they had a purpose in life, in spite of being really O L D. I never gave any thought to how my older friends lived lives marked with usefulness.  Each had a reason to get up every morning.  Not the same as when they were kids of 35 or 55 or 70, but reason, none the less.  A purpose. 

When I started hanging out with a particular older friend, she often muttered her discontent at "not having any purpose."   At first, I was stumped how best to respond.  A recent widow, she'd moved out of the house she'd shared with her husband into a nice one-bedroom apartment in a high-end "senior lifestyle residence."  Although was just a 10-minute drive from most of her family & the town where she grew up, she couldn't get there without a car.  She didn't have to clean the apartment - staff did that.  She didn't have to make any meals - she ate in the pleasant dining rooms.  The other residents were interesting & engaging, but she didn't share any memories with them.  What was her purpose?

One day, as we were out rambling a lovely back road, it hit me.  The next time she sighed "I don't have any purpose," I answered that there was one purpose I could personally vouch for - because of her, I was getting better & better at what was increasingly clear is my truest calling.  

She hasn't mentioned a lack of purpose for years.  She knows what I told her is true, that working with her is the best sort of training for working with oldsters & ancients.  She knows I feel the same about working with her family, her six children who live all over the place but are united in doing all they can to make sure their Mom has the most expansive life possible.  

It's essential that my elderly friend & other oldsters have a sense of purpose.  A sense of purpose opens them up to appreciate the past, enjoy memories, and live in the present, with all their gifts & graces, weaknesses  & challenges.  

It's practically impossible to feel good about our self, to experience lasting satisfaction & happiness, without a sense of purpose.  With it, we have a direction;  without it, we feel rudderless.  

Here I go, about to mention my Mom again - but she remains my #1 role model for aging with purpose.  She'd start dinner if I dragged myself in the door, bushed after a hard day at work.  She took her last trip to Australia - to visit family & help with grandchildren - at 85.  A few months before she turned 90, she started to post regular e-mails on a range of topics to a devoted & constantly growing distribution list.  At 91, she headed down to Alexandria, VA to play host at a brunch for family & friends in the metro-D.C. area.  Through all those years, she was the touchstone that brought her children & grandchildren, nieces & nephews together.  

A lot of things Mom did naturally are now prescribed as ways to reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's - crossword puzzles, daily exercise, reading, developing new interests.  None was as important as her deep sense of purpose.  First thing every morning, she'd open up a 5 x 5" spiral-bound notebook & write out what to do that day, from foot exercises to getting her hair done to going out with friends.  That little book - with it's final entry on 07/27/01, "Off to Virginia!" - is one of my greatest treasures.  

Patricia Boyle, a neuropsychologist at Chicago's Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, wouldn't have been surprised at how hardy Mom was, in spite of being somewhat frail.  In a Wall Street Journal interview, she notes a sense of purpose “is a very robust predictor of health and wellness in old age.” 

Dr. Boyle is part of a study tracking older people.  The team has found that older people with a high sense of purpose - someone like my mother - were significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer's or develop even mind cognitive problems.  Autopsies done on the subjects revealed many had brains with distinctive markers of Alzheimer's.  It seems that having a sense of purpose in life apparently helped them to tolerate the challenges & to retain a steady sense of self.  Amazing!

The same study shows that people who have a purpose were less likely to develop disabilities & even live longer.  Again - amazing!  Having a sense of purpose in our life can enhance, improve & even extend our lives.


Think of it as a dominoes effect - folks who feel they have a purpose are seeing  & pursuing goals.  That keeps their brain perky as their little grey cells are stimulated rather than stultified.  Different areas of the brains are activated, bringing in yet other areas.   

 

Researchers have also discovered that people who have a sense of purpose & are pursuing goals are likely to tap into a string of healthy behaviors - being involved socially, staying connected to friends & making new ones, getting OUT,  being physically active (even when getting out means having others in, when being active means doing breath work in a wheelchair or a bed).  

 

It's way too easy for today's elders - often set apart from youngers in independent or assisted living facilities where the only young faces are staff or visitors - to buy into the "I don't have a purpose" defeatist mindset.  

As Dr. Boyle points out, "Being purposeful is not something that just happens without your being active and intentional.  Think about what is important to you, what energizes and motivates you, gives you the sense that life is meaningful. Then think about setting priorities and goals and figuring out how you're going to spend your time to meet those goals."

Ah, but how to get there?  That's the rub!

 

Hmmm.... As my college English professor drummed into me - show, don't tell!   I think a good starting place for me is to take older friends on a visit to our local high school & check out the seniors' mission statements & personal codes.   

There is a time for every purpose & the time to start reconfiguring the Senior Project for MY seniors is now!