Sages of Aging

In just about a decade, there will be more people living in America over the age of 65 than under the age of 18.

Our population demographics are changing.

The American Society on Aging recognizes that the aging journey is a diverse one that is impacted by your entire lived experience.

ASA works with everyone to improve the aging process.

Learn more, visit asaging.org.

Edward Jones is a proud supporter of "Sages of Aging" and public television.

Hi.

I'm Ken Dychtwald.

For nearly 50 years, I've been studying and thinking about the changes that are coming as a result of the aging of America.

In the past century, the average life expectancy in the United States has jumped more than 30 years from 47 to 79, and many geroscientists are now predicting that life expectancy will continue to rise in the decades ahead.

As we've been given this incredible longevity bonus, what are the challenges and opportunities that come with these extra years of life?

How do we best match our healthspans to our lifespans?

As we live longer, should we strive to be independent or interdependent?

What is the emerging new purpose of longevity and how do we wipe out the ageism that permeates our media, marketing, and even medicine?

One of my favorite words is "sage."

According to classical philosophy, a sage is someone who has attained wisdom.

I recently had the very special honor of interviewing, via Zoom, 12 of the nation's foremost sages on these percolating topics.

I began our discussion with a question that speaks to their lifetime of achievement and experience.

I want you to imagine it's decades from now.

I'm gone.

You're gone.

All the other people I'm interviewing, we're all gone.

What would you like for people to remember about you?

She was a good person.

She fought for the underdog her entire life.

She made some real policy changes that changed the world.

That I'd like to be considered to be one of the people who helped build the field of aging in the United States.

I would want people to say that I was kind, because it's important to me.

That I used my opportunities and talents to make a difference, and I did.

That it mattered.

I have been able to use the tools of knowledge and science to contribute to making a better world.

I also hope that the knowledge we've created will matter.

I lived a life that worked to -- towards decency and care and compassion.

Was as somebody who tried his best to make things better, and he's an okay guy.

[ Chuckles ] That's what I want them to say about me.

My wife and I, being good gerontologists, have planned ahead.

We've already done our end of life, and I already have what will be on my headstone.

In the headstone is a quote by T.S.

Eliot, and I can only paraphrase.

"We will search and seek until we have finished seeking and return home and know the place for the first time."

So we will use our lives to explore and have all these adventures and always eventually come back to what really matters -- family, friends, and good health.

He tried.

Hopefully.

There will be some folks who really feel that the work in diversity, inclusion, equity and justice makes a difference.

She loved her family and her friends and gave it all, full out, put it all on the table for whatever she pursued.

He was a good guy.

He cared about people.

He was a mentor, and we miss him.

What was it you'd like for the world to say about Terry Fulmer?

Terry Fulmer, she was...?

A kind and caring person.

One of my favorite quotes is "society grows great when older people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit."

And, you know, I've never really thought this, but I'd like to -- people to say he planted some of these seeds that came up.

Over the course of the next hour, you'll hear these sages of aging offer their profound insights and wisdom.

This diverse and highly acclaimed group of doctors, nurses, lawyers, social scientists, professors, and social activists not only have had distinguished careers, but have also benefited from their personal experiences gathered on their own unique journeys to become older adults and elders.

Fasten your seatbelts.

What you're about to hear could change the way you view your future.

Now we must look at aging -- and this is my view -- as not about older persons.

"Aging is not about older persons."

Make sure we all get to digest that and think.

Go on.

What do you mean?

I like that dramatic pause, yes.

And you may quote me, everyone out there -- aging is not about older persons.

Aging is a lifelong process.

If you were to recraft the field of aging, having learned what you've learned, what would you have there be less of and what would you have there be more of, going forward?

I mean, I really would prefer that we use "longevity" as the term, because it's more aspirational.

We want to live.

"Aging" sort of makes you feel pulled down, but "longevity" gives you a sense that there's a horizon there and that it's not just your longevity but the longevity of others.

I think one of the important things is to get rid of aging and emphasize longevity.

Well, I think that gives you a sense -- Wait, wait.

You're the director of gerontology, you're Mr.

Aging, you're successful aging.

Wait a minute, you're telling us we should dump aging.

Now we should improve it by emphasizing longer lives, because when you start talking about longevity, as opposed to aging, you automatically put things in the life-course perspective.

And I think that's the direction to go.

Right now, we're going to turn the corner a little bit.

I'm going to ask you, in an ideal world, what role should older adults play?

What is -- What is the purpose of an older adult now?

What role should they have in society?

The ability to give their wisdom, to be revered, to be acknowledged for what you have accomplished and what you still may be able to accomplish.

Well, I think we have new and emerging roles, or roles that actually are more expanded than were possible before.

I think we've all talked about the longevity bonus, in some ways, because we're living so much longer.

We've been given this gift of time.

For those of us who have enough health and feel comfortably safe in our economic security, I think that role is that, to me, there's an obligation to do something with that time.

You know, what we've seen here in the United States, I mean, when we were writing off what, you know, arguably is our only growing natural resource.

It's certainly the case with older people.

And we've had we've had two problems.

The message that we've sent older people, which is essentially, "Get out of the way.

You know, your best is behind you."

And then the vehicles for people who want to go in a direction of purpose and connection, to get from aspiration to action.

It is to fill out the -- the -- what I would call the totality of life is part of being able to be a part of that cycle.

So that if my grandson asked me, "Papa, what is it like being old?"

or, "Why do you have that gray beard?"

I can say, "That's what happens when you live long enough to have the experiences, to be the age that I am."

I can now truthfully say, at 73 years of age, that I was fortunate to catch the polio virus and to have had that experience as a polio survivor.

Why?

I think one of my great advantages is, I have spent a lifetime learning how to adapt and to just be resilient and be gracious in accepting whatever life gives us.

And so I've been fortunate to, I believe, have adopted the ability to be resilient, adapting and adjusting.

In a -- In the future world, what would the ideal role of an older adult or an elder be?

Wow.

You know, I would say, Ken, we're making it up as we go along, because we've not had a society where such a large proportion are older persons.

We are redefining what our roles are, as older adults.

In my family, at least, I become Don Fernando.

Don Fernando -- the patriarch, where family comes to me for advice, settle disputes, you know, give a little bit of wisdom wherever it might be useful.

But I think, as older adults, if we can show that at the very least, as are older adults, we are still engaged, we are still willing to learn new things, like new technology, and that we try to mitigate the natural tendencies, as older persons, to be more up-front with our biases and our -- you know, our own prejudices.

For many older adults, their stage of life is often defined as "retirement."

For previous generations, when life expectancy was much lower, retirement had modest aspirations and it might have just lasted a few years.

However, with the unprecedented rise in longevity and vast portions of our population now living into their 80s, 90s, and beyond, this period of time could last decades for you.

Our experts shared their thoughts on how they're rethinking the idea of a traditional retirement.

So, in the years leading up to COVID, the average retiree -- and we've got about 70 million such folks -- was watching 47 hours of television a week, and only about 24% of them volunteered in any way.

So, is that okay with you?

I want people to have relaxation time, veg-out time.

It's okay.

But you know, the issues of society are so many and so big.

There just seems to be an area, as we were told when we were young, "Do that which really pulls your heartstrings or gives you a fire in your belly."

I don't think that's really gone away.

I think we've got to rekindle that and figure out maybe there are different little areas that people can do, and they don't have to do it full-time.

But I think the ability to help somebody else, to help an issue so that society's going to be better off after we're gone, it just seems to me such a compelling call for engagement, for contribution, for meaning, for a sense of purpose.

Read to your grandkids.

You know, there are all kinds of ways -- little ways, big ways.

Be on the board at your local library.

Show up in your neighbor's yard.

Give, you know, contribute.

I'm big on that.

And find a way.

We really need the wisdom and the continued involvement of older people.

Well, first of all, I don't believe in retirement.

I think we move on to different phases of life.

And I think what we really should be focusing on is what is it that we do throughout life that's going to give us peace, that's going to give us fulfillment, and it's not what other people prescribe.

So some people may feel, from a professional level -- in quote, "professional" -- that they have to continue to write, they have to continue to give speeches, or they have to continue to volunteer at a high level.

But there are others who feel that taking care of family, making sure the neighbor is okay.

So I think we can continue to contribute by the examples we live.

It's not how old you are, but it is how do you contribute.

For a lot of people think retirement is the time to have a big vacation for 15, 20 years.

Do you not agree with that, or do you think this is a hybrid?

I don't agree with it at all.

I think that retirement is -- is a reward, I guess, in some ways, for people.

But it's bad for your brain and it's bad for your body.

Wait, say more.

Wait, wait, wait, say more about that.

People who are engaged do better than people who retire and do not volunteer.

You gave that figure of, "24% of people volunteer."

But we've learned things about that.

And so what we've learned is that if you don't volunteer while you're working, you have a 24% chance, roughly, of volunteering after you retire unless you marry a volunteer.

Hmm.

But if you start volunteering while you're working, you have an 80% chance of volunteering.

Never knew that.

Never heard that before.

So, what we need, therefore, is programs for later-life workers to have flexible hours so they can start to build in volunteering in whatever they like, you know, before they retire, and so they can transition.

And their retirement is becoming a process.

It's not a cliff anymore, right?

It's a ramp.

I was seeing patient after patient after patient -- older adults who were -- came because they felt sick.

They wanted to see a doctor.

And time after time after time, what I found, in taking a history from my patients, was that the reason they were sick was they had no reason to get up in the morning.

And that started me...

These were immensely able and talented people who wanted to get up in the morning with meaning and purpose and the opportunity to enact a very age-relevant goal, which is to feel like you've given back.

An age-relevant goal to know that you've left a legacy that will endure beyond you.

And people were sick because they couldn't find a way to do that.

As we look to redefine and even reimagine all of our possibilities in this era of longevity, roles and expectations can be very different for men and women, especially since women, on average, live five years longer than men.

So, we're beginning to see the emergence of a landscape that will enable women to be equal partners.

Now, let me just say that I think that women have not been equal partners.

They've carried most of the load.

Think about it.

How do you get to longevity?

How do you get to age?

Well, you have to have a mother who can feed you, care for you, support you while you're in school.

And then if you go further, who's running the household and who's taking care of older people?

It's women.

So it's on the backs of women that we have made progress.

And it's time for women to take leadership roles and also, importantly, to be acknowledged.

Why do you think the culture has been so twisted to not fully appreciate the role of women?

You're a woman of 73 years, and you've seen a lot.

What's up?

What's wrong with us?

One of the things that I'm really passionate about is thinking of the world as socially constructed, that all of the things that we hold as truths are actually assumptions that we've reinforce in our interaction with each other.

So, in aging, we assume that women are going to be the caregivers.

That is just the assumption.

But that's socially constructed.

It comes out of men and women, over long periods of time, buying into that social agreement by giving women the role of caregiver and all the meanings attached to it.

Men are supposed to be in the workplace; they're not supposed to be caregivers.

So that comes through a series of agreements that are reinforced by interactions with each other.

When I look at men of the younger generation, not all of them have those assumptions anymore.

So if you interact with them, you know, they're coming from a slightly different place.

And the more that interaction occurs and the more we reinforce that, we construct a new reality.

So, Linda, I have learned that your mom was a musicologist and feminist scholar.

She got her college degree in her 30s; she began graduate school in her 40s; got her PhD in her 50s.

In what ways did your mom influence your life and where you are?

You did your homework.

She was, you know, my mother, Adrienne Block, was born the year after women's suffrage was passed in the United States.

What are some of the pros and cons of being a second-generation feminist from the time you're a child?

I would say that I was probably sensitive to looking at what was happening around me.

I remember the first time I actively thought about this.

This sounds trivial, but when you're 10 years old, it wasn't trivial.

I remember, I was in sixth grade and I really wanted to be a crossing guard, and I wanted to wear that wonderful orange sash that you got to wear.

Mm-hmm.

And I thought, when I was in sixth grade, I'd get to do that.

And then I was told that girls didn't get to do that.

And I was overwhelmingly crushed.

When you think of your own aging process, you know, you and I and all the folks I'll be interviewing have the odd experience of having been writing about and caring for and thinking about aging.

But now we're elders ourselves.

Has your aging been an ascent, or has it been a descent personally?

Yeah.

Ascent.

I am so thrilled not to be working at a job right now.

[ Laughs ] I can't tell you.

So I think my ascent is that I'm -- I'm -- I'm just grateful for the, you know, the freedoms and the choice and the flexibility that I have now.

So, for me, it's aging has been a huge plus.

Probably a combination.

I mean, it's an ascent in the sense that I have -- I think I know something.

I mean, I don't -- I'm gonna be -- you know, I don't want to call it wisdom, but I have some knowledge that I can impart and that I think is useful.

You know, but then the back hurts and, you know, you have the physical limitations.

I have a kayak here.

I live on the water, and I haven't kayaked for a couple of months because my back hurts.

I mean, I think there's a combination of things.

I can't help but notice that there is something behind you there.

So, like, what are we dealing with here?

What is that?

It's a gnome which was in the movie, "Amlie," which is a French movie.

And I guess I did it as a joke to put that back there, the thought being is that oftentimes individuals take themselves very seriously, even when their issues are important.

But my view has been that the individual is not important, other than as being an advocate.

But the issue is important.

And I also think that it's important -- and you and I have experienced this -- to have fun doing this work and to have a sense of humor.

Physically, it's a decline.

Emotionally, it's an incline.

I think it's complicated.

I can understand things now that I couldn't have understood when I was in my 40s.

And some of that is a product of having worked at it a long time.

Mm-hmm.

And that's actually a wonderful experience I wouldn't give up for the world.

I think that I'm able to have a lot of fun now, in ways I didn't -- couldn't do earlier, maybe because I was too stressed about the balance of family and my career and lots of other things.

On the other hand, I don't get that all this time has gone by.

I can't process it.

I don't know what to think.

[ Laughs ] I don't think I see it as linear.

I think I see it as kind of maybe bouncing at this point.

Do you feel any wiser, any greater sense of perspective than you did 20, 30 years ago as a young woman?

Absolutely, yes.

How does that manifest to you?

I feel like I'm more forgiving of myself and others.

I feel like I have a bigger perspective.

I'm an optimist instead of a pessimist, and not everything's perfect.

It doesn't have to go my way.

And I think people still are primarily good.

I do feel wiser than I was, And more capable of listening than I was.

I would say that, you know, it's been both.

But what I've been really attuned to -- and maybe it's from decades of contact with people who are aging gracefully -- for myself, that it's been a time of surprising creativity.

And maybe that's just liberation from all of the things that I thought I was supposed to be doing before.

But I feel a real excitement about what's been percolating inside and, you know, what forms it will emerge.

It's been an ascent.

You know, one time I sat down, I thought about all of the elderly people that I knew and had known, from the time I went to work for the Pima Council on Aging.

I think of them.

I added up all of their years one time.

[ Chuckles ] I counted 2,000 years of experience and wisdom that I gained from the people that I knew.

And I said, "I now have this 2,000 years of knowledge and wisdom in my head that I need to share with other people, that I need to share with our younger people."

I used to run.

Now I can't.

I walk because my knees and hips hurt.

What about, let's step away from the physical side of aging?

Do you think of yourself as wiser or having more perspective than you did when you were 30 or 40 or 50.

100%?

Do you?

Yeah, I feel like I'm -- only in the last few years, even during COVID, feel like I'm getting a chance to make sense of things in deeper, richer ways.

Why is that not talked about so much?

Why is not the maturation of perspective and emotional intelligence more front and center in the public in movies and TV shows.

and in families?

Why is that not -- Because we live in an ageist society.

And until we can eradicate ageism -- that is labeling people by virtue of the date of their birth and by the color of their hair and the lines in their face -- until we stop doing that, we'll continue to have some -- have a narrative that's full of fallacies.

Why do you think ageism -- ageism -- is still so prevalent?

Why have we allowed it?

The way that we structure our world tends to be dichotomous.

You know, either you're young or you're old; either you're rich or you're poor.

And so we've bought into that, and we've permitted that.

And I think we sometimes actually perpetuate that.

I think we have been a society that has really put youth as some kind of a value.

We look at aging and getting old as something got to be -- to be ignored or put under the rug.

Put it away, out of sight.

And I think that this is a society that really has -- still looks at youth and that this -- that there's this belief that when you get to be a certain age, you're not as smart as you used to be.

You're not as valuable as you used to be.

You're not a contributing member of society as much as you were before.

Well, if we -- if we let older people become invisible and/or disposable, we have discarded a major, major segment of our population.

And with that, a lot of the wisdom that goes with those individuals.

All read, having been in this field together for a long time, different definitions of ageism.

And the one that stuck with me, that I like -- I think it was Dr. Bill Thomas, who came up with this -- that said, "Ageism is when we stopped expecting things of older people.

You're done now.

You can go away."

That the lack of expectation is itself really revealing about the value we think older people could contribute.

There's talk about how society makes older people irrelevant.

Where do you come out on the possibility that older people make themselves irrelevant?

I think ageism can be internalized.

I hear people do that all the time.

You know, I'm having a senior moment.

It's like, "Well, you forgot."

You actually forget more.

I start to forget more now.

The people internalize that so readily as a way to dismiss their own behavior or excuse what they see as their own shortcomings.

It's sad.

How do you get older people to pay more attention to young people?

I think we have to start naming ageism when it goes both ways.

Oh, oh, both ways.

Never hear about that.

Go on.

I see it all the time.

The dismissive nature of, "Oh, those millennials and their phones.

They will never live a life not so completely juiced up and connected by technology.

They have burdens that come from the phones that are glued to, and they have valuable perspectives about what the world needs to look like."

And I think, at some point, the tables turn.

We need to follow, not lead, and follow them.

Okay, so, now I'm going to go into the belly of the beast here.

You have been championing a new vision for geriatric competency.

Less than one percentage of the entire medical workforce has received any certification in geriatrics.

Is that okay?

And it's falling.

[ Laughing ] It's not rising.

Think about that.

And one of the reasons is economic.

You know, if I'm a practicing internist, Ken, and I decide to dedicate my entire practice to elderly, my income falls about $70,000, because now all my patients are on Medicare, whereas before I had a mix of commercially insured patients and Medicare beneficiaries.

And Medicare refuses to acknowledge that older people being treated by certified geriatricians are getting more value than by individuals with no training in geriatrics.

So, around the time that you were stepping into your professional role, there was a book that came out House of God, written by Stephen Bergman under the name Samuel Shem, in which he introduced the word "gomers."

Did you ever hear that word spoken, and what is it?

I thought it was insulting on every level.

I thought the term gomer was -- What does it mean?

What does gomer mean?

It means "get out of my emergency room."

It has to do with disdain and just disinterest in care of older adults who may be suffering from dementia or chronic diseases that bring them in regularly, because we fail to take care of them in a better way when they're not in the emergency room.

In your early years -- and I'm going to read my notes here -- you wrote your patients did not ask to be 80 or 90 years old, but the array of lifesaving technologies and pharmaceuticals made them almost prisoners of the healthcare system.

What were you having us look at by saying that?

That phrase is jarring, and it's meant to be.

You have to use jarring terms sometimes to get people to focus, because if I talk about aging, people's eyes glaze over.

If I say "geriatrics," they start moving out of the room.

But when you talk about prisoners, people are, "What did she say?

Why did she say that?"

So it's meant to be jarring so that we can think about what it's like to be that older person in the midst of the array of healthcare options.

So, Ken, one of the great things we've learned since then is to focus on the goals and preferences of the older adults and the way in which their families participate.

That has helped a lot.

When you get to what Maureen Bisognano said, "not what's the matter with you, but what matters to you" in the way that she says that.

And so instead of having people do things to you, at you -- and don't get me started on the term "put you in a nursing home," how that's so objectifying of a human being -- but when you think about choice without fear.

You're 10 years old.

Your father rushed your sick mother, Mary, to the hospital closest to your D.C. home, but they refused to admit her because she was Black.

He then drove his wife -- his dear wife -- and all the children to a hospital that accepted "colored people," as was the terminology then.

They put her in the hallway, and she died waiting for care.

How did this tragedy impact you and your life's work?

Wow.

You know, no matter how often I hear that story, it still breaks my heart that it happened, and it happened here in the United States, and it happened in my city of Washington, D.C., and it still happens in places.

It just breaks my heart.

And I think, as a little person, I didn't know that.

The story came out later for me to really understand what happened.

So inequity.

Wow.

So, from a 10-year--old to a one-year-old -- had five kids.

And it made me responsible immediately for four other people.

My pops still had to work.

We still had to go to school.

I learned how to make tomato soup out of ketchup.

[ Chuckles ] You know, I learned how to fry hamburger.

My dad was a Pentecostal minister, very strict.

And I think he thought his home and his life should still run the same as if he had had a wife.

And so that was pretty hard.

As a 10-year-old grieving your mom, you all of a sudden became sort of like the new parent to your siblings?

Absolutely.

I realize that you've probably faced some adversity as a -- as a Black woman, and you probably faced some adversity and discrimination as a lesbian.

And now you're an older woman.

How do these different discriminations and prejudices stack up or feel?

Or what's it like to have to kind of contend with all that while you're trying to make a life for yourself?

That and my mom not being able to go to that hospital, being turned away from that hospital, that's a Black thing.

And being a lesbian, not so much because I don't look like the stereotypical.

I'm not white, I'm not male, I'm not young, I'm not rich.

[ Both laugh ] I don't check any of those boxes, walking down the street, as a lesbian.

My wife, however, has more male identified traits, I think.

And so, when I'm with her, then I can be seen as a lesbian.

And as an old person, that -- thank God for the resilience of these other intersectionalities.

How is it, after having lived your life with certain prejudices that you had to confront, how did ageism feel?

Did it feel like, "Oh, not another one"?

Or was it like, "This one is different"?

It's different.

The others, I've read about, I know about, I've lived about.

Ageism -- and I work in ageism, so it is such a freaking surprise when it hits me, is it's such a freakin' surprise.

What is with us that we're -- we got so much prejudice that there's so much disrespect and ignorance and sexism and racism and homophobia?

Like, have you come to a conclusion as to what's wrong -- let's just say, Americans -- that we got so much of this stirring around in us?

Oh, you don't want to get me started, Ken.

I kind of do.

[ Laughs ] So, I kind of think it's a -- I think it all kind of boils down to money and greed -- so, that's the bottom line for me -- that, you know, when things are being advertised for marketing, to whom do they market?

Most often, you know, they market to younger people or people with abilities and not necessarily older people unless you're not infirm.

Right?

So... You know, it, too, is a social construct.

So I think it's based on money and greed.

So, until I was 5, I lived in Newark, New Jersey, with my mom and dad and brother in the same house as my grandparents.

Multiple generations living under a single roof was more common back in the 1950s.

When I got older and graduated high school, it was a big deal for me to go out on my own.

Modern American society has come to place a very big value on being independent.

We hear people saying, "Don't rely too much on others."

And also some folks think that needing help can be seen as a sign of weakness.

Let's look at why multi-generational connections and even interdependencies can be very positive for one's life.

Do you think we've taken independence too far and that we should be more -- especially in terms of housing and community -- more angling towards interdependence and community?

So, the answer is a resounding yes.

[ Chuckles ] So, you know, the second half of the 20th century was all about independence.

And there are many positive aspects of that.

But we've designed our built environment for independence.

If you look at many apartment buildings, you certainly in the U.S., you won't find a place where people can come together.

That's -- We're doing it.

We have actually disinvested in many of what I would call social infrastructure that brings us together.

The community organizations, the libraries, the collective action within communities or a sense that we're all in this one together.

You know, we started the 20th century as the most age-integrated society in the world and ended it in a state of age apartheid -- one of the most age-segregated.

"Age apartheid" -- never heard anyone, other than you, use those words together.

What do you mean?

Well, you know, in the 19th century, just by contrast, people lived in an agrarian economy.

People of all ages worked together on farms.

People of all ages lived in multigenerational households.

And beginning in the early part of the last century, young people went to places for young people; middle people went to the workplace; older people went to these older-people-only settings.

The ultimate result is a grievous wound that we see today in, you know, generational conflict, ageism, the epidemic of loneliness.

And so it was a failed reorganization of society that leaves us utterly ill-prepared for the multigenerational world that's already washing over us.

If we keep people in the bucket of personhood, rather than in silos of categories of labels, and so when I'm having somebody teach us about foods that people used to make and the love for that, that crosses generations.

I mean, something that brings us together and understands that we all have value and there's an opportunity to learn and teach at any level.

And our ability to build that interstitial energy would be so much healthier, in terms of maximizing capacity, deployment, and a sense of feeling part of society.

In one of your interviews, you said the elderly Indian population are our last link to our language, to our traditions, to the spirituality that's very important.

So, say some more about that.

Well, I think that there ought to be more intergenerational programs.

For example, the Head Start program that I used to run.

It would have been fantastic to utilize elderly people to teach the Navajo language, along with Navajo traditions, in the Head Start program.

What has happened is that the elderly people were segregated on reservations.

They had their own senior centers, and right across the street was a Head Start program.

And you have two buses -- one bus going over to the Head Start program, a van going over to the elderly part.

Wouldn't it have been great to have both the young and the old in that same bus as they're zipping off to these two facilities?

I think inter-generational cohesion is a very important challenge that we look -- we tend to look, when we study societies, at age groups and we really should -- But they're all age groups, not just a particular age group.

And it's not the elderly versus the children.

It's the elderly and the children.

You're clearly an impassioned human being, and you probably could do anything you set your mind to.

But what drives you?

Inequity drives me.

Has always driven me.

I want fairness.

I'd like to see fairness.

Not equality, because we don't all stop/start at the same place.

So we build a world that's equitable, that we all are able to get the vaccine, that we all are able to have clean water, that we all are able to be employed until we don't want to be employed, that we all are able to hold hands and marry who we want, that we're all able to live a quality life, equitable.

So, what drives me every day is the older person in front of me.

You know, it's so easy to feel that responsibility and compassion when you see someone in front of you who is not getting the care that they need.

I had eight years of Jesuit training -- high school and college.

And I think the greatest lesson for me wasn't spirituality, but it was excellence.

Hmm.

Absolute commitment to excellence -- rigorous thought, rigorous discussion, rigorous evaluation, and no room for anything but that.

I think that part of it has always been what my dad and my parents taught us, and that is, when you get an education, you use that education to help people.

That it's not personal property, it's community property.

Your education is community property.

You use it to help people.

I think it's really important to try to find your passion.

First of all, I think it's important...

I find high school students are being asked, you know, "What do you want to be?"

and, "Where do you want to go to college?"

because then you'll know -- you already know what you want to be.

My answer there is, "Don't know what you want to be.

Go out and learn and live and get an education -- not only in education in the formal sense, but by meeting people and talking and listening."

Now I get to -- as a 63-year-old, I get to say, "Us," that Freud was right.

You know, the keys are love and work, are connection to other people and a sense of purpose, a reason to get up in the morning.

And I think if we provide more of those opportunities and more encouragement for older people, you know, will not only thrive in later life, but we'll create a society that works for all generations.

I think I've been lucky to have a fair amount of resilience.

And with that, I think that things can and would get better.

So, one by one, you know, things in life happen, as we all know.

And part of it is the the luckiness of being able to address that.

And my father once said to me, you know, "You're a lucky kid."

And I've always felt that.

And so, with that feeling of confidence and opportunity, you know, you live through it.

It goes back to my -- my younger days, when my father used to kick us out of bed at 5:00 in the morning and made us run 5 miles down the railroad tracks -- 5 miles out, early in the morning.

Winter, summer, 5 miles out, 5 miles back.

And I remember him saying one day, "You probably think I'm really mean, huh?"

Well, he said, "When you're running out there in that cold, mentally, you're braving the cold; physically, you're building your body up; spiritually, you're seeing the morning sun, the sunrise, that dawn coming at you.

That's when all the good blessings come.

The world is tough out there.

And what I'm doing is training you to get ready for that world that you're going to be entering."

And so, every time something happens where I get knocked down, I go back to that teaching.

Now that I'm 73, you know, this is a wonderful time in anyone's longevity, a chance to step back, reflect, savor.

And I find myself counseling, encouraging my baby boomer friends who are facing the vicissitudes of aging -- a stroke, a heart attack, arthritis, knee and hip replacements.

And what I find for most persons that have been able-bodied throughout most of their life, and then things happen as they get older, I find that their greatest challenge is psychological and emotional.

It's almost like, "Why me?"

A sense of anger or self-pity.

But life is still good.

And that's what I try to encourage my generation.

Whatever happens in our later years -- and something will happen to all of us -- a lot of it is just accepting it with grace and just moving on.

So, Percil, sometimes people draw metaphors from their work or from maybe they're an artist or a musician or an athlete, that carries them in terms of how they stay on game.

You've been a runner throughout your life.

Has that given you any perspective?

It has.

And I started running a lot because, number one, we lived in a rural area.

To get anywhere, you had to walk or run.

So I learned how to run at a very young age.

But as I grew older, I became a more trained runner in high school, college, et cetera.

And I think, each phase of our life, we have to garner the strength to continue to not give up or to get tired.

Because running a marathon, as many people listening may know, there are times when you want to quit, but you have to say, "I have to go on.

I have to succeed."

So I think, when we talk to younger people and look at the metaphoric aspect of aging, it is like a marathon and it doesn't get easier.

But, wow, when you get there, when you get to your 70s, you get to your 80s, you start to smile and say, "Boy, I'm still here.

I'm still running.

I feel good."

I've always been a science fiction buff.

So I asked our experts to take an imaginary trip through time.

If they could travel decades back in time and have a conversation with their younger selves -- say, at age 20 -- what advice would they give to this young version of themselves?

I would say, "Life happens.

Go with it.

Do the best you can.

And make sure that you feel good about what you're doing."

I would tell him that he has more time than he thinks he does to prepare, to make a difference.

Don't be afraid to raise your hand and say, "I will do what I have to do to make things different."

Well, I think I would try to say, "Be more in the present," which I'm learning.

I mean, I've tried to do for the last several year.

But be more in the present.

Enjoy yourself even more.

Know how to value yourself, how to feel self-confident, but not -- but not in a pushy, you know, overbearing kind of way.

I would say, to answer you, "There will be terrible tragedy in your life, and there will be wonderful joy in your life.

And make sure that you have a circle of loving friends and family around you to help get you through in those moments.

We find ourselves in a curious moment in history.

As a result of extraordinary medical breakthroughs, more of us will be living longer than humans have ever contemplated.

This new longevity offers an opportunity for us to rethink and even reimagine a new vision for aging.

Hopefully, it will be one where there's a vital role for older adults in our families and communities -- one where their wisdom and experience is respected, valued, and put to good use.

With these legendary leaders, one thing is clear.

It will be a better world if all generations can live and work and play together, appreciating what every individual, regardless of age, has to offer.

This is a discussion that needs to be continued.

I'd like to thank all our experts, dear friends and colleagues of mine, for allowing me to pick their brains and also share with you their collective and considerable experience, knowledge, and wisdom so that it may empower you to live long and live well.

My final question for them came down to the power of words.

Historically, around the world, older men and women were respectfully thought of as elders.

When I began working in gerontology in the early 1970s, older men and women were kind of called "golden-agers."

Then the word "senior" caught on, but it seems to be fading as the boomers aren't that keen on this word.

So I asked these sages, "What do you think is the preferred word to describe someone who has experienced their 65th birthday and beyond?"

"Senior" turns me off.

"Elder" turns me on.

"Older adult," I like the best.

I like "elder."

I never did before.

But I think we need to learn how to be elders.

That's a title that I long to inhabit.

I'm just an individual who happens to have 70-some years under their belt.

You know, I'm just this person -- right?

-- Mm-hmm.

...with lots of commitments and lots of passion about different things.

"Senior citizen"?

What is a senior citizen?

You know, you talk to some younger people, you talk about you're a senior, well, they tell you, "Well, I thought you had graduated from college or high school a long time ago" [ Laughs ] But I think, if you ask me, I'm old and I'm an older adult woman.

Do I consider myself an older adult?

Yes, I do.

[ Chuckles ] Proud of it.

[ Chuckles ] I was going to say, "Do you feel proud about that?"

And you jump right in.

Thank you for that.

This is my gray hair, and rocking it since COVID.

So, you know, it's -- it's to be embraced.

Where do you gravitate?

How do you want to be thought of?

Do you think of yourself as a senior?

I think of myself as being pretty cool.

[ Both laugh ] And thank you to the entire audience.

And I'm humbled to be part of all these other legacy pioneers who you have interviewed.

And it's just a real cool group of people.

And anyway, here's to all of us aging together.

Take care.

Be safe and be well.

Bye, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thank you to everybody.

Thank you.

In just about a decade, there will be more people living in America over the age of 65 than under the age of 18.

Our population demographics are changing.

The American Society on Aging recognizes that the aging journey is a diverse one that is impacted by your entire lived experience.

ASA works with everyone to improve the aging process.

Learn more.

Visit asaging.org.

Edward Jones is a proud supporter of "Sages of Aging" and public television.