Verified by 
Key points
- Midlife is a time of defining yourself, not letting others define you.
- You can claim the resilience you have already developed to get this far in life.
- Finding your voice follows on validating your experience, emotions, and worth.
Harold Kooden was only 64 when his book Golden Men: The Power of Gay Midlife was published in 2000. Today, at 87, Kooden is promoting an updated edition of the book—as he himself continues to live with the same power he described in the book more than two decades ago.
In fact, I just received an email from Kooden, telling me he and his longtime husband John have decided to make Oaxaca, Mexico, their home base while planning to return to New York City in the spring, where they lived for many years, and Kooden built his practice as a psychologist.
“It still is amazing to be doing this at 87,” he said in his message. “The old adage really works about living each day as if it were our last and, at the same time, planning for the future. Who knew?”
I read Golden Men when it was originally published and I myself was on the cusp of midlife at age 42. Now 65, I look back over my midlife years with gratitude to Kooden for sharing insights and advice in his book that strongly shaped my experience of my middle years—and now beyond. What struck me most back then, and still today, is Kooden’s view that the real difference between aging well and aging poorly has much to do with what we tell ourselves things related to aging “mean.”
For example, I have been dealing with a herniated disc in my lower back since a minor car accident in 2022. Some have commented about it in a way that makes clear they see the medical issue as related to being 65 years old. To which I have responded that the herniated disc was caused by an injury and had nothing to do with my age. Of course, I’ve heard many other comments to the effect that “it sucks getting old”—again, equating aging and physical injury.
Finding your true voice
Reading Golden Men again, what jumped out at me was chapter six, “Speaking with one’s own voice: True self-esteem.” Authenticity is both a source and fruit of aging well. As Kooden writes in the book, “Midlife is the time for saying and feeling who you are and not letting other people define you.” Realizing you can’t control what others think of you frees you. “The opinion of yourself that most matters becomes your own,” says Kooden.
Writing for gay male readers, Kooden’s lessons offer wisdom for anyone interested in building resilience and aging effectively. As he wrote in his email to me,
“What still is important about the book is the self-help part of it, which, if followed correctly, is the equivalent of four years of intensive therapy.”
Following it correctly means claiming the resilience you already possess simply by virtue of being alive. How have you done it? What strategies have you used to get through difficult challenges? What did you tell yourself that helped you carry on?
As Kooden puts it, “Adversity can either stimulate growth or regression. And this applies to everyone.”
It really is about what you tell yourself. As Kooden writes,
“Nobody can give you self-esteem. You can’t start esteeming yourself until you get rid of other-esteeming. It’s about valuing yourself—not creating “new” value” but recognizing the worth that’s already there. It’s about seeing and validating all aspects of yourself, including your age.”
If I listened to most of the messages around me of others’ expectations for “what it means” to be 65 —“old,” retired or soon to be, stuck in my ways, ready to be put out to pasture—I can imagine how awful it might feel to be this age. But when I frame my age in terms of the wisdom I’ve accumulated, the insights I’ve gained, the adventures I’ve had, it’s another experience altogether.
Kooden says we can enjoy real self-esteem when we learn to appreciate the full context of our life experiences. Then we can feel a sense of our own power and worth. And it is “from these positive feelings” that our true voice emerges, he says. Speaking, finally, in our own true voice “means getting rid of all those other voices (parents, teachers, government, religion) that block us from validating our own emotions and thoughts.”
Pushing away the false meanings others try to impose on us, defining ourselves, our age, and our experiences on our own terms, we listen only to the voice that matters—the voice in our hearts that speaks with genuineness and true self-esteem.
