The Gift and Challenge of Aging

In August of this year, I will turn 75. A range of thoughts and feelings have emerged as I contemplate my upcoming birthday and what aging means to me at this point in my life.

1. Before I turned 60, I admit I was in denial of the reality of my mortality. On my 60th birthday, I couldn’t deny that I was in the second half of my life. I wrote a post for Psychology Today on this. At 60, I imagined two voices on my shoulders. One voice acknowledged the reality of my mortality. The other voice pushed back against the reality of being mortal. At 75, I feel the acknowledgment of my mortality has been internalized and is always present. I comprehend that the reality is I can die at any time. When I was younger, the reality of death always seemed a long way off. This awareness of the fragility of life is present for me now in a deep way as one of my childhood friends is dying of cancer as I write this. He only received his diagnosis a few weeks ago.
2. I am a spiritual existentialist. I believe when we die, there is something more that passes on when we let go of our body completely. I would term this "something" our soul or spirit. I don’t know where the "something more" goes, but for me, that unknowing is being open to the mystery of life. As a spiritual existentialist, I don’t view our embodied human existence as the endpoint of being.
3. In my mid-20s, I recognized my calling to be an existential-humanistic therapist. I have been a therapist for 50 years. I have loved helping people find meaning and purpose in their lives. This is an important part of the meaning and purpose in my life. Recently, I connected with two of my colleagues who are 30 years younger than I am. They are launching a new direction in their careers as existential-humanistic therapists. This spring they enrolled in a Ph.D. program that focuses on how to bring existential-humanistic values into a capitalistic system. Although I was pleased and excited for them, I also felt a sadness. I was no longer the young buck who was excited and passionate to be in a Ph.D. program. I wouldn’t be enrolling in such a program because of the limitations and realities of my aging process. I recognize that there are aspects of myself and my life that I cannot reclaim. I can never be who I was at 45 again. However, I also recognized that I have a different purpose now. I am the old buck who is excited and passionate about being the mentor for the young bucks. There is no way around this. I can’t be the young buck and the old buck simultaneously. With every loss there is a gain and with every gain there is a loss. Recognizing this existential truth is a sad-sweet aspect of aging.
4. As we age, I believe it is authentic for a lot of us to experience this sad-sweetness, or other feelings, as we recognize the need to pass a torch. It is an existential reality and is part of the whole experience of living. These feelings shouldn’t be denied, objectified, or pathologized. If they are, the experience of the aging process is devalued and can lead to an obsessiveness about our mortality. Existentially, we are always in movement, so the feelings of sad-sweetness, and any other feelings we might be having, will pass. As they do, we can also experience joy, satisfaction, and a myriad of other feelings as we recognize the wisdom we’ve gained over our lifetime.
5. Elizabeth Bugental, a noted existential-humanistic psychotherapist, writes in her book, Love Fills in the Blanks, that as we age, we swim in an ocean of loss. I propose that throughout our lives we all experience loss. We all experience life and death in every moment. What I mean is once the moment passes, we can’t get that specific moment back again. It has "died." Simultaneously, a new moment is born. Life is always in movement. This is an existential paradox. Our engagement with life and death is simply accentuated as we get older. We have more of an experiential awareness of it. Knowing that my life has limits motivates me to continue the discovery of the life I want to live. It motivates me to make my embodied existence meaningful because every moment is precious.
6. At 75, I find I have a deeper self-acceptance and a stronger sense of well-being than at any other point in my life. When I was 45, too much of my self-worth was conditional. I struggled with self-validation. As Carl Rogers would put it, I struggled to have unconditional positive regard for myself. My self-validation was based upon whatever my next contribution to the field would be. At 75, I am still passionate about contributing. However, that does not define my worth or all of who I am.

Life is always in movement. There are gifts and challenges to be discovered at any age. No matter what age you are, I encourage you to be engaged with your aging process. Be open to what you discover about your fears, your excitement, and whatever else emerges. Our embodied existence doesn’t last forever. Engaging with this existential reality will help you recognize the life you want to live. I wish you the best in your aging journey.