To plan the next phase of my life after I retired, I have been talking with seniors to learn about their sources of satisfaction. I thought Barbara could be helpful. She initiated and is now the guiding force for the Senior Network in my housing complex. She is energetic, fun to talk with, and eager to support others.
My greatest sources of pleasure are tennis and golf, she said, activities she missed during the COVID-related shutdown and recently started again. Barbara enjoys the exercise and gets a sense of accomplishment when she hits a ball well. I asked how she feels if she hits a golf ball that lands in the water. I just laugh about it. This was my first clue that Barbara experiences life a bit differently than me. I feel and remember my failures more intensely than my successes. I wanted to learn more about her outlook on life.
Now 79, Barbara retired from her dentistry practice two years ago. She is average height, a little overweight, has short blond hair and a ready smile. Whenever I see her, she seems to enjoy talking with me or whoever she is with. She laughs often, with a hearty full-bodied laughter that shows on her face even while she is wearing a COVID face mask. Barbara’s main concern at this time in her life is being physically able to continue the activities she loves, as she feels these help maintain her energy and youthfulness.
After I retired, I decided that my new job would be to start a senior network. Barbara formed the Senior Network when she learned that an older person who lived alone in our complex had died and wasn’t found for several days. She wanted people living in our housing complex to get to know each other, have a sense of community, and reach out to each other to respond to health or other personal needs. She believes she provided a service to people during her professional career, and that developing a senior network was a way to continue serving others. The network has several components, including a listserv for information-sharing, weekly meetings, and monthly trips to museums or other places of interest. There are about 80 people in the network, with about 12-15 core members, who often attend the meetings and trips.
Barbara’s work in the network changed with the COVID pandemic, when many seniors became home-bound and trips or in-person indoor meetings were no longer possible. She is a source for referrals and accessing services and other information about the community and helped establish the weekly Zoom call and weekly socially-distanced meetings in the complex’s outdoor plaza. She is also the central station for sharing humorous jokes and stories she receives from others, many related to COVID. She forwards them to the listserv, often with comments to point out the parts she particularly enjoyed. Laughter is clearly an integral part of her daily life and is an important network service.
As a network member I have experienced Barbara as welcoming to everyone and making each of us feel important. She encourages members to share their views and calls on them for assistance in finding and sharing information. The network is especially important during this COVID time when some of us feel isolated. We know that we can call on each other for daily needs such as shopping or escort to a doctor’s appointment. I asked if she intentionally worked to create that welcoming feeling. She seemed surprised at the question, and I think she just felt it was a part of the “job” that came naturally to her and she was eager to do.
I never have problems being busy since I retired. In addition to the sports and network activities, Barbara provides consultation for the NYS Board of Dentistry, loves traveling (and plans to return to it post-COVID), does Qigong exercises, loves to shop, and recently started taking a course to learn how to draw. She also loves to gamble on slot machines. Her last trip, pre-COVID, was a cruise to Alaska comped by the cruise line because of her gambling interest. She laughed when she said that her gambling losses on the trip meant it wasn’t totally comped.
I can find happiness no matter where I am seems to sum up her outlook. I was amazed and a bit jealous, since my own happiness often depends on my specific circumstances. I wanted to know more about how she became this way. I had a good mother and am a happy, optimistic person. Barbara described her mother as kind, easy going, you knew what you were supposed to do; she had lots of friends, had parties every weekend, liked to entertain, had her own band…she was happy. What a wonderful legacy she left her daughter, I thought. I started thinking about my own mother’s difficult life. She came from Poland as a teenager after her father’s death and worked as a sewing machine operator during the depression, proud that she was employed. After marriage she worked alongside my father in his businesses, first as a fruit peddler and then a dry goods store owner. My mother was a hard worker, but except for rare moments in family celebratory events like weddings, I never considered her life to be happy. My legacy was that I too came to see life as often difficult, requiring hard work with many challenges. For Barbara, perhaps knowing that her mother had a happy life served as a foundation that enabled Barbara to create her own sources of happiness, wherever she was. Perhaps that’s the key to happiness— we can’t “will it,” but it can come through finding activities enjoyable and meaningful to us throughout life.
Barbara’s message for other seniors is: Find things that make you laugh and don’t take things too seriously. This advice sounds simplistic, and it is. But it is especially useful for those of us who don’t have Barbara’s underlying optimism. Although she expressed sadness about the COVID epidemic and its consequences, she finds happiness in life through engaging in activities she enjoys and creating a purpose, and it includes sharing humor about current difficult circumstances. The lessons for me: seek out activities I enjoy and find humor where possible. I have also started thinking about creating my own new “job.” Like Barbara, that job is likely to involve service for others’ needs. I have always enjoyed helping others, and lots of research has shown that altruistic activities result in improved mental and physical health. And I am hopeful that like Barbara, all this is likely to lead to happiness no matter where I am.
Reflections on Aging 