Hey there, tell me---are you in your prime, coming up on it or way past—with prime time in the rear view mirror of life?
No matter what your answer is, I’m going to argue. Me, I think we are always in some kind of prime time. Yes, there is the physical prime of life, which we never notice until we’re past it. But there are other kinds of prime times and I think they decorate the entire life span.
For instance, there is a prime time, not only for our physical selves, but also for our mental and emotional selves. Plus there’s a prime time professionally---when we really kick butt---and a prime time for wisdom---when we know the limits of kicking butt. There’s a prime time for money and there is surely a sexual prime time---that’s the era when you fooled around with Tantric stuff on Saturday nights. There’s even a prime time for practical know-how—life skills as they call it in school. (I used to know how to change a tire, fix a toilet, make puff pastry---all these skills now departed.)
From One Idea of Prime Time to Many
It’s satisfying and fun to reflect on your various prime times. Here’s a beginning list to kick off ideas about the highlights of your own life course.
Physical: Though we are supposed to hit our physical high before 30, much depends on how we take care of ourselves. If, in retirement, you can hike longer and stronger than when you were a fixture at the office, today might be your physical prime time and it’s one you earned rather than one you were handed just because you were young.
Mental: Though the stereotype is that older people lose brainpower, I see very few older people with bubblegum between their ears. We older adults know better than to worship Britney. I say the quality and breadth of thinking probably improves over a lifetime---making a long, long prime time for our brains. And no, I don’t care if you forget names. You forgot them at fraternity parties.
Emotional: Older people are in their emotional prime time. They are more in control of themselves, less hormonal, less likely to waste steam-heated words on trivia, on the small irritations I call “cosmic dandruff”. Most older adults know when to brush things off. Exception: Politics---in which case all bets are off and a hotted up senior, high on indignation, can make no claims about enjoying the serenity of emotional prime time. But hotheads can re-claim the calm ground by the rationing of first-person opinions, by the vigorous use of the ballot, and then letting the drips fall where they may. Also, they can say ohmmm when the news comes on and not let CNN shake their chakras.
Money: Some lucky older people hit their prime money time now---they inherit, they cash out homes, they cash in on retirement savings. Other older people don’t have the material goods, but develop keen money management skills, making their way on Social Security and maybe a pension. Either way, older adults can enjoy a prime time when it comes to money: i.e., they finally have a nest egg or if the egg got cracked in this recession, they may become world-class clever about getting bang for the bucks they do spend. If put in charge of the national budget, widows on a pension would run the US government into the black.
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