This month, I need your help. Back in mid-May, Annie and I went to a conference for all of the nonprofit and mission-based housing and care providers in Oregon, and the theme was, “Life on Purpose.” We attended all sorts of education sessions and networking events, but the one that has been stuck in my mind was a session entitled, “Disrupting Ageism.”
The meat of the session was a good reminder of how prevalent negative ageist ideas are in our society – ideas that mistakenly relate biological age with death, disease, disability, dependency, decline, etc. We know that aging does not automatically equal these things, yet our persistent stereotypes encourage us to treat older all older adults as if they are a homogenous group suffering from a universally negative, progressive condition. Under this scheme, we perceive the ideal of “aging well,” as being measured by how much physical capacity a person retains as they age.
I’m all for debunking these degrading and depersonalized views of aging in favor of something better, but where I need some help is in figuring out what that “better” should be. The theme given by the presenter at that session, and echoed through the rest of the conference, is that we should be looking towards old age as a time of purpose, and as providers, we should be looking for how we can enable that purpose in the people we are serving.
I don’t take any issue with anybody finding and fulfilling their purpose, but I felt uncomfortable with how active a role they suggested I (and the rest of the attendees) should take in enabling that process. The current paradigm of enabling a “purposeful” life is to engage people in activities and “bring them out of their shell.” But who am I to assume a person is in a “shell,” and why should I take a role in “bringing them out,” as if my permission and effort are required?
A Call to Action
So this is where I need your help: I want to understand this from your perspective. The biggest mistake people make when attempting to correct social injustices is to apologize and move on to a different paradigm, without taking the time to actually have a conversation about it. So what do you think? Do you feel like your life has purpose and do you feel like that purpose is affected (positively or negatively) by your age? Do you feel like we do things in our community that help or hinder your ability to realize and achieve your purpose? Could we be doing things better?
I don’t often admit it, but I’ve actually been aging for the last few decades at the same pace as the rest of you, and I hope to continue aging for many more years to come. I find that I have a vested interest in this discussion, not only because I care about you and I care about justice, but also because I’m working through these ideas for myself as my life continues to change and evolve. So let’s have a discussion about aging!