What would you do if I told you the secret to healthy aging is something you already possess? You don’t have to spend a dime, submit to medical interventions, or change your routine.
To be clear, I’m not talking about the keys to healthy living, which we continuously discuss here at Further: eat well, sleep, exercise, relax, repeat. Hopefully, you’ve got all that down by now.
I’m specifically talking about embracing the transition to older adulthood. All you have to do is remember your birthright: our generation’s signature cynicism.
This is especially important as the siren songs of the various aging industrial complexes — wellness and menopause, for example — tempt us with snake-oil promises of eternal youth as we move through our 50s and beyond.
Let’s Get Cynical
First, let’s get clear about what effective cynicism is. It’s not the modern take, which involves craven negativity and moral bankruptcy and leads to poor health and social ostracization. The helpful kind of cynicism stems from ancient Greece and involves questioning convention to become wiser and more content.
As happiness expert Arthur C. Brooks explains:
The ancient cynics strove to live by a set of principles characterized by mindfulness, detachment from worldly cravings, the radical equality of all people, and healthy living.
This becomes infinitely easier when you realize society’s definition of desirability is impossible to keep up with. Witness the rise of “prejuvenation,” in which 20-somethings are outspending everyone else on anti-aging skin-care products.
If that ain’t enough to make you cynical, nothing will.
Wisdom for the Ages
Several of the cynics’ concepts become naturally easier over time as we move past the mad scramble to acquire things in the first half of life (knowledge, possessions, partners, kids, etc.) into a calmer, more purposeful place. As Anne Lamott wrote:
The perfectionism that had run me ragged and has kept me scared and wired my whole life has abated … You have bigger fish to fry than your saggy butt.
All the more reason to practice a purer strain of cynicism, including:
- Eudaimonia (“satisfaction”): Recognize happiness is an inside job and let go of thinking anything “out there” — money, power, stuff — delivers true contentment.
- Askesis (“discipline”): Halt your habits of distraction and dissociation. Bonus: hormonal fluctuations might make it easier if you’re like me and can’t sleep if you drink too much alcohol.
- Autarkeia (“self-sufficiency”): Stop seeking validation from others, as conventional standards are lame anyway. (See “prejuvenation” above.)
- Kosmopolites (“cosmopolitanism”): Focus on seeing others as equal and worthy and drop the “compare and despair” gig once and for all.
In other words, the more you question authority and convention, the better off you are. Not that I’m telling you something you didn’t already know, duh.
Live Like the Ancient Cynics (The Atlantic, gift article)
