Are You Afraid of Aging?
I love salty women – especially older women; hence my affection for Joan Rivers. I love her self deprecation, her fearlessness, and of course, her sense of humor. At 79, she is as sassy and raunchy as ever!
Over the past several weeks, Joan has been on the press circuit promoting her new book, I Hate Everyone… Starting With Me. I haven’t read Joan’s best-selling book, (Joan, if you’re reading this, can you send me a copy?) but I am planning on purchasing it with my next Amazon order. To read an excerpt of the book, click here.
I’ve always admired Joan’s career, and after seeing her on a recent episode of “The View”, I started researching her stand-up acts. (Thank God for YouTube!) Clip after clip, I noticed a recurring theme: Joan hates the aging process. She vividly explains what happens to our minds and bodies with her comedic wit. Here’s one of my favorite quips from Joan: “Age, and it will happen to all of you. The body drops. My breasts… I could have a mammogram and a pedicure at the same time. Yes. You know what drops? This is horrible. Do you know what really drops first? The vagina. No one tells you. The vagina drops. I woke up six months ago I went – why am I wearing a bunny slipper – and why is it gray?”
In this stand-up bit, Joan also states that “nothing bothers men.” Joan, I love you; however, I respectfully disagree.
I’m terrified of growing old. I don’t want my vagina (or breasts) to drop. The thought of turning gray “down there” brings a tear to my eye. I’m afraid of losing my sharp cognitive skills… As I expressed my sadness to my husband on this subject, I asked him if he feared the aging process. I also asked him if men ponder the loss of vitality and elasticity the same way that women do. Rob’s response did not surprise me. He said, “All men think about getting older. We just don’t talk about it the way that women do. I don’t want to think about my balls sagging to my knees, do you?”
Men, what do you think? Are you afraid of growing old? Are you trying to prevent the aging process?
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About Nicole Johnson
My biggest fears about growing old are rooted in my family history. My father died at 52, my grandfather at 50. My uncles all have heart problems in their early 50′s. It is less about physical appearance for me than it is about fearing the rapid decline of my health. I also worry about things like alzheimers and cancer as those types of disease often affects your family and loved ones in ways that exposes them to witnessing your gradual wasting away. It makes me really sad to think that one day my kids and my wife may have to endure months or years of watching me suffer. That bothers me much more than worrying about whether I can get an erection or have saggy balls or wrinkly skin.
For me personally, until about a year ago, I was expecting to be dead by 30. Primarily anticipating being a victim of police violence. But being 28 now and not quite as staunch an activist as I was, I am actually starting to take care of my body. On the other hand, looking at things like global warming and such, I still don’t expect to live past 45.
Of course men are scared of growing old. Think about the men that DON’T have families, or even a significant other. Your body and mind are whither away, and without being into God seriously.. these things will make you feel like everything is at an end (instead of almost a new beginning – like it should.)
The biggest fear though if beauty. You spend all of your teen / 20′s having fun, trying to get things accomplished, and when you hit your 30′s (and some 40′s) you start realizing that time is flying by, and that you’re now getting older. Usually takes some gray hair, changes in health, or wrinkles.
NOW you stop and smell the roses, and wish you could go back to being in your early 20′s, where you can have all those “cushion” years before growing old, and smell the roses then, to make time stretch.
Well that’s exactly what I’m doing. I turn 21 in a few weeks and I am in absolutely no rush whatsoever. I realise how beautiful things can be. Spending time with friends and family is the most worthwhile thing in this world.
Right before age 30 I was diagnosed with acute leukemia and given no more than a 15% chance of living two years. My only child, a son, turned 4 while I was in the hospital. He’s now 38 and his son, who will turn 5 next week, is staying with Grandpa and Grandma tonight and the next two. I got more than I ever wanted out of life–everything after age 30 was gravy. I’m now 64 and have no complaints. I can do pretty much anything I want to do, although I have to rest more and everything takes longer, and I’m content with my spiritual life. So I don’t worry much about dying.
Excellent post and glad to hear you made it. I had a worrisome health issue a few years ago that could have been cancer and it scared me through and through. I only wish I had learned longer lasting lessons from my experience. Even though I’ve calmed down substantially and tried to make myself a better father and husband, I could be doing better. I hope I can make it to 64 and see my grand kids one day.
I fear getting older but I know the only alternative is far worse than gray hair and bad knees.
So, the notion that “nothing bothers” men when it comes to aging is dispelled. With age there seem that the fear of death and the fear of declining health and declining looks are pretty evenly distributed among the commenters here.
So, how about women? I guess the stereotype is that women are most afraid of their looks when it comes to aging. Are the grey bunny slipper and other sagging really the most scary thing about getting older for women?
“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.”
As a Black man in America, I grew up in the 1970′s in New York City. The area I lived in was affectionately called “Hell’s Kitchen.” Violence was high and most of the young men I grew up with are now dead, many of them before they reached the adulthood. I personally watched several gun down before my eyes, victims of drive-by violence, long before it became popular here on the West Coast.
I expected to be dead by 18. When I turned 17, I left New York to go into the military, figuring if I was going to die anyway, I may as well be properly trained for the occasion. I had issues with authority figures, so the military was absolutely the worst thing I could do. I didn’t follow orders well, hell, I didn’t think there was anyone who should be given me orders, period. Let’s just say bootcamp was a challenging and emotionally developing experience.
But by the end of it and my next birthday, I had a completely different view on living and dying. I lost the initial fatalism my upbringing had given to me, replaced with a renewed sense of choice, of control over my personal destiny. Nothing about my neighborhood had changed. Indeed, upon my return visit from boot, I strode into my home, feeling somehow larger, far less fearful, far less intimidated by both the crushing poverty and the lack of choices which permeated our lives there.
I was only home for a few weeks before returning to the military, but that time there cemented in my mind a truth I carry until this day: No one can make your choices for you. They may steal the opportunities from where you live. They may crush the spirits of the people around you, who will in turn perpetuate their fears to their children. They may destroy all educational capabilities where you live. They may do all of these things and more. But once you realize this is happening. Leave. Find new avenues, find new ideas, find new people, find new environments. Harness your gifts, your abilities, if you don’t think you have any, you aren’t paying attention.
The military, yes for all of its failings, changed me, gave me a new way to perceive me and how I have aged since then has been a direct result of my time there. I worked out for the rest of my life, due to the early influence of the military. It taught me my body was my best tool for changing the world, and my mind would only be as powerful as the body that housed it. Now as a much older adult, my physical fitness has been my most prized asset, because without health, a man has nothing.
I stopped fearing aging a long time ago. I expected to be dead very young. I decided I didn’t want to die and found ways to change that. That was about making the choice to live, to live well, to live in the NOW; to live every moment as if it were the last. Planning is great, its necessary to have a life worth living, but if you fail to pay attention to the NOW, those moments of tiny joy, you overlook because you are afraid of what they (the ubiquitous they, the people who control society, the world you live in, your parents, your friends your family, your subconscious mind, literally any other outside of the core of you) the only person who suffers, who loses, is YOU. A life of fear, of loathing others of self-loathing is the result. Fear is what our nation is breeding and I want no part of it.
I believe aging is a choice. How we age is also a choice. Take back your health, your life. Put away your addictions, your drinking, smoking, drugging, narcissism, hatreds, indeed any extreme of living, your poor choices, your engineered habits (those things you do, and don’t really know why, i.e. retail therapy) and LIVE.
I am convinced I can live for as long as I choose to. And this does not have to be a painful thing, it can be a glorious thing, eating well, aging well, living well, loving well, all make getting older what it should be. An amazing event, something that allows you to turn from a selfish individual concerned for what the world can do for you, into an individual who finally realizes its about what you can bring to the world that matters.
To: MidwestMatt,
I read a lot but don’t recommend many books. One I do like, though, is Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, How to Finally, Really Grow Up by James Hollis,PhD. I’ve read a few of his books and they all pretty pretty much contain the same message, which I summarize as:
We all have baggage; most of it we don’t even realize we carry;
No one but yourself can make you happy; and
It’s important to learn to be content in solitude.
I’ve read this book a number of times, just to remind myself of its messages, and do recommend it.
Good luck,
Dave
I haven’t read the rest of the thread, but I must admit; as a 30 year old man, very recently separated with a son, I am terrified of growing old. I am more scared of growing old alone than I am of death. Voted yes.
I think for men it’s more about a loss of ability and strength than a loss of looks (though that definitely plays a part). As a runner and someone who stays active, I worry I might not be able to do five-minute miles or go to the gym regularly as I get older. And if I’m not fit, what will I become?