TWENTY LIFE HACKS FOR OLD PEOPLE

-

  

 

1.  If you want to put off accepting that you are old, avoid mirrors.

2.  Wear comfortable shoes.  Always.  No matter what they look like.

3.  Talk to yourself, especially when you need good advice about things like what to wear or what to eat or what movie to watch on Netflix.

4.  ALWAYS hold handrails when going up or down stairs. (Yes, you can fall upstairs.)

5.  Offer to take a grandkid out to eat if you want to chat. Also offer to give them rides when they need them. (NB, enjoy this while you can because it will not be as effective after they learn to drive.)

6.  Be very careful not to offend your friends by calling them “old folks” even if you think of them that way.

7.  Do something constructive every day before you read or watch TV. This is how you avoid feeling guilty when you sit down.

8.  Go to bed early and get up early. Your best sleep comes before midnight.

9.  Go out to run errands early in the morning, before all the young ones wake up and get in your way.

10. Buy things in small containers. You will be able to use them up before they spoil and they will be easier to lift.

11. Put things you use often at waist level and, whenever possible, in plain sight.

12. To avoid unnecessary tripping, be very careful around cats.

13. Use a nightlight on the path to the bathroom.

14. If you live alone, put a baseball bat under your bed and make a plan to use it in case of emergency. (NB: you will rarely need to activate this plan but it will make you feel safer to have one.)

15. Write lists of things you need to remember and try to remember where the lists are.

16. Do only one thing at a time to maximize the pleasure of the experience: do not eat and watch TV at the same time; do not play spider solitaire while engaging in small talk with a friend on the phone; do not cook things on the stove and walk away to do something else (for obvious reasons).

17. As much as lieth in you, discover and use whatever communication application the people you love will notice. Update this info regularly for maximum effectiveness.

18. Find a comfortable pace and think, move, and live in that rhythm. This will lower your blood pressure, help you avoid accidents, and allow you to smell the flowers along the way.

19. Pray without ceasing. At this stage of life you need that more than ever. (Actually, that’s not quite true. Prayer has always been essential, but now you are wise enough to realize that.)

20. Enjoy memories and anticipate heaven, but discipline yourself to live in the present moment.


Otherwise you will miss those lovely flowers along the way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Ways to Open Your Heart to Renewal

-
The beginning of a new year is a natural time for thinking about renewal. We say good-bye to an old, tired year and look with hope and expectation to a new one. A clean page. A fresh chance. A time to think about how to make our future better--more productive, more significant, more successful, more joy-filled. For Christians, thoughts of renewal usually revolve around God. We belong to Him forever, but we are vacillating human beings, and our relationship with Him can easily stagnate. We need times of refreshing. We need to come again to the fountain of living water. We need to long for Him so deeply that it drives us back into His presence. Thankfully, God prompts that longing. He never forces Himself back into our lives, but the restlessness we feel without Him invariably draws us. So what to do when we feel the restlessness? When we become aware that something's not right in our spirits? God is the One who must rescue us from the doldrums of spiritual lethargy, but there are st
Read more

No Footrpints in the Sand

-
Image
My heart is heavy.   Summer weather has finally come.   I should be enjoying the August sun and the season of rest before school starts.   Instead I'm struggling to hang onto joy.   What a waste of beautiful weather! But sun in the heart doesn't always follow sun in the sky.   That's life. Maybe I've been reading too much world news.    No.   The problem is closer than that.   I'm seeing the spiritual apathy and emptiness in my own little world.   And, too often, in my own little heart.   I'm comparing the fruitful way God used to work, in both my world and my heart, with the spiritual barrenness that seems to surround me.   I wonder, sometimes, if God is even able to reach any of us in our current culture of self-satisfaction and apathy.   A TIME FOR DOUBTS It's somewhat comforting to know I'm not the first to feel this angst.  This morning I opened my Bible to Psalm 77.   In verses 1 and 2, David says, "I cried out to G
Read more

Five Common Myths About Sharing the Gospel

-
Image
This article was originally posted in the FECB blog on January 22, 2013 We mean well.   We really want our friends to know Jesus.   But too often we approach them with wrong ideas in our heads.   If we really want to be effective witnesses, we should be aware of five common myths about evangelism. Myth #1: There are two kinds of people:   them and us.   It's a mistake to see everyone as being on one side of the fence or the other.   That's not the appropriate metaphor.   There's no fence.   There's a road, and we're all walking on it.   For sure, there's a point in every person's journey when they choose to follow Jesus. But it's only a step along the path.   The road continues.   None of us has arrived until we get to heaven, and we're all learning as we go.   The people we want to share Jesus with are just fellow travelers.   Realizing this opens up a whole new way of seeing others, and it will change the way we reach out to
Read more