WE ARE IN A NEW ERA of aging, and it's time to tell a new story. People are taking longer to grow “old” and taking even longer to think of themselves as “old.” Boomer retirees are more active than previous generations and more interested in being activated by new experiences. Advanced age may bring physical decline and chronic health conditions, but that's not the main storyline of retirement. Through most of the retirement journey, people are happier, more content, and having more fun than at any time in their lives. With age comes perspective, self-knowledge, emotional intelligence, more enjoyment of freedom and of family and friends. People have more awareness of the ticking of the clock, which imparts an urgency to life, but also to give back, teach, and learn more. People reinvent. Many become stronger and grander versions of themselves.

Aspiration, Not Desperation

The dominant arc through most people's retirement years is now an ascent, not a descent. Chip Conley, author of Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder and founder of the Modern Elder Academy, explains the “U-curve” phenomenon: “Older people have more hope and excitement for the future than they do for the past, which is a big surprise to many. Businesses and advertisers need to recognize and tap into the ‘U-curve of happiness.’ Social science studies show that, pretty much across all cultures, people's level of happiness diminishes starting about age 25. Around 50, they may hit bottom, but then happiness goes up. With each passing decade, you feel better and more content about life. So new research is showing that today, people in their seventies are happier than people in their fifties.”

Dr. Charlotte Yeh, Chief Medical Officer of AARP Services, Inc., makes an important point: “We need to reframe aging in both our language and our imagery. The City of Boston renamed its ‘Commission on Affairs of the Elderly’ to the ‘Age Strong Commission.’ Too many people believe that at 64 you are a productive, contributing member of society. And then at 65 you're supposed to retire, go on Social Security and Medicare, and overnight you become irrelevant and become dependent. What we really need to say is that at 65 keep it moving. I like to say it's not aging in place. It's thriving in motion.”

The Age Strong Commission's public awareness campaign features eight Bostonians who “disrupt the negative messaging about aging by being themselves.” Each is profiled to refute a specific ageist stereotype – inactive, cranky, frail, frumpy, childish, helpless, senile, over the hill. For example, Vinny, 83, has the rebuttal to frail: “I'm a longtime boxer, and I can still pack a punch. I hit the heavy bag at the gym and swim laps every day. I am a lot of things, and frail isn't one of them.” Irene, 103, has the rebuttal to senile: “You think I'm out of touch? Whatevah! I use a smartphone, paint every day, play Sudoku on my tablet, and spend time with my boyfriend. I am a lot of things, and senile isn't one of them.”

The End of “Seniors” and the Rise of “Modern Elders”

Maggie Kuhn was a woman far ahead of her time. She was both a visionary and a role model for young and old, attesting to our potential for strength, worth, and beauty in life's later years. She was also Ken's dear friend and mentor. Way back in 1970, she co-founded the Gray Panthers after long, productive stints on the staffs of the YWCA and the national office of the United Presbyterian Church. Finding herself forcibly retired, bereft of her accustomed role and a sense of meaningful involvement, she transformed into an outspoken and influential activist. Banding together with a small group of like-minded friends, she launched the Gray Panthers, which in a decade became a coalition of more than 10,000 people of all ages who were committed to an activist approach to social change around aging. She and her fellow Gray Panthers (Ken was an active member back in that era) took a stand against any people and groups who demonstrated ageism, especially among those organizations that are supposed to serve the elderly.

Nicknamed “America's wrinkled radical” in her seventies, she unflinchingly challenged the “powers that be,” from the U.S. Senate to the American Medical Association to the National Gerontological Society, and countless other groups who displayed varying forms of ageism and age-related prejudice. She was slight (she couldn't have weighed more than 95 pounds) and a bit frail with hands gnarled from arthritis – yet when she went after anything, whether it be a topic or a person, she was relentless. She could be found espousing her views about the liberation of aging on everything from The Evening News to Saturday Night Live until she passed away at the ripe age of 89 in 1995. Maggie wrote several books, Get Out of There and Do Something About Injustice, Maggie Kuhn on Aging, and No Stone Unturned, as well as numerous monographs on various aspects of aging, health care, work, older women, and religion.

One night before a big health care conference in Berkeley, California, in which Ken and Maggie were speakers, they got to talking over dinner about words and language and how they didn't always make the point in the way they should. “For example,” Maggie said over dessert, “we need a better word or phrase to describe long-term care and how we should be caring for our elders with greater respect and honor.” Maggie hated the word “seniors,” and she also disliked being referred to as “elderly,” though she liked the tone and dignity of being thought of as an “elder.” “So,” she challenged Ken, “before you pick me up tomorrow morning to drive me to the conference, make up a new, better word to replace long-term care or geriatric care.”

Ken was up all night thinking about this and playing with all sorts of words, phrases, and sentences. When Maggie got in his car the next morning, he said, “How about ‘eldercare’?” She smiled and told him she liked it a lot, as did he. It stuck.

Maggie Kuhn's gravitas and preference notwithstanding, for the past four to five decades, “senior” has been the widespread term for older adults. But it is losing popularity. Although it carries some positive connotations around knowledge and experience, it is usually paired with “citizen,” especially by government and social service agencies, where the emphasis has traditionally been on decline and disability. Many, like Maggie Kuhn, now find “senior citizen” to be patronizing and ready to be “retired.”

Meanwhile, “elder” has very positive meaning in religious organizations and many cultures around the world. Ken was in Kenya recently where older Masai men and women are respectfully referred to as “elders,” and younger Masai are referred to as “junior elders.” Chip Conley embraces the idea of “modern elder,” which we like, too. For many people, it's okay to be an “elder,” but they don't want to be described as “elderly.” Another contender, the word “mature” has positive meaning but can seem euphemistic or even evasive.

The most generally acceptable terms today seem to be “older adult” and “older person,” and simply saying “older” and “younger” are useful to distinguish age cohorts. All the candidate terms have their advocates and their foes. In this book, we go with the flow and use older, mature, senior, or elder as the context suggests.

It Isn't About a Number

Age has long been a convenient if simplistic way to characterize citizens and customers. And it's still a trigger, as anyone who has reached the Medicare eligibility age of 65 and felt the onslaught of insurance industry promotions can testify. But today, age says less and less about the individual. If we gathered a group of 65-year-olds, their circumstances and experiences would be all over the map. One could be newly married, another recently widowed. One might be going back to college, another is starting an encore career as a teacher. One is happily empty nesting, another is moving in with their grandkids. One is scraping to get by, another is a multi-millionaire and starting a foundation.

Most retirees simply don't want to be characterized by their age. Research has consistently shown that they typically view themselves as feeling a decade or more younger than their chronological age. So making assumptions based on their age is off-putting, and sometimes even insulting. We realize that this is a far cry from the Colonial era when people lied about their age by adding years. Most people today would either rather be a few years younger than what they are – or not be tied to any specific age at all. However, we are witnessing a growing number of self-confident Boomers who are proud of their age. Karyne Jones, CEO of the National Caucus and Center on Black Aging, says, “I own my age. I have never gone for this ‘70 is the new 50’ stuff because it says that you shouldn't be proud of where you are in your lifespan.”

As we mentioned in Chapter 2, we have learned that older men and women often feel that youth-oriented marketers just don't get them. So much of the marketing and media they encounter seems disrespectful or just plain ignorant. We've repeatedly heard that they are not looking for sympathy, but empathy: they want the people designing products, services, programs, and even communications to learn how to see and feel the world from the modern elders’ perspectives. This can sometimes be tricky, because young people may have limited experience with older adults, and they will often generalize based on their cool grandma or their cranky old uncle. Hence the need for organizations to go beyond their comfort zones and really listen to what the new generation of retirees is saying about their hopes, fears, and dreams.

New Freedom, Less Worry, More Fun

Our research confirms that people are happier, more content, having more fun, and feeling a greater overall sense of well-being after the age of 65 than at any stage of their lives. Many retirees enter what we've named the “freedom zone.” Nearly all retirees (92%) say they enjoy the freedom and flexibility of a less structured life in retirement.¹ They tell us that they have freedom from old constraints, starting with most of the daily pressures of juggling work and family responsibilities. And they have more freedom to do what they want and on their own terms – sleep in or get up and exercise, take a drive or read a book, volunteer or learn a skill, hang out with the grandchildren or fall in love.

More freedom translates into more opportunity to have fun. Popular perception (and the media) may tend to associate fun with the carefree days of youth. Our own surveys show that U-curve, originally researched by Dr. Laura Carstensen at the Stanford Center on Longevity. The experience of fun dips in mid-life and then rises to peak in retirement (Figure 3.1).

What makes life more fun? Less stress from work. More free time, including for family. Greater freedom to do what you enjoy, rather than what others expect of you. And growing self-knowledge and awareness of what you truly enjoy doing (Figure 3.2). Lori Bitter, author of The Grandparent Economy, told us, “We become more of ourselves as we get older. We just let stuff that seems frivolous and not really authentic to who we are fall away. I think that's true of friendships, and true of activities that we may have taken part in but that no longer really interest us or meet our needs.”

It's not just fun that is on the rise. With today's longevity and new post-career lifestyle options, overall emotional well-being peaks in the retirement years, where more people report being happy, confident, content, and relaxed. And contrary to ageist stereotypes, they are the least likely to report being worn out, anxious, lonely, or bored (Figure 3.3). Put those trends together, and people between the ages of about 60 and 75 reach the pinnacle of the freedom zone, where they report high levels and great balance of free time, fun, and emotional well-being. Life in retirement is theirs to enjoy.

A note of caution is warranted here. Not all older people are healthy, happy, or having fun. Many are miserable, some of whom have been miserable their whole lives. Yet, in study after study, the majority – not all, but most – of retirees are turning out to be living their best years. Not only are they enjoying themselves, but they've circled the sun enough times to be appreciative of what they have and less driven by unrealistic expectations or FOMO (fear of missing out).

Let's look at three examples of how aging is being reframed today. Collectively, they point the way forward, because reframing aging ultimately involves what we say, how we think, and what we do.

Aging Becomes a “Non-Issue”

Readers of the May 2019 issue of British Vogue got a bonus: an 80-page supplement in which all of the models, designers, photographers, and make-up artists were over 50. The cover model and lead interview was a fit and beautiful 81-year-old Jane Fonda. Featured inside were 74-year-old Helen Mirren, 64-year-old Isabelle Adjani, and 60-year-old make-up artist Val Garland. They called the publication “The Non-Issue.”

Sponsored by L'Oréal Paris and created by McCann London and McCann Paris, the supplement drew widespread attention to the issue of aging and seized the chance to declare that it should be a non-issue. A companion video opens with the declaration: “Women over 50 remain invisible in the fashion and beauty industries. We at L'Oréal Paris believe that age is a non-issue.” Charlotte Franceries, beauty team president at McCann Paris, explains the motivation: “Ageism remains an often-overlooked form of discrimination, unconsciously accepted by so many in everyday life…. It's time we all awoke from the inertia of everyday ageism.”

In addition to surprising, enlightening, and entertaining readers, “The Non-Issue” issue sent a message to the fashion, beauty, and publishing industries that their unvarying celebration of youthful beauty was short-sighted. Forty percent of women are over age 50, but their media representation rate is only 15%.² Actress, writer, fitness guru, and political activist Jane Fonda said: “It's important to understand that older women are the fastest growing demographic in the whole world. It's time to recognize our value.” Age has beauty, too, often alongside extraordinary accomplishment.

“The Non-Issue” issue included a QR code to access background information and video on how the publication came together. On newsstands it actually outsold September, traditionally the best-selling month, and it drew over 40,000 new readers to British Vogue.

A catalyst behind “The Non-Issue” was McCann Worldgroup's 2017 global study, “The Truth About Age.” It found that, in all regions of the world, people of all ages were defying the traditional expectations associated with their lifestages – in other words, they're not acting their age. Two-thirds of people in their seventies believe that “you're never too old to casually date.” The age group that fears death least is in their seventies; those who fear it most are in their twenties.

Nadia Tuma-Weldon is a global director of McCann Worldgroup Truth Central, where she digs deep to unearth people's underlying beliefs behind today's major trends, and she led the “Truth about Age” study. We called her to better understand what she had learned. “In the aging study,” she told us, “we found that age is no longer a reliable predictor of just about anything. Age doesn't predict your style, health, aspirations, how you date, or how you behave.” She sees opportunities for brands to speak to retirees in ways that don't make them feel old. After all, “You only feel as old as the culture around you.”

Others already frame aging in consistently positive ways. Targeted media like AARP Magazine and other publications have been doing so effectively for years. But general audience publications tend to be behind the curve. Leaders at McCann, L'Oréal, and Vogue would no doubt agree that “The Non-Issue” was only a step. The fashion, beauty, advertising, and media industries are among those most in need of lessons on reframing aging.

Modern Elders Are Reinventing, Not Retiring

In addition to being a visionary spokesperson for modern elderhood, Chip Conley is walking the walk and talking the talk in his own life. In his late fifties, he has already had multiple careers and evolving roles as leader, mentor, and lifelong learner. At age 26, after receiving his undergraduate and master's degrees in business from Stanford, he founded the boutique hotel and restaurant company Joie de Vivre Hospitality. After running and growing the company for over two decades, he successfully sold it in 2010. Then, after this “retirement” in 2013, he was recruited by the co-founders of Airbnb as Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy, where he helped grow the brand dramatically.

His experience there, where he was twice the age of the average employee, led him to coin the term “modern elder” to describe his role: “someone who marries wisdom and experience with curiosity, a beginner's mind, and a willingness to learn from those younger.” His book Wisdom@Work recounts how he learned to “intern publicly and mentor privately,” becoming a modern elder, “both student and sage.” More recently, he believes that we would all do well to become what he calls “menterns,” reflecting the dual roles of teacher and student.

In 2018, Chip married his interests in hospitality and personal reinvention and founded the Modern Elder Academy (MEA) in Baja California Sur, with the mission to help people navigate midlife and prepare for their roles as modern elders. Inspired by lessons learned from serving on the boards of both Burning Man and Esalen Institute, Conley's new academy describes itself as:

The world's first midlife wisdom school. Our unique curriculum includes classroom learning as well as bread baking and breaking, impromptu dance parties, cultural experiences, morning meditations, and surreal sunsets. The experience supports our attendees (“compadres,” whose average age is 52) as they navigate this midlife journey and reframe a lifetime of experience. They receive a Certificate in Mindset Management, and emerge feeling more relevant, resilient, adaptable, and empowered to create what's next.

Modern Elder Academy is an educational experience in a luxury resort. Situated on Pacific Ocean beachfront, the amenities include a pool, a massage studio, and a silent contemplation park on a preserved dune. The curriculum is unique, with workshops titled “The Making of a Modern Elder,” “Enhancing Your Emotional Aliveness,” and “Crafting Your Encore Career.” The Modern Elder Academy library has sections on “What can death teach me about life?” and “What are the unexpected pleasures of aging?”

Journalist Tina Seelig wrote about taking a Modern Elder Academy course for Medium: “We carefully considered what ‘business’ each of us are in…. We drilled down to explore what we really want to contribute to the world. It was fascinating to see people light up when they realized what they really wanted to contribute. Essentially, it felt as though we were all slowly moving into our hearts from our heads.”³

Conley explains the story that Modern Elder Academy helps people retell: “The social narrative is basically that midlife is a crisis and after a crisis you have decrepitude. But you actually are much happier in your 60s and 70s, so why aren't we preparing for that?”⁴ On Conley's drawing board are small, intergenerational communities around the world. “Instead of creating a seniors’ community with a golf course, we'd be creating 12 acres with a Wisdom Center in the middle, with workshops and programs to develop wisdom at any age,” says Conley.⁵

A growing number of major universities – Harvard, Stanford, University of Minnesota, University of Texas, Notre Dame – have programs for mid-to-late-career professionals who want to reset. We wonder why every educational institution isn't in the business not only of encouraging retirees and other elders to take or audit regular courses, but also of offering courses that help them navigate and even reinvent their careers and lives.

Why are these needed? When our children near the end of their high school years, there's a great deal of support and activity available to help them consider how to get into and make the most of college. There are college representatives who visit high schools to talk about their programs and communities. Parents take the kids on tours to get a feel for the kind of facilities, programs, and culture each school offers. Websites and social media connect the kids with candidate schools and their current students to get a flavor of life at each college. All of this to prepare for a four- or five-year segment of life.

Yet when it comes to retirement, which for most people is a multi-decade adventure, there's almost nothing by way of onramps, orientation programs, or tryouts. We are sure that this will change in the years ahead, as life coaches, retirement advisors, travel guides, and even summer camps begin to cater to the retiree-to-be.

The Power of Universal Design

It began with a peeler and a problem: Why aren't kitchen utensils easier for people with arthritis, who were generally older, to use?

After four decades in the kitchenware business and selling the company he founded, Sam Farber retired in 1988 at age 66. Kitchenware was in his blood – an uncle had founded Farberware in 1900. Shortly after retiring, Sam and his wife, Betsey, rented a home in Provence, France, for an extended vacation. Betsey had developed mild arthritis and the peeler and kitchen tools in the rented home were difficult for her to use. Sam saw a need and an opportunity to create kitchen tools to help people with reduced dexterity and be more comfortable for everyone.

He started experimenting using modeling clay to try to devise more comfortable tool handles. Then he joined forces with Davin Stowell, founder of Smart Design, a New York industrial design firm. They researched a variety of designs and held workshops and focus groups to understand the difficulties of older people and those with arthritis. Then they developed alternatives and tested them with a wide range of users – people of different ages with different hand types and sizes, different hand problems and no hand problems, and different degrees of manual strength and dexterity. They consulted chefs and ergonomics experts.

They also paid a lot of attention to the appearance of the peeler and other tools. They wanted the products to be useful and attractive to the mainstream market, not just those who needed help. They were committed to “universal design” – producing things that were easier to use for as many people as possible, in other words, “designing products for young and old, male and female, lefties and righties and many with special needs.”⁶

The OXO product line of 15 “Good Grips” kitchen tools was launched at the 1990 San Francisco Gourmet Products Show. At $6, the swivel peeler retailed for three times the average barebones peeler. But the larger, easy-to-hold handle and angle of approach made the peeler an instant sensation. The next year, OXO had $3 million in sales and by 2000 it was $60 million. The company spent little on advertising because the products were so often featured in the media for their quality and design.⁷

Today the company makes over 1,000 products under a variety of brands, having covered the range of kitchen tools and expanding into hardware, gardening tools, office supplies, and products for young families – the OXO Tot collection. The most popular product is the salad spinner, operated by pressing down on the large, black button (rather than gripping and turning handles).

Sam Farber sold OXO to General Housewares in 1992 for $6.2 million (today it is part of Helen of Troy Limited) and re-retired, but he had started a revolution. OXO has become an iconic international brand, winning more than 100 design awards, and the company continues to maintain its position as a market leader with a commitment to universal design. It's worth noting that even the name OXO reflects the commitment to universal design. It can be flipped and read in any direction – horizontal, vertical, upside down, or backwards.

Many of the conveniences that we all take for granted are instances of universal design: automatic doors and electric toothbrushes, audio books and noise-canceling headphones, and more recently Toto “Washlet” automatic toilets and Nike FlyEase shoes without laces. These products that are convenient and useful for older consumers are convenient and useful for everyone. Product makers can reframe their attitude toward aging by designing products that appeal to and serve broader markets. Even in an age of customization, personalization, and product variety, the baseline product or platform can follow the principles of universal design.

Back in the 1980s, Ken and Maggie Kuhn were asked to speak at a Western Gerontological Society annual conference about universal design. They decided to focus on common items in need of improvement: doorknobs. The two troublemakers talked about how building designers weren't being very kind to older men and women by having traditional doorknobs in all their buildings, whether they be private homes or public buildings like hospitals and libraries. Structurally, doorknobs are hard to grasp, difficult to turn, and can be challenging to operate if you have arthritis in your hands, as many older people do. Maggie and Ken also argued that doorknobs don't work that well for a young mom with a baby in her arms or someone carrying bags of groceries. They proposed that all doorknobs be replaced by door levers. The people in the room laughed at their audacity, but many left that session and wrote and talked about the need for more universal design. Within a decade, knobs in public buildings were replaced by door levers everywhere, and levers were the default for new construction and renovation.

Currently, only 2% of all the housing stock in America is “aging-friendly.” There's still much work to be done.

The New Story Can Be Fun to Tell

Too many portrayals treat aging as a serious condition, to be approached cautiously and somberly. In fact, older consumers have the experience to recognize how they're portrayed and the self-knowledge to poke fun at themselves. Retirees are having fun, and marketers would do well to join in the fun. We're fond of the role reversal in BMO Harris Bank's “New Wallet” advertisement developed by Young & Rubicam Group. A teen presents his grandmother a birthday gift. Her response: “A wallet! Um, what's this for?” She then demos for the grandson how she uses the bank's smartphone app to make purchases with cash or credit cards, transfer money, and so on. The voiceover defines the “BMO Effect” – “the feeling you get when your phone becomes your wallet.”

Portrayals can be funny without caricature. The popular and award-winning Netflix sitcom The Kominsky Method features two older guys, played by Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin. There's lots going on in their lives – one recently widowed, the other with a new girlfriend and prostate problems, both dealing with adult children – but there's comedy at every turn. Likewise, Grace and Frankie is a refreshing spin on Golden Girls, with two older women living together after their husbands left the women for each other. These shows, by the way, are hits with people of all ages.

Dr. Bill Thomas is one of the world's most impassioned and knowledgeable leaders in the field of aging. A geriatrician by training, he was recognized by The Wall Street Journal as one of a dozen innovators changing the future of retirement in America.⁸ In 2007, he and journalist Kavan Peterson co-founded ChangingAging.org, a live/digital platform designed to address the endemic ageism within American culture. In 2014 they collaborated to create and star in the ChangingAging Tour, live theatrical performances since held in over 130 cities across North America. How to make a program about aging fun? In the first tour, Thomas performed on stilts: “I wanted to demonstrate that if Elders kept growing on the outside like they do on the inside, they would be 12 feet tall and tower over all of us. I wanted to challenge the perception that because our bodies don't continue growing, the person doesn't continue growing.” Audiences may expect a doctor in a lab coat giving a presentation. “I show up with a guitar, a faculty of musicians and performers, a theater set with costumes, music, art, mythology, storytelling, and neuroscience all mixed up. It's kind of like a TED Talk on steroids.” ⁹

True to its commitment to enable the athlete in everyone, Nike takes aspirational to the extreme – and generally we like what they've done. Decades ago, they broke through the age barrier with a fun and funny commercial that featured the 80-year-old retiree, marathoner, and former hod carrier Walt Stack. As we watch him engaged in his daily ritual of running across the Golden Gate Bridge, his voice overlay tells us, “I run 17 miles every morning.” Then as the camera zooms in to capture his mischievous grin he says, “People ask me how I keep my teeth from chattering in the wintertime…. I leave them in my locker.” Then the NIKE swoosh appears with the tagline “Just Do It.”

One of Nike's more recent “Unlimited” campaign ads portrays Sister Madonna Buder, aka, “The Iron Nun.” At age 82, she became the oldest person to ever finish an Ironman triathlon competition. Buder began training at 47, completed her first Ironman at 55, and now at 89 has completed 389 triathlons, including 45 Ironmans. The ad focuses on her working out and then right in the middle of a race. It closes with the narrator speculating whether the Ironman is too much for her. Her response, “The first 45 didn't kill me.” Viewers of the ad don't need to aspire to become triathletes to gain inspiration from Sister Buder. They can aspire to be more active and be better versions of themselves.

“You carry your attitude with you,” Sister Buder says in an interview. “You either achieve or you self-destruct. If you think positively, you can even turn a negative into a positive.” In an article she wrote at age 88 called “What running taught the ‘Iron Nun’ about aging,” she shares her unique advice: “First, remember yourself as a child. Imagine yourself as that little person skipping along without a care in the world. Second, never stop being that child. It will help you be pure, creative, and authentic.”

Staying in the Game with a New Sense of Urgency

On the occasion of the Esalen Institute celebrating its 50th birthday in 2012, Ken had the honor of conducting an intimate interview with one of the most interesting women of our time. Living a full life of 99 years (currently, and still counting), 68 of them married to the famous architect and urban designer Lawrence Halprin, Anna Halprin has been a teacher and role model to tens of thousands of women and men in search of their authentic selves. Blending classic dance with the movements and practices of psychodrama and Gestalt, Halprin has almost singlehandedly transformed the fields of movement and postmodern dance. During the interview, Ken asked, “Do you think of yourself as an old woman?” After taking a few moments to gather her thoughts, Anna said:

Yes, I do. I'm aware of that every day of my life. But I'm not an “old woman” in the sense that I'm kind of a cartoon character of an old woman. I am not that. I will never allow myself to be that. Rather, I think of being an old woman in terms of what am I doing with my life. There's an urgency I increasingly feel that every day has got to count. What's the right thing for me to be doing right now? Becoming old for me is a way of being urgent about life.

For example, last year I tripped on something and fractured my pelvis. I was furious. I went to bed and thought I'd be all right in the morning. But in the middle of the night, I was in excruciating pain, so I called 911 and was taken to the hospital. The doctor there said, “Mrs. Halprin, you've got a fracture. It's going to take six to eight weeks to heal.” So I said, “Well, too bad,” and he said, “What do you mean? Aren't you going to check into the hospital?” I said, “No, I've got to leave now because I have a movement class to teach at 10 am.”

Increasingly, today's retirees are exploring, not retreating. More and more have renewed purpose and new, often higher ambitions in retirement. Even when they encounter health or other difficulties, Boomer retirees aren't resigned to a slow decline. Rather, they want to continue to become better versions of themselves. That's the new story of aging and retirement.