How can you live fully into your 80s and beyond? Join Cathleen as she speaks to Dr. Katharine Esty, a practicing psychotherapist, a social psychologist, best-selling author, and activist for aging well. Her latest book, Eightysomethings: A Practical Guide to Letting Go, Aging Well, and Finding Unexpected Happiness, offers revolutionary tips on how to live fully in your 80s and beyond.
Episode 32: Dr. Esty holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from Boston University. To write her book, she interviewed more than 120 people over 80 from across the United States. Dr. Esty focused on interviewing those living exciting lives, purposeful lives, and who would have something to share about what is possible when you're in your 80s. Katharine is on a mission to foster a new understanding of living fully in our 80s and beyond.
Dr. Esty, now 87, continues with her private practice and is featured in the New York Times’ opinion section. She lives in a retirement community West of Boston and is a mother of four sons, as well as being a grandmother.
Links:
What's next?
Are you in your 80s? What are your views or questions on living fully in your 80s and beyond? Share them with us at info@seniorityauthority.org or find us on your favorite social media platform.
Stay Connected:
Cathleen Toomey
Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.
Cathleen: Welcome to Seniority Authority. I'm your host, Cathleen Toomey and I track down experts to answer your questions on aging. Let's get smarter about growing older. Thanks to our show sponsor the Riverwoods group. Northern New England's largest family of a nonprofit retirement communities where active adults find community purpose and peace of mind visit riverwoodsgroup.org. Welcome to Seniority Authority. I'm your host, Cathleen Toomey, what is there to look forward to in your eighties? Well, how about a new boyfriend? Publishing a book being written up in the New York Times and breaking stereotypes. My next guest has done all of that. Dr. Katharine Esty holds a PhD in social psychology and is the author of several books. Her latest book, 80 something's a practical guide to letting go aging well and finding unexpected happiness, provides a guide to others in their eighties Dr. Esty interviewed more than 120 people over 80 from across the US to write this new book. She published it at age 85. Today at 87 she continues her private practice and was recently in the New York Times in the opinion section, Mother of Four Sons. She is a true change agent who is focused on fostering a new understanding of how to live fully in our eighties and beyond. Welcome to Seniority Authority Dr. Esty, I am thrilled to have you on the program today.
Dr. Esty: Well, I'm thrilled to be here and it's very, very nice to be here for this conversation with you.
Cathleen: I'm really looking forward to it because as a lot of people have said, it's hard to know what being old is going to be like and part of the goal of this podcast is to try to answer those questions and the best people to know what being 80 is like are other 80 year olds. I really enjoyed reading your book, but once I started talking to you in preparation for this episode I realized you have been a change agent all your life, you have bucked stereotypes forever. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your background?
Dr. Esty: Sure, I grew up in New England in Amherst Massachusetts. My family was very bookie and my father was a professor but I was always an activist, I like books but I liked to be active even more. I led a revolution in the third grade.
Cathleen: Was your revolution in the 3rd grade.
Dr. Esty: Well it was when I had a very cross teacher that we didn't like and so I got the kids to as we marched out two by two at the end of class school one day had everyone yelled together when I raised my hand, Miss drake stinks earliest attempt revolution was not too successful, but I went on to work in an international work camp for peace when I was 19 in Austria building roads with a bunch of others and I then became a social worker and a therapist helping individuals to change their lives and then for 20 years ran a consulting firm where we really worked with at the organizational level, trying to make better organizations, both nationally and internationally. And that took me to places like Bangladesh. So that's my life in about a minute and a half.
Cathleen: Wow. All while raising four boys, which is quite a handful. What I like about your book is it's not just about you, you're a very extraordinary person and you've done a lot of different things, but you, it's not a memoir, it's a guide and you've interviewed 120 people Over the age of 80. How did you choose the people that you interviewed for this book?
Dr. Esty: Well, it all started when I was in a kind of a funk when I turned 80 and I was climbing this mountain and couldn't make it up, it was just a little tiny mountain. So at that point I was fairly discouraged, I was in a funk and I thought well I don't like being 80, but then I decided to go and find out and I said there must be somebody who knows how to be old and doing it well. And so I started first in my own retirement community and so I interviewed about 20 people. They're very people I didn't know particularly and then I from there I used what as a social psychology language which we called snowball technique, I had them tell me about other people and I wanted to get people in different economic classes and I got people all over the country. I didn't want it to be just, you know, New England book. So I talked to a lot of people in California and in the, in, you know when I went to Ohio and did some people there and then I got people in Montana and so on it. So it's not a scientific sample, but it is got a wide range and I was looking for the different kinds of people. But I was particularly wanting to talk to people who were living exciting lives purposeful lives and that would have something to teach me and others about what is possible when you're in your eighties.
Cathleen: And I think one thing that people, everyone wants to be independent, they want to live an exciting life. And one of the challenges of aging is that it brings health problems and I like the fact that in your book you didn't skip over the health problems, but you identified five different coping styles to deal with health issues because a lot of people that listen to the podcast say, well, what about when I have when I have illness and I loved these different coping techniques, can you walk us through the five different styles?
Dr. Esty: Yeah, just what you're saying that people, their health determines a lot. And so I wanted to give people some guidelines for thinking about it because what is amazing. It really doesn't depend quite so much on the actual condition, but more on the attitude that people have for how well they cope with their different health problems. Well, the five styles I identified are the first is denial and that's probably the least helpful because those are the people that don't go to the doctor never go to the dentist. There just there was one man in particular that I interviewed that had Parkinson's and yet was still using power tools and that's saying his wife was crying that you know, he shouldn't do it. So you know, those are the people that get into trouble because they aren't taking care of themselves and it's just waiting for tragedy. So that's a bad style to have I think that you know, and yet sometimes it's good to see, you know, it has its place, then there's a style that I'm in which is called stoical. People that kind of are usually try to ignore things but not completely. They will go to the doctor needs to be when I really have to but I try to ignore things as long as I can. And I've been spending my life learning to take myself more seriously to do more self care and and I work most of the clients I've worked with, I found that there's kind of stoical on the whole many of them and they need a lot of help in learning about self care now, especially in my retirement community the smallest category people as the complainers doesn't really warm up to complainers. They find people are usually shun them if they are too much into telling people about their recent diarrhea and their headache and it just isn't a winning style. So those people usually are not, as I said, at the center of attention, but there's always some around. Then there's the worriers and these are the people that are anxious. My dear and beloved husband was one of these. He would often take his blood pressure almost every day and take his temperature if he had the least little bit of a runny nose. And he worried a lot and there's many people like that. And those people are can't be held, you can't just say don't worry because that's not a solution for people that are anxious. But I think so if you have somebody like that in your family, you can only kind of help them see that very often they've been wrong in the past about, you know, that that little bump is not cancer and that little pain is not a heart attack. The last style isn't what I call realist and that person takes their health seriously, but they don't complain all the time. They don't ignore, they don't deny they see their doctor every year or for the regular checkups and there's something that occurs. So they just use common sense and that is what I think we all should be aiming to have more common sense approach. So our health doesn't, it's not the determining aspect of our life, but that one that we we determine, we take care of it so that we can do all these other things.
Cathleen: Yeah, I think the realist is the is the way I would want to go. I know there are a lot of stereotypes about older people complaining about their health and I've heard some people call it the organ recital. When you get together, you have a cocktail and everyone talks about how what organs are paining them and and it does get wearisome. I think if you don't want to always talk about your grandchildren and your health, you want to talk about other things. You recognize that independence is critically important for 80 some things in every area of their lives. Speaking of health, how would you recommend that adult Children approach topics of health care and providing support? How do we, as adult Children help support our parents without smothering them?
Dr. Esty: Well, I think we've had a lot of chance to work that out during the pandemic, where the relationships between the people in their seventies and eighties and their Children has been fraught with conflict because we were all anxious about covid and the pandemic. But what I think is that everybody that talking is good and people, it's very hard for adult Children to know how to bring up an issue if they're, for instance, worried that their parents should no longer drive or they think that the setting that they're living in is not really appropriate any longer and they don't know how to to deal with it. So my suggestion is that really they have a meeting that they say, you know, mom, I'm worried about your driving. Can we have a meeting on Thursday and just talk about that that way. The older person gets a chance to prepare everybody and it's kind of formalized. And then I think for the, I usually tell the adult Children that they should listen first, they shouldn't have been and with uh, some of them get so anxious themselves and get they get bossy and they say, you know, like mom, you've got to stop driving. You know, you've had three accidents in the last six months. I think the important thing is that for communication is that the adult Children should listen more and talk less, but that they think, and I think they can recommend and they can urge and they can say, well let's talk again in a month and kind of recommend again. But one of the important things I think is that independence is important. And so really, finally, you know that people have a, this was a hard one for me. People do have a right to make an unwise choice and except if they're going to hurt other people like driving. I think it becomes a point where they don't have the right to drive when they really are having three accidents. So you have a lot to weigh in it. But I think the idea that will negotiate talk listen to each other that then it has a higher probability of ending very well do that.
Cathleen: I think you're right. And I would posit that adult Children who are busy and doing their jobs and their kids and their house, they're probably coming in, checking this off their list. Like, okay mom, you can't drive anymore. Hand over the keys as opposed to saying, mom, tell me what about driving is important to you. Is it about getting out? Is it about socializing is tell me why this is important and then listening and then saying, can we figure out another way for you to do these things that you want to do, go to, you know, go to bridge or go grocery shopping without you driving. So is that like a reframe that you would suggest?
Dr. Esty: I do. I think that's very good and you really, you know, question and really learn what's on their mind and what matters to them and sometimes that they don't know. So that would be a very good way to go.
Cathleen: Yeah, I think that makes a tremendous amount of sense because I think we often walk into a situation, I'm also guilty of this thing. I know what the answer is and just wanting to cut to the chase, but that's not respectful and it doesn't provide space for the other person to say, here's what is important to me. And that's where you get a better relationship out of that. Right now. In chapter 17, you talked about the roadan and langer study on happiness. That refers to the importance, you know, kind of following along with what we just talked about of providing choices decision making and responsibility for older adults. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about this study? Because I found it fascinating.
Dr. Esty: That this was the study that actually changed my mind. I mean it made me open my mind to so many things is this was an old study. But it took place in the 70s when and there was a study that took place in a nursing home and it was two wings of a nursing home where people were, you know, somewhat ill and they couldn't leave. So the study was to see if they gave one wing would be the control group and the other wing had more choices. They were can choose whether they where they would have visitors, they could choose their movies, they could choose other kinds of structures that they wanted to do what they didn't want to do and after a year or so they as they expected, the people that had the more choice and more responsibility. They actually all got plants and so they each one had to care for a plant and in the other wing the control group, the nurses, they had a plan for the nurses took care of it.
Cathleen: If you're getting smarter help us reach more minds. Leave us a review on apple podcasts. So others know we're legit tell your friends to follow us on social or subscribe to our newsletter at seniorityauthority.org org
Dr. Esty: At the end of a year or so. That turned out that yes the people in the control group were more satisfied with their life. They were more contented. They were happier and that was sort of what was expected, what wasn't expected. And it was just a stunning finding was that the people in the control group died at a much higher rate. That a significantly different rate than the people in that other wing.
Cathleen: wow.
Dr. Esty: What just was showing that this is not only nice to have but it was really life changing and prolong their lives. And that study has been repeated over and over and it comes out over and over. It's been upheld and there's been studies now where they give people birds and give them kittens and all these other things. And it does work when you have a responsibility and choice and decision making power so that I think is a good guidance for thinking about aging. That there's this concept called learned helplessness that people are probably able to do more than we think they are. Even people that are in a nursing home or a skilled nursing facility as we call it now.
Cathleen: Well that is impactful because when you think about when you're in skilled nursing or nursing level care, you have the least amount of ability. You need a lot of help with the activities of daily living. So there's not a lot of control and choice compared to your average healthy 80 year old. So the fact that they were able to create this study and have such astounding results really drives at home. That is independence and choice and responsibility are important. That's wonderful. And it goes back to what you were saying is, you know, people have a right to make a bad decision until it starts affecting other people but giving them the chance to make that decision can dramatically affect their quality of life. Absolutely. That's really important. Are there areas that you would recommend people keep watch over that other things that perhaps people are assuming for their 80 year old parents or loved ones that maybe you should give them more choice on even very simple things.
Dr. Esty: Well, I think that both more choice and more conversations often, I think the adult Children don't understand what's going on and they may not realize that older folks, especially the ones that have some beginning dementia want to hide it from their kids and they be falling and they don't tell their parents. So what I recommend is that you know, if you have to spend some time with your adult parent, your 80 year old parents, 70 year old parents and really spend time to see observe how they, what they're doing because they're not, some of the people are not going to, they're in denial, they're not going to tell you. So I do think just plain observation of how they're coping, you know, sometimes they can't do their finances or some people I've seen even here where they look like they're functioning very well. I don't know how to turn their tv on to get a program and so they miss out on so much that and it just seems so, so too bad that they have lost it. But, and they do need some special help. So I do think that people need to be in the right setting so that and the adult Children can help when they see that their parents can't do the maintenance especially don't want old, older people living, you know, in the country miles down the road all alone that it's, but the people can be very stubborn as we all know. But I would say that you need to be kind of closely observing and then just kind of talking and trying to encourage people both to downsize maybe and go to some kind of a condo village, which is a better place for older people than out in the country or all alone by them. You know, where there's nobody checking in with them. That's not a good situation for anybody.
Cathleen: Yeah. And I think that's a situation that we find ourselves in very often. So that's you know, obviously the flip side to the older adults desire for independence is that sometimes they stay in a home that is unwieldy for them to manage. And even the thought of downsizing is exhausting. And I personally just moved a month or so ago and it was worse than I ever imagined and they did downsize but it is painful never mind if you're older and it's more physical work and more emotional work. So, but downsizing to a more manageable space, especially in your eighties is a, is a smart choice, especially if it's in a community, a CCRC or a condo community where you have more interaction because they, the challenge as you get older and stay alone in your home is that you are more isolated and you have a less interaction with people and as we all know that has a dramatic impact on your health as well. So what would your recommendations be for that stubborn parent that doesn't want to move our downside?
Dr. Esty: Well, I think you just have to be kind of determined and hang in there and kind of bring the subject up and say, let's talk about it again in a couple of weeks. I think you obviously can't use anything but persuasion and you have to influence somebody so you can take them to visit people. And I think visiting a different kinds of setup showing them things and you may have to as the adult child do much of the work and helping them move because it is too daunting. And I think I see from where I said that people wait too long to make that move. It's better to move in your seventies before you're really impaired. And yet that doesn't always happen. So, and I do think in our culture that independence is overrated. It's very important. We've talked about that. But you know what is equally important is community. And we've learned recently that you know, if you're alone, it's not good for your health. Being socially isolated as an older person raises your risk of a heart attack and dying by 30% and said the same. If you're lonely and lonely is different from, it just means you're, you might be in a household of a lot of people. But if you're lonely, it's not good for your health either. And that would be if you're not feeling that the people around you care for about you or know you we are social animals. We need company. Maybe you could. And the parents if they see this, they can find a place and have them visit and get used to that place because changes. We know you're just saying change is hard for all of us no matter how old or how young we are. There's something about us that resists a change. So I think being understanding being empathy is always a good answer to everything.
Cathleen: That is absolutely true. And you just touched on a growing epidemic in our country of loneliness among older adults, which is absolutely proven to affect your health as an 80 year old. What advice would you give your fellow 80 year olds on how to cultivate new friends at this stage?
Dr. Esty: Yeah, I think, well I think the thing is it's usually the easiest way to make new friends is I think by doing something together. So if you join, you know, go work in a soup kitchen, go to get a volunteer job anywhere. You know, go to the council on aging if there's one in your town and where there's people and activities join a yoga class, I think there's all kinds of the bill of places now for classes of all kinds and events and I think that's the best way to get to know people. Then there's also you know, just keeping your friendships up. A lot of people, especially just now have been out of touch with people during the recent pandemic. So I think keeping in touch with the friends, you do have, it works well. And then once you do that, I know a couple of people have been got in touch with that. I know are in touch with their high school friends and they all now start talking on zoom and they made the country and so there I have one friend who she talks like once a month to her high school buddies in Ohio and and they you know have just had an enormous amount of fun doing that and then they now are reading books together. I mean so I think it's, but it's being proactive and I think that you know that it's so I would say taking classes looking at your old friends and just being open to calling people that you think look nice if you, you know in my retirement community of course it's easier if you work in a place like that to that that's easier than people that live alone. But I think for anyone there's things in their community that make it the source of friendships. I think
Cathleen: I like your recommendations on how to get more involved and engaged in life and that is talking about how to be present at any age. And certainly giving back is a way to increase your happiness and involvement and for those of you who I highly recommend buying this book. There is a List of exciting things for 80 year olds to do in the book. So if you feel like you have no options left to you, I would say by Katherine's book because she has a glossary of things that you can do which I really hope that more people follow. I loved your article, your chapter on Becca Levy of Yale University and her research on attitudes towards aging and how viewing aging as a positive versus negative can actually lead to a healthier longer life. Can you tell us a little bit about this research you referenced?
Dr. Esty: Right? She's one that has done a lot of work on stereotypes, you know, and feeling that one of the ways people sort of needlessly limit their life is clinging to these older stereotypes, like the idea that once you're in you're over 50 or 40 or 60 whatever that life is just declined and it's just there's no good story. And so she's, you know, most of these stereotypes, but it turns out we still believe them like that. You know, we think things like you can't teach an old dog new tricks, many of us think, oh we can't learn technology and and things like that when in fact, what one of the new science is teaching us all kinds of things that we can do that, that our brain can learn at any age. And this idea that life goes along up and then it goes down, it's just not true and the same is that older people are by nature grumpy and irritable and and that is just not true. It turns out the new research shows that older people are less angry and less anxious than younger people. There's some science now that is, it makes you were saying, what is there to look forward to? There's here, there's this idea, we found out now that 80 year olds are happier than 70 year olds who are happier than 60 year olds on the whole. So people, I think the biggest thing we can find out about being older is that you're going to be happy or unexpectedly happy compared to what you thought. But back to what this Becca Levy said about having a positive attitude about aging, she found out that if you really had all your life felt that aging was something you dread and this is most people actually that it can affect your longevity and the actual number of years that you can save or extend your life will be longer is like 7.5 years, they found that people that had a more positive attitude toward aging, they just live longer. And it just shows that that having that attitude and getting rid of those stereotypes that are mis truths, they're not truth can really change and make your life longer and better. So she is a one that is doing this research and we found out so many things about the brain that we didn't know 20-30 years ago. One other just that I want your listeners here to hear about is this concept of what's called neural plasticity and that means that your brain can heal itself. So if you learn depressed for awhile or you did have some kind of head trauma or something, the brain actually can heal and we never believed that I grew up hearing and maybe you did too, that with every drink of alcohol you take, you're gonna lose some brain cells, don't you think that?
Cathleen: I think that was our parents just trying to scare us.
Dr. Esty: That’s what I grew up with. So that I sort of had this image of every drink of wine. By the time I have got to be 80 I'd have an empty head with because all these cells would have died. So now we know that the brain is pretty amazing to reconstitute itself and so that we can look forward to in many ways that we it's not this downhill inevitable decline, decline decline that we can go along much more like a on a plateau and then hopefully, you know, at the very end, obviously we might go down but hopefully have a long period. Most people in their eighties I found can lead active lives, they can be pain free. I mean the most amazing thing that has changed old age from when our parents and grandparents were old is modern medicine. I mean when you think about it, we have the hips and the knees and the cataracts get rid of the cataracts and we have all that we have just amazing drugs that can get us through and people, the heart attacks and even cancer was yielding wonderful, you know, many, many more people are surviving cancer. So it means that almost everybody can look forward to certainly getting through their seventies, the average age now is 79 that you know that, but in other countries it's interesting, we're not doing so well here in America where we’re at79. Japan, the average age you could expect is is 84. So that's quite a difference. And so I think with a little bit of a change in how we handle our healthcare and get more people, everybody getting some some attention one way or another, we can look forward for even more people having a long period of their life where they're enjoying themselves. And as I said that what I found interviewing these 120 people, the major finding I found was that people were unexpectedly happy. They would say nobody in my family live past, my father died at 55. My grandmother died even at 72. But here I find myself suddenly 85. And what to make of this these years and how do I spend them? And that's good questions because what are these all these years, especially for people that retire at 60. And then if they look forward to living till 90 what are these 30 years for? And I think we need, it's my mission now to kind of get out there and help people understand how aging has changed and that it really is quite different from what we expected and what we were taught or what we observed so that we have to do a lot of revisiting and thinking about it and I think our society needs to change to to adapt to this idea that there's going to be many people living these long lives.
Cathleen: Well, I think this is a revolution that you're going to succeed in versus your third grade revolution. You are exactly right. People do not expect did not expect to live this long. Don't expect to live this long. And what I love about this is that it is research that if you have a positive attitude towards getting older and look forward to it as an opportunity as opposed to a burden, you'll live 7.5 years longer. So why wouldn't you rather be there than not be here? And I just applaud you for everything that you said, it's exactly what I believe. It's part of why we created the podcast because we want to change people's attitudes towards aging and have people realize that this is a gift that not everyone receives. And so you should enjoy these 20-30 years post retirement because it's a long time and you can do a lot with it if you choose to.
Dr. Esty: One of the issues for people is that I think is that they don't know what their purpose is. So they so I think one of the ways we can help people is help them find a purpose for these years, these life and when the purpose and I've been thinking about this a lot. And writing about it, you know, I was lucky to when I was in the funk about being 80 to get the purpose of writing the book about and doing these interviews and that my writing has become but outside of my family and so on and has become my purpose. But I see here and the people that I interviewed, the ones that were really thriving and flourishing, they too had found a purpose and that for some people, it was something creative like painting, painting or music, singing, there's a lot of choral groups and for some people that's for other people, it's these working, some of them having small jobs, some of it, it's for some people it is their grandchildren. I know one woman I think of who talked to me and when I interviewed and she said, I know my grandchildren would never get together if I didn't arrange it because they live in different places. So I want to bring them together and have them know each other. And I want to know them each individually. And this is really what my purpose in this stage of is to foster the family. And that's a good one too. And I've been struck that I don't know if you've been seeing in the paper that there's people, there was a big story about someone who started writing songs and they were 90 and I've never written a song and they had a got an album or the best, whatever it is, they're not a bestseller, but a top hit. And so that there, and then there's this story recently I read, I think just this week about a 90 year old on his birthday jumping into, he was a skydiver all along, so it wasn't something new, but he was jumping out, I thought, well how foolish can you be? But anyway, he was jumping out the airplanes on, it was going to do it on his birthday, so.
Cathleen: And the Japanese have a term for that called geeky Guy, which is loosely translated as the reason to get up in the morning. And I completely agree that, you know, when we are at this next point where you're facing retirement, your kids have grown, you're, you've kind of done what you felt you were here to do, you know, for a certain stage of your life, you have 20-30 more years, so you really have to define your purpose and find your new meaning which is going to bring you joy. So I think that you're right in that a lot of people, people that have that and can find that it's easier to be happier. And there's also another piece of research called the u curve of happiness, which is fairly, you know, it's been published and talked about where you actually get happier as you get older and that what people think is of their happiest point when there married and raising a family is actually when they're having the least amount of happiness because they're struggling in the midst of building their career and raising their families. So so there's good news ahead for folks.
Dr. Esty: Right? And I think that's what I'm feeling that almost all of us grew up not looking forward or many of us. So there really is nothing to dread. There's much to look forward to that people haven't known about it and if you see that and I think it's so that I think it's most that there is much that we now know that to look forward to. But it's still the key, another key piece of it that along with just the science that we're gonna get happier because that's what happens to people. They are happier in their sixties and then even happier in their seventies and more than happier yet in their eighties that is going to happen. But the attitude is still important that we were talking about having a positive attitude in general, not only about aging, but I think people have to grieve what they have to give up. And almost everybody in there as they age, they can't do what they did before they can't go to Mount Everest and they can't some of them can't play tennis and there's physical things and and so that in order to have really this really contented and satisfying life, people have to make their peace with grieving those things they can't do and letting go. And that's why I put in my book that in the title that kind of Secrets to aging. Well we're really letting go, learning how to do that and then you can get to the expected happiness and so it's always going to depend on this attitude of being able to let go of some things. But then if the question, once you let go, then the question is always what is possible for me and to not focus on what you can't do but to say what I what can I do? What And so much more is possible than people ever thought. And that's where my list of all these 50 exciting things and that there are another 250 I could have put in there. But these were just ones and the people, I was meant that I had done some of these things like you know, who would think that someone that was mid-eighties would go bird watching in Colombia south America, you know, in the mountains and that's one of the people I talked to had done that.
Cathleen: That's fantastic and your purpose is writing. So what was your article in the New York Times yesterday? What was that about?
Dr. Esty: That was about the pandemic and I was about how I'm ready to start living again and you know, we were uh we've all been doing less and I'm ready to this week and I'm going out of state to one of my sons and going to be having a family gathering, which of course last year we was the first year and time in all my life, except for one year that I hadn't, I've been with family. So this is now, I'm starting to do all these things and I'm triple vax. So I've been going to the M. F. A. The Museum of Fine Arts and I've gone to restaurants, I'm starting to do that. And so it was about kind of how it's a balancing act between asking is this too risky. And I, you know, I wear my mask, so I'm glad to do that. I don't want to give a pass on anything and maybe I would have it and not know it. So I'm happy to wear a mask in public and I really don't venture into crowded places. I'm not going to any rock concerts, but on the other hand, I'm not, I don't feel I have to stay home either, and I feel pretty safe and I'm willing to take that risk now because I want to start living my life completely fully again and it won't be completely fully, but much more full and I'm very happy to be in that place now.
Cathleen: Well, in my opinion, you have an incredibly full life. You are a wonderful example of how to live an engaged, present, and involved life that also includes helping other people with your book, 80 some things we are going to have a link to where to purchase the book in the show notes. Please look it up. Please buy it for anyone that you know who's 70 or 80. It is a great guide post for how to live your life.
Dr. Esty: It's also a good book for the adult Children who they want to understand. I give conversation starters and tips for the family that so it's good for both the 80 something, 70 something themselves, but it's also good for their Children. So it's a perfect Christmas gift for the little boost here. But
Cathleen: No, you're exactly right. And thank you for mentioning that. It's a very practical book. It is as Katherine said, it's got conversation starters, it's got tips. You can flip through different chapters and read on the things that you're interested in learning about to have conversations with your parents. I loved it. It was very helpful to me and I know if you open it up, you're going to learn something, you're going to come away smarter and understanding how to help people and how to have the right kinds of conversations preserving independence, decision making and encouraging a positive attitude. So I want to thank you so much for coming on the program today Dr. Esty.
Dr. Esty: Thank you for having me, Cathleen. It was really uh I like opportunities to talk because I am wanting to get out these ideas. So it's always a great pleasure to talk about them. And I do believe that you know that we have so much more to look forward to than we've ever known. So I feel good about spending the time and getting the word out to people.
Cathleen: Well, thank you. Thank you so much. And that's our show for today. If you enjoyed it, please tell your friends about us so we can reach more minds. Give us a rating and review on apple podcast and send in your questions on aging. We really want to answer any questions. If you have questions for Dr Esty, send them to us and we'll get them to her and maybe have her back on the program until next time. Enjoy the chance to get smarter about growing older. Okay, thanks to our show sponsor the Riverwoods Group, Northern New England's largest family of nonprofit retirement communities where active adults find community purpose and peace of mind visit riverwoodsgroup.org. That's our show for today. Did it spark a question If so, send us your questions at seniorityauthority.org and will track down the answer. Meanwhile, don't forget to subscribe like us on Facebook, follow us on YouTube and rate us on your favorite podcast platform until next time. Let's get smarter about growing older.