Nothing lasts forever. Challenges and setbacks are to be expected in our lives. Far better to accept the changes and move forward with what I call the 3 G’s of Getting Older: living with Grace, Grit, and Gratitude.

Getting older is the time to act bolder. To accept the twists and turns on the highway of life.

I turned 61. I’ve been thinking about the vagaries of getting older. I’m going to write a carnival of blog entries about what I’ve learned that is the wisdom I’ve gained.

I call your sixties the “This is It!” decade. Often at this time we’re caring for an elderly mother or father. And it’s likely that we have full-time jobs at the same time.

What I accept is that there will be no remodeling myself to have washboard abs or spending all day at a washing machine. At 61 years old I think social connections matter more than having a hot body.

Though now is not the time to give up exercising totally. Far better to lift weights only once a week. Then go to that ailing mother or father’s house on the weekend to be with them at the end of their days.

I use the term “social health” to talk about maintaining healthy relationships later in life. As loneliness is on the rise. With a person becoming frail and losing their independence like our mother or father could they might be embarrassed to have friends over their house. We as their children should go there instead.

Is the term social health already in use? It must be in use unless I’ve invented the term which I doubt. In the coming blog entry I will talk about the 3 Lifestyle Questions I thought up to ask myself. I think that followers to the blog will benefit by asking yourself these questions too.

In fact nothing lasts forever. Post-60 I would say we cannot risk resisting the changes coming on in our bodies and in our lives. The fact is that right now our life is telling us what we should do if only we will stop to listen.

We cannot afford to remain stuck in the past or to dwell on whatever glory days might have gone by. The other fact is that in our older years new glory days of a different kind await us.

Having the courage to accept the impermanence of everything in our lives will go a long way to helping us maintain our health as the clock ticks.

Coming up blog entries devoted to living life and loving life at whatever age you and I are. If age is just a number, we can live full of vitality and verve at any age even with whatever kind of limitations we might have.