Making Life Easier Isn’t All About Subtraction.
Over the last few months, I’ve written several times about making our homes—and our lives—easier to manage as we get older.
But I’ve been thinking that there is a danger in all this sensible advice.
If we aren’t careful, making life easier can become entirely about subtraction.
Do less. Own less. Maintain less. Take on less. Give things up.
Perhaps we also need to think about what we are going to add.
One of those things could be learning, the world doesn’t stop changing just because we have reached our seventies.
In fact, continuing to learn may become more important because so much of maintaining our independence depends upon being able to adapt.
Think about how many things that were once simple now require a little new knowledge. Banking has changed. Cars have changed. Telephones have certainly changed. We don’t necessarily have to like any of it. But every time we say, “I can’t do that,” when what we really mean is, “I haven’t learned how to do that yet,” we give away a little bit of our independence.
Learn how to use voice-to-text so you don’t have to type messages. Learn how to photograph a document and send it to someone. Learn how to make a video call.
Remember, too, that not everything we learn needs to involve technology.
Take a class in something you know absolutely nothing about. Try watercolour painting, pottery, genealogy or bird identification.
We can also learn new ways of doing old things.
In an earlier column I suggested that we stop comparing ourselves with our younger selves. Instead of saying, “I used to be able to do this in an afternoon,” we can ask, “What’s the best way for me to accomplish this today?”
Apply the same idea to learning.
Perhaps you don’t have to give up gardening because managing a huge vegetable garden has become too much. Learn about raised beds or container gardening and grow three spectacular tomato plants instead.
Perhaps travelling the way you did at 50 has become exhausting. Maybe you need to learn a different way to travel at 75, such as taking the bus, or train, rather than driving the 500 miles. Or stopping overnight instead of doing it all in one long drive.
Exchange some knowledge with a younger person — they can teach you how to use the bird call identification app and you can teach them how to sew on a button. That exchange matters. One generation doesn’t know everything while the other knows nothing. We simply know different things.
And learn something completely useless.
Learn the constellations. Learn ten words of Italian. Learn to make croissants. Find out why crows remember people’s faces. Learn the history of the little town you drive through every week.
There is plenty of serious research into lifelong learning and healthy ageing. But I think we can make the argument much simpler than that.
Learning keeps our world from getting smaller.
That’s important because there will inevitably be some subtraction as we grow older. There may be things we choose not to do anymore. There may eventually be things we simply cannot do.
So yes, get rid of the stuff you don’t need.
Say no to the committee you’ve served on for 25 years, go be a spectator instead of an organizer. After all, it probably was the EVENT that got you involved in the first place.
Question the traditions and responsibilities that now seem to ask so much more time and energy as when you were 50.
Be willing to be a beginner again.
Making life easier as we age isn’t all about subtraction.
There should still be plenty of room for addition.
