Trajectory. I look down the path I am most likely going to travel unless some new factor shows itself. I note particularly when things are better than I thought they were going to be (above the projected decline) or worse (below the projected decline). The idea is to be as nearly right as you can about the trajectory. If you don't do that, events or conditions that deviate from it will catch your eye, even if they shouldn't. You might find your attention attracted, for instance, to "feeling bad" rather than to "feeling worse than expected," in which "expected" is a reference to the trajectory.
Rising Above Decline. If you are getting old, it becomes more and more important to distinguish between "my body" and "me." "It," the body, is going to get slower and thicker, lose muscle tone and flexibility, and my mind--for this one purpose, the mind is part of "it," rather than part of "me,"--is going to get slower and patchier. I, on the other hand, need not decline. I can excel in the ways my life has prepared me for. I can continue to strive; I can learn to relax. I can feed all the things that have always interested me, like words, for instance; I can learn to be interested in new things.
Investing in the narrative. This is the place where one of my recurring topics, getting old, intersects with another of my recurring topics, Christian praxis, q.v.
I do, most of the time, understand the story of my aging as one small subplot in the more encompassing narrative of what God has in mind for me. Since I don't know what that means in any direct sense, I usually revert to theatrical metaphors at this point. I am supposed to play this part, but I don't really know what the play is about. I trust the director implicitly and I am not anxious about my performance, but I really don't understand what will make it better or worse. Also, the character isn't fully developed and I think I ought to make him a little more vivid as long as I am playing the part anyway. Maybe I ought to play the part in a way that others know what they can count on and can play their own parts better. And the play really needs to get to the place where Act III can start and I want to be alert to actions or attitudes that belong to my part that will be necessary to move us all toward Act III, where I am sure the director has amazing things in mind for us.So I have those three lines of thinking.
It is likely that I will get feeble in one way or another. If it is a physical feebleness and I am otherwise competent, I would like to act in whatever way will make other people comfortable. In that way, I am active and they are reassured. I will know better than to "pay" my friends in "gratitude" for their continuing interest in me. Mutual care is part of the very best relationships, and if there is any paying, you do it as you go along. You don't wait to do it until you have found yourself in the last assym
I hope very much that I will be a happy old man. I understand that is much more a choice than a condition. I understand that continuing to choose that, even under some difficult circumstances, will not always be easy, but I hope anyway.
