How to avoid being a miserable old man. (Or woman)

None of us are getting any younger, sadly but life over 50 can be pretty amazing.

Feel good about life over 50;
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[Music] do you want to hear something completely insane not long ago I was young wild and ready to take on the world and then in the next minute I found myself on Amazon reading reviews for Garden cat scarers how did that happen sadly it’s true that none of us are getting any younger but if you want it there’s still a lot of fun to be had and in fact I’m beginning to realize that being over 50 gives us a lot lot of freedoms and opportunities that the younger generation just don’t have I would imagine that like me you still have lots of things that you enjoy doing for me it’s mainly visiting interesting places eating good food and of course riding my bike but for you it could be something else and being over 50 shouldn’t prevent you from doing those things and loads more in fact I would say it’s even more reason to do it luckily today being middleaged is very different to being middle-aged a few years ago back in the early 1980s I remember watching a sitcom called life begins at 40 starring Derek nmo now if you don’t know who Derek nmo was he was one of these classic kind of British character actors that they used when they wanted someone to play play a kind of typical middle class middle-age fudy duddy type fast forward 40 odd years or so and I’m now 15 years older than the character Derek nmo played and watching these old episodes the thing that strikes me is just how old he comes across he acts and dresses more like somebody that would be in their 80s today the thing is though us human beings haven’t changed physically the thing that has changed is our mindsets essentially if you think like an old man you’re going to act like an old man luckily for me though I’m down with the kids because the other day I heard a post Malone song and I liked it well it did have a good beat to it I appreciate this is starting to sound a little bit like having some kind of midlife crisis this is much more about embracing the fact that us over 50s are still phys physically and mentally able to do pretty much all the things that we could do when we were younger okay some of the things you might not even want to do anymore and we might be a bit slower doing the other things or it might take us a little longer to get our breath back afterwards but we’re still a world away from Derek Nemo fretting because he couldn’t find his slippers the importance of living life to the full was really brought home to me a few days ago this was the day that I was exactly the same age to the day that my father was on the day that he died and now every morning since I’ve woken up grateful for another day a privilege which sadly my dad didn’t [Music] have this is why I truly believe we should find a reason to enjoy every single day be that riding your bike spending time with friends and family listening to music or whatever tingles your jingle although being over 50 does give you a certain amount of leeway you shouldn’t let it be an excuse for not doing things so it’s really important to give ourselves the odd Challenge from time to time it doesn’t have to be anything epic even a modest step outside of our comfort zone is enough but of course the bigger the challenge the bigger the rewards if you ever find yourself thinking that something is too difficult or too scary I would suggest that that is the place to start but okay growing older isn’t just about having the correct mindset there’s also a very real physical element to it as well and as for me I’d say I’m in pretty good health generally despite being obviously overweight I’m not suffering from any chronic illnesses I’m not taking any long-term medication and when I go to the doctors to have my annual checkup I get the all clear so I suppose I must be doing something right my guess is it’s the cycling because it’s certainly not genetics but at the same time I also realize that I’m very lucky because this situation could change any second which is just one more reason why we should go out and make the most of every single day of course challenges are going to be very personal but for example if like me you like riding your bike just think about riding up that local climb with the Fearsome reputation even if you don’t make it to the top it’s still a massive Victory you’ve given it a go and more importantly you’ve stuck two fingers up to your inner old [Music] man in theory it’s physically possible for any middle-aged person person to radically change their diet and train really hard so that they become some kind of over 50s Billy big bollocks chiseled Adonis and then they can go off and win weightlifting competitions and run super marathons and if that’s the sort of business that you’re into then good for you but for me personally that’s just not who I am I have to be honest with myself but if I did somehow manage to do that I’d just end up being miserable the end of the day I’m here to enjoy myself so if the price I have to pay for enjoying the oldd slice of cake from time to time is not being able to ride 100 kmet in under 3 hours then so be it and the outraged food and exercise keyboard Warriors can go to hell I realize we all have our individual strengths and weaknesses not everyone enjoys full health or has pots of cash kicking about but despite these restrictions it’s still possible to live life to the full what that means and how you do it is something that each of us has to work out for ourselves it’s essentially a choice do you settle for the hand that fate is dealing you or do you do what you can do to give yourself the maximum possible enjoyment could have a slice of the carrot cake and a te pleas I’ve always thought the old cliche that age is just a number to be a little bit stupid because well it’s not just a number things are going to change things are going to slow down and wear out as we get older whether we like it or not the important thing though is that we don’t just merely exist and as we move forward through the years it’s very important to realize that every single day is a very special gift just waiting to be unwrapped knowing all of this is one thing but how do you actually put it into practice well it really does help help to have a support network of like-minded people and if you’d like to join a community of people that will help you get the most out of life then click on the description in the link below thanks for watching