Getting stiff. I've noticed as I've aged that my body has begun to stiffen up. My joints are slow to respond, especially early in the day. I've begun to recognize that regular stretching is important to keeping the physical plant well oiled. Gosh, remember the days when 'well oiled' meant getting drunk! Now it has taken on a whole new meaning for me.

And that has gotten me thinking, as I edge ever so slowly towards that thing called retirement, that if my body is a metaphor for me life, I wonder where I'm stiffening up in ways that aren't perhaps so obvious to me? Where am I becoming rigid in my outlook and beliefs where I used to be flexible? What are the implications for this stiffening up?

As I look around I see so many people experiencing all kinds of life issues because they have become stiff and inflexible and that makes life a lot more difficult to live. What used to be useful guidelines for living successfully have, over time, become barriers and boundaries that lock us in to ways of living that are robbing us of flexibility and vitality.

I think of some of the older single women I know who are dreading retirement because of the social isolation they know will accompany it. For many, work has become their only social outlet and when that's gone, they have no idea what they'll do. I've suggested to some of them that they consider some sort of co-housing arrangement with other single women. And the typical response is "I couldn't do that. Someone else would be mucking around with my stuff then." I always chuckle to think that having control of the placement of one's stuff has become more important to many than having the warmth and support of another human being's presence in their lives.

And this rigidity isn't restricted to single women. Many men I know fuss over how the lawn needs to be mowed exactly so. How the garbage must be stored in a special way and piled at the curb exactly the same way each week. How the tools must be lined up in the garage, etc., etc. I can relate to all of these because I have my rules about linen closets, in particular, but about any closet or drawer organization.

And I'm paying more attention to how what I fondly think of as my "quirks" can actually become my life's straightjacket if I'm not staying awake.

I noticed a while back that I wasn't making as many friends as I used to. And I noticed that what had crept into my life when I wasn't looking were a whole pile of presumptions about what other people needed to demonstrate in order to qualify as friends. I was startled by how rigid I had become and it certainly helped to explain some things. Since that moment of realization, I've paid more attention to the thoughts running through my head as I go about my life and interact with others. I make a point of remaining awake to the judgements I have about others when I meet them and I challenge myself regularly about whether that judgement is really serving me or is just some rule left over from an earlier phase of my life.

Since I began that practice I've noticed that I once again am moving through life feeling like I'm blessed to have an ever increasing circle of people I care about and who care about me. I feel good about that because I know that maintaining meaningful social networks is one key to successful aging.

My friend Mike and I were talking about money and retirement a while back. We were both struck by how much of the literature on retirement and aging that we were reading stressed the link between money and quality of life. And we chatted about how many older people we each knew who had very little money but lived a great quality of life in spite of it. We began to realize that financial wealth wasn't the only thing that was important, despite what most of the literature has to say. Social wealth was also a critical factor to quality of life.

So today my thoughts are exploring the many ways in which we can limit our access to social wealth in retirement for several reasons: in leaving the workforce we leave behind not only many types of daily social interactions, but in many cases we lose access to the potential to continue to experience those interactions. We frequently become set in our ways, we literally 'stiffen up', in terms of who we invite into our world which limits the depth and breadth of people we interact with and our social circle begins to shrink. We become comfortable with a small circle of people who are very like us in their outlook and beliefs and become less tolerant of divergent views as our thinking isn't challenged very often by the sameness of those we invite into our lives.

And it doesn't have to be that way. How willing are you to be in staying awake as you age? How much of yourself are you willing to invest today into remaining supple and flexible in your thinking so that you continue to create social wealth long into the future. Your well being and longevity could be resting on it! I know that writing this posting has been a good reminder to me to stay on top of this particular conversation.