2023年2月23日 星期四

Why Americans are so afraid of aging

Plus more health news |

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The uniquely American aversion to growing old
By Jeffrey Kluger
Editor at Large

I’ve never been terribly keen to share my age, but if you must know the general range, suffice to say I was born during the administration of President Eisenhower—his first term. That puts me squarely in the heart of the Baby Boomer cohort and—not to put too fine a point on things—it also puts me closer to, well, the end of the line than one might prefer. Like a lot of Boomers, I resist aging and the mortal end that it implies with a host of strategies: vigorous workouts, periodic hair colorings, and a healthy dose of simple denial.

All of that led me to write today’s story on why Americans as a whole and Boomers in particular are so resistant to aging—especially when we live in a world filled with other cultures that not only don’t denigrate, but venerate the aged. As Thomas Pyszczynski, a 68-year-old psychology professor at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, told me, “We have this evolved imperative to stay alive. So the awareness of death creates this potential for terror. As a result, we use the same intellectual abilities that make us aware of death to manage our fear of it.”

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ONE LAST READ
How old are you in your head?

The Atlantic’s Jennifer Senior started asking people that question and found that almost everybody had an answer that differed from their “real” age.

Some people, she learned, think of themselves as older than they are, but most skew younger—with many people staying mentally frozen at an age when their lives felt both secure and full of potential.

Read More »

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Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and Jamie Ducharme, and edited by Mandy Oaklander.

 
 
 
 
 
 

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