Gary comes up with a mantra for dealing with the reality of aging.

At Camp Codger, we take seriously the axiom “getting old isn’t for sissies”. I’m Gary Ebersole, and I discovered how true that phrase is when I decided to challenge myself a couple of weeks ago and head out on a hike that I hadn’t been on in almost a year. Picacho Peak is a moderate-to-hard hike by some measures. A bit over four miles round trip, 1200 feet of elevation gain with the occasional steep, rocky patch. It’s been one of my favorite hikes with excellent vistas, and I feel a sense of accomplishment when I finish. This time it didn’t go so well. 

A Tougher Hike Than Before

I struggled almost from the beginning. It seemed like the trail had certainly become steeper and rockier since my last hike up. Of course, it hadn’t, but it certainly felt like it. The views from the summit were still great, even when I noted my time reaching the peak was much slower than my best time seven years ago. After a few stumbles on the way down, I found myself picking my path carefully like an old man. And, for the first time, I received a couple of “attaboy-keep-going” old codger compliments. Who are you talking to? Me? I’m not that old. I’m only 76. I don’t need your encouraging words. Anyway, I was feeling so tired and miserable, even decrepit, when I got back to my car that I declared that was my last time ever for this hike. Ever.

A New Mantra for Aging

But I couldn’t let this thought go. Was this what I was facing for the rest of my life? Had my capabilities diminished so much that I needed to start living a smaller life? Quite honestly, I fell into a deep funk thinking about what seemed like a real loss. Over the next few days, I kept coming back to my response to this challenging hike. I finally realized I was not approaching this aspect of aging correctly. The hard reality is that I am getting older. With exercise, diet, and good friends to keep my mind active and engaged, I might be able to slow down the effects of aging, but there was no way I could recapture what I could do even five years ago. What I needed was a strategy to deal with the changes brought about simply because I was getting older. What I came up with was a simple mantra: allow—accept—adapt.

By ‘allow’, I mean when an opportunity pops up, I need to avoid reflexively saying, “No, I’m too old, or I have a medical issue, or I’m tired”. Sure, sometimes those are the right answers, but I shouldn’t fall back to the easy “no” without giving it some consideration. It may be something simple, even trivial, such as my hike up Picacho Peak. Or it could be a great travel adventure that may seem overwhelming at first. I shouldn’t make my world smaller any sooner than I need to.

Now, just because I may be ‘allowing’ more into my life, I still need to deal with the new reality. I need to ‘accept’ that my new experiences will be different, accept that my pace may be slower, and the distance traveled may be less than before. I also need to accept that learning something new may not be as easy as it was even a few short years ago. In simplest terms, I need to accept my age.

Finally, I need to learn to ‘adapt’ to the new reality. Change how I do it. Pick a different route. Stop and enjoy the view, the ambience. Use hiking poles! Don’t measure! I need to reset my goals to the Nike slogan, ‘just do it’—it’s not always a competition, and nobody cares whether I was fast or slow.

Now this is just me. Some people come to this aging reality naturally without the navel-gazing I’m prone to do. That’s great for them. Me? I need to approach challenges like this as a problem to be solved. My solution is my new aging mantra: allow—accept—adapt. My goal is not to give up. I want to keep doing things I enjoy and learning new skills. I want to stay engaged. What I don’t like is to be constantly surprised by the reality of getting older. So, how is this new strategy working out? Am I dealing with these natural life changes any better? In general, over the last couple of weeks, it’s been a ‘yes’. I’m feeling much more relaxed about our trip to Japan this fall, and I feel good about the prospect of learning a bit of Japanese before we go. I may not be able to learn as much as I could when I was younger, but just doing it will be an accomplishment. I adapted my goals to meet my reality. Picacho Peak? I’m allowing this hike back into my life in a few weeks, but I won’t check my time when I reach the summit. I’ll just enjoy the view at 8,500 feet. And I’ll be extra careful during the hike because I accept that I am an old man and need to adapt by being a bit more cautious. But I’m doing it, and that’s what matters.

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