FIVE STEPS TO BUILDING THE LIFE YOU WANT | QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ASKING NOW | WHO ARE YOU
Women over sixty. Who are we? WHO AM I? Who are you?
The Five Ws, Five Ws and one H, or the 5 W’s are questions whose answers are considered basic in information-gathering. They are often mentioned in journalism (news style), research, and police investigations. They constitute a formula for getting the complete story on a subject.
•Who was involved?
•What happened?
•Where did it take place?
•When did it take place?
•Why did that happen?
Some authors add a sixth question, how, to the list.
I was thinking the other day that we can take those important fact finding W’s and use them in relation to our lives.
1) Who are you? Who do your friends think you are?
2) What do you want out of life right now?
3) Where do you want to be a year from now?
4) When is a good time to start?
5) Why do I think this is important?
6) How am I going to achieve this?
These are important questions we should be asking ourselves no matter how young or old we are. The sooner we find our direction and who we really are and what we want from life, the more fulfilled we will be. It is never too early or late to begin your personal fact finding journey.
I recently had a comment on one of my latest videos that said I should be doing ASMR videos. What? What is an ASMR video? I said out loud to myself.
It just so happened that I was sitting next to my 10 year old granddaughter who heard me and without any hesitation she explained it to me 1-2-3. A 10 year old! Just goes to show you how out of the Youtube loop I am! I am a creator who is stuck in my own box.
I do have to add that my subscriber said that my openings are already ASMR, so it should be easy for me to do one. She said the young girls are boring and she has to switch them off.
In case you are in that box with me, here is the explanation of ASMR:
Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a euphoric experience characterized by a static-like or tingling sensation on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine, precipitating relaxation.
After digesting this a bit, I thought …
Humm… maybe there is a place for over sixty creators like me in the ASMR community. There is nothing like trying to teach an old dog new tricks. Let’s see if it works!
I recently celebrated an almost milestone birthday and someone recently asked me how it feels to be almost eighty.
Hummm…. I never really thought about it. Honestly. Age to me has always been just a number. It does not define me, nor does it have anything to do with how old or young at heart I feel. I certainly don’t feel old. Whatever wrinkles I have I have earned them by living.
There are those who might chime in that I’m only fooling myself. Not really. I know the year I was born, but I’ve lived my whole life on the premise that as long as I can put my feet on the floor at sunrise, I’m going to enjoy every minute of the day ahead. I’m going to tackle whatever monster comes my way and know that I have never been given anything that is too tough to beat. I will survive.
Sure. I have made bad decisions in my life, but I haven’t let that stop me from learning from them. Making lemonade out of lemons is part of the deal in this human life we are all living if we want to have a good journey.
Dance. Oh, how I have always loved dancing, don’t you? By myself as a child, or in the arms of a lover nothing is closer to heaven than lightly swirling around to music that makes my heart sing. Waltz, foxtrot, jitterbug, the monkey or rumba, it doesn’t matter to me.
Song and dance have been with us far back in recorded human history and has been an important part of celebratory rituals. It’s so true that dance is a way to find yourself and loose yourself at the same time.
Unless, that is, your heart is dancing a clumsy two step in your chest. Dancing with your feet is one thing, but a dancing heart is another.
Unfortunately, I was born with extra electrical pathways that under certain circumstances cause my heart to palpitate and loose sinus rhythm. These unwelcome ‘dances’ began in my twenties, but since my heart was otherwise basically healthy, I just had to tolerate this non-synchronized orchestra that lived in my chest.
It became a way of life for me until in the 90’s a new procedure called radio frequency ablation was developed to eliminate extra pathways in the heart. Tiny cathodes are run through the groin veins to ablate the dancing pathways. At the time it sounded scary to me, but each 12 hour episode of rhumba were scarier, so I opted to have the ablation.
Now, one thing they didn’t realize, or take into consideration then is that those electrical nerve pathways can grow back. So here I am once again saying goodbye to my heart’s unruly dance, one week into recovery from updated modern medical advances in electrophysiology and radio frequency ablation.
My procedure lasted about three hours and I was released the next day. My doctor showed me a photograph of my heart with the ablation points and it looked like a pearl necklace all around my heart. He said when they thought they were through, adrenaline administered would show other electrically charged pathways. I was a dancing fool inside my chest!
So far, I am following the doctor’s orders and not lifting anything over 10 pounds or bending over and just taking things easy for a few weeks. He told me I might have increased dances in my chest, perhaps for as long as three months while my heart is healing, but already they are short little tap dances that do encourage me everything is healing just fine.
The pinpoint scarred areas created by the cauterization, once healed, will block and interrupt those crazy dancing impulses by taking off their tap shoes and sending them into retirement.
Trust me, the next dance I do I hope it will be with only my feet and with someone I love.
Beware! This may be the most depressing blog that I have ever written, but it’s something that I’ve been thinking about lately in my over 50 state of mind.
My husband gets almost every health newsletter on the market. He reads and believes every single thing in these various publications. I know they’re important and I have gleaned a lot of information from them, but one thing I do know, genetics plays a great big part in our longevity.
Sure, how we embrace our bodies and our good health has a lot to do with prodding along and maybe extending that lifeline, but the reality is none of us have control over our expiration date.
One thing I know never to do – talk about the state of my health. No one really cares and I may be sharing my exuberance for all the healthy things that I did that day with someone that may not be in such great shape themselves, but doesn’t talk about it.
It seems that every friend I have ever had who bragged about how healthy they were, are no longer here on this planet. I had a friend who whenever we met for lunch always bragged about how great her doctor check up was and what super health she was in. Well, a week after our last lunch she died of a stroke.
Another constantly bragged about the amount of supplements he was taking, his healthy diet my hub and and I should follow and his love of tennis. Melanoma did him in.
I have several other examples I can talk about, but I think you kind a get the drift of my thoughts. If you have a trusted friend, or within your family circle that you want to share your exuberance with, hey, that’s OK. But don’t make it general conversation and part of your constant repertoire, because you may be tempting fate.
Personally I don’t want to hear how many times a week you go to the gym or how many days you run a 5K or what diet I need to follow that is perfect to live into my hundreds. Just leave me alone. I think by this time I am able to manage balancing on my toes near the edge of this fragile cliff of life we over 50 folks find ourselves. I’ll figure it out on my own and hope my expiration date is well into the future.
By the way, did you read a glass of wine everyday will extend your life? Oops!
Sandra's Hart My Over 60 Lifestyle Journey 