Societal obsession with youth and the anti-aging industry reduces preparedness for the physical, cognitive, and social realities of growing older. Aging commonly introduces chronic health needs, mobility limitations, and cognitive shifts that require ongoing effort, such as lifelong exercise regimens and pain management. Retirement and changing social networks alter identity and daily purpose, while bereavement and friends' loss reshape relationships and living situations. Many older adults adapt by modifying activities, maintaining intellectual pursuits, accepting bodily changes, and relying on family or community support. Ageism perpetuates an illusion of control and avoidance, yet practical adjustment and acceptance can sustain quality of life into advanced age.
"I've realized I'll have to do these exercises for the rest of my life!" she announced. "I didn't know being old would be so much work." Aging was work? I'd never thought about it that way. Then I realized that if, like her, I'd never much enjoyed exercise to begin with, and someone told me I had to start a daily regimen when I was already stiff and in pain, I'd dread it too.
One's sense of self often changes as people leave a longtime career and relationships alter as friends move away or die. But, she says, people can adjust. Rosowsky says her body "doesn't look the way I remember it because I'm an older person," but she doesn't get hung up on it. She retired from teaching at a university but still researches and writes.
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