Bad Habits of the Aging

Some ask how I come up with the topics that appear here. Some of them come directly from personal experience, observation, interaction, dialogue, and a lifetime of making my own grand mistakes.

Today’s topic is a combination of all of the above. It is a recognition that aging doesn’t mean we stop making poor or bad choices, it just means we may be aware of them more quickly. Aging also requires attempting to overcome them with alacrity, because the longer we practice bad habits the more likely their effect will be seriously negative.

Here are some of the habits and related commentary:

Poor diet: Obesity is one of the most serious of today’s epidemics. Poor diet, not just eating too much, contributes heavily (excuse the pun) to that. Living alone is a frequent excuse for easy and unhealthy dietary practices.

Being Alone: If you are single, too much time spent alone can be a bad habit. Social interaction often leads to a healthier, more productive frame of mind. Endorphins need stimulation.

Watching TV: Keeping the television on for company does not count as social interaction, even if you talk back to the TV.

Too Little Exercise: Not having an exercise regimen of some kind and frequency is one of the easiest bad habits to develop. It is easy to put off, to claim an ache or pain that prevents exercise, blame it on the weather, ad nauseum.

Becoming a Grumbler: Having a negative remark to go with everything seen or read is another big turnoff. Once this habit is in place, it usually done in all settings. Grumblers, by definition, are not pleasant to spend time with.

Drinking Excessively: Like so many habits, drinking is often a crutch. One drink leads to another with the hope that some exhilaration will follow the elixir. Actually, what happens is that the exhilaration most often leads to a deadening of the nerve ends and a stupor (is that from stupid?) takes over.

These are a few of the bad habits of aging to be on the look out for and against. There may have been a way to end that sentence with a preposition, just as there is a way to change our bad habits by being alert to how they damage our lives and living.