Surviving the Senior Citizen Years

  I know you’ve heard folks talk about being young at heart for what seems to be forever. But things can get in the way of feeling young at heart, especially if you are a senior citizen. It’s never too late to change the way you’re feeling. Obstacles In my case, the main obstacle is health or lack of it. Being healthy is a lifetime job and eating right and exercising have much to do with it. Easier said than done, right? You need to keep your body in shape , but your mind and attitude are just as important. Things to change Change can be difficult after years of being down about life. Many times, the first best step is talking to your doctor and finding out where you stand health-wise, physically , and mentally . I know no one wants to take medication, but if it helps, why not? It can save you a lot of grief in the long run. Now, it might suggest that you seek counseling or a psychiatrist. Don’t be ashamed to do this. There has been a stigma about mental health for w...

What did you say?  This must be one of the most exacerbating things that have happened to me over the last few years. Due to my Meniere’s disease problems, I have lost about 80 percent of my hearing. I can no longer talk on the phone or have a normal conversation without asking someone to repeat what they said.   I went to my ENT about five years ago when things started to get bad, and he told me there wasn’t much he could do. We tried a bombardment of steroids. It didn’t work. The next step was a hearing aid. I was stunned when I learned my wife’s insurance paid for it. The only one they paid for was the cheapest one, and it didn’t work. It was more of an amplifier than a hearing aid.   It's discouraging because I can’t listen to music and watching TV or movies with closed captions doesn’t always work.   My son suggested that I learn sign language. But who would I communicate with since no one in my family knows sign language either?   ...

  Water under the bridge for senior citizens I’m sure many of us wish there was a time machine to take us back to a place where we made decisions that affected our future lives. We can’t do it. Dwelling on the past can be debilitating and emotionally draining. Things would have been great if we had just done this or that. I’m guilty of this as well. I wasted time in college pursuing an economics degree. Why economics? It was easy and didn’t have a heavy class requirement. That was my thinking: to get through college the easiest way possible, and like magic, I would have a job waiting for me. Of course, it didn’t happen. Jobs were hard to come by when I graduated in 1980, and a vague degree like economics wasn’t helpful. I wish I had investigated other career paths, but I didn’t think of that then. So, I ended up at a shoe store for a year. After another year of wasted time, I moved from Pennsylvania to Georgia, which was a good move. It took a while to find a good job, but on...