{"id":1023,"date":"2025-07-20T11:23:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T15:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/?p=1023"},"modified":"2025-07-20T11:23:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T15:23:23","slug":"thoughts-on-my-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/2025\/07\/thoughts-on-my-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on My Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I had a birthday last week. I turned 67. Yikes! For the past few days I\u2019ve been thinking about getting older and what it means to be closer to 70 than 60. And since everyone gets older, I thought I\u2019d pass on a few of the things I\u2019ve been thinking about, in case it can help someone out there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of the things I\u2019ve realized is that if you are an action-oriented person, it is easy to be in denial about aging. \u201cAge is just a number\u201d right? Well, yes kind of, but bodies age and the world keeps changing, and pretending that it isn\u2019t happening doesn\u2019t do anyone any good. I learned that this spring when I was lifting boxes like I did when I was younger, and paid for it with a week of back pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about producers as I think about aging\u2026the average age of a farmer in Georgia is 59, and is getting higher every year. Lots of our farmers in their 70s and 80s are working as hard and the same way they did in their 50s. That is great, and praise-worthy\u2026but are y\u2019all listening to your bodies?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To move past denial about aging I\u2019ve decided to ask myself three questions and try to live out the answers.  Here they are, in case they are helpful to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are things I need to start<\/em> doing, now that I\u2019m older?<\/strong>  Things like exercise to make me stronger and more flexible, particularly in places where I\u2019m getting a bit more vulnerable, like back and joints. Or things like paperwork\u2014checking to make sure my Health Care Agent and Power of Attorney documents are in place, and that I have legal documents for inheritance (I know succession is a big issue for lots of farmers).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are things I need to stop<\/em> doing?<\/strong>  This is a hard one. The obvious thing is to stop doing dumb stuff like lifting boxes that are too heavy for me. But now that I\u2019m retirement age I have to ask myself questions about passing along some of my work to younger colleagues. That\u2019s hard, and I intend to keep making meaningful contribution, but maybe it\u2019s time to make a bit more space for younger folks with new ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are things I need to keep<\/em> doing?<\/strong>\u00a0 This is maybe the most important question. In order to age well, I know two things are vital: relationships and meaning. I need to keep doing everything I can to be connected with the friends and family I love, and to keep doing work that gives me purpose. I think this one is going to be tricky\u2026thinking about passing along some work but keeping other work that I think is meaningful and that I find rewarding. For those of you in the midst of this, I\u2019d love to hear how you\u2019re managing this shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking time to stop and ask yourself these questions during times of transition is important–not just as you get retirement-age, but at other pivot points like when your kids leave home or you move into a new house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, given that we\u2019re all getting older every day–What are you going to start<\/em> doing, stop<\/em> doing, and keep<\/em> doing in order to keep thriving?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a birthday last week. I turned 67. Yikes! For the past few days I\u2019ve been thinking about getting older and what it means to be closer to 70 than 60. And since everyone gets older, I thought I\u2019d pass on a few of the things I\u2019ve been thinking about, in case it can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":1024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1027,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions\/1027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/thriving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}