How To Change Our Lives By Changing Our Attitudes

In ‘Calculating Your Life Expectancy’ I said my mom thinks she’s living on borrowed time. I couldn’t get her to understand that life expectancy increases as we get older and that her life expectancy is 91.5 years.

She may even be in the 50% of her age group who live longer than that, especially as she gave birth at 39 and a significant number of women who live to be 100 gave birth when they were around 40.

The newspapers she reads say life expectancy is 80 or 81 and I couldn’t convince her that the published figure is life expectancy at birth. By the time you’re old enough to read the newspaper your life expectancy has already increased, so although it’s the simplest statistic for journalists to quote, it isn’t the most meaningful for their readers.

Now I’m delighted to report that my mom has changed her attitude. After years of telling people she doesn’t need anything for her birthday, this year she wrote a list.

Since her 80th birthday she stopped wanting anything new because she was sure the things she already had would last long enough. She hadn’t got to the point of not buying green bananas, but she didn’t think she had a future.

This year she asked for new dresses, a frying pan and new lights. She’s even talking about getting a new kitchen. After 6 years of making do with what she’s got her things are wearing out. So she’s decided I might be right about life expectancy and it’s time to start living as though she could reach 90 or beyond.

It’s a much more positive outlook. She’s thinking about living rather than dying and embracing new experiences. We went to the beach for her birthday and she seemed to enjoy herself more than she has in years.