By Patricia Prijatel – Psychology Today
Personal Perspective: The self-perception of the wise and the wrinkled matters.
Key points
- Older adults with negative attitudes toward aging tend to see loneliness and depression as something they just have to live with.
- They live smaller lives because that’s what they think is normal.
- If we encourage older adults to see themselves as active, essential members of society, they’ll be far healthier—and society will benefit.
Angela Alvarez won a Latin Grammy for best new artist when she was 95. She had her first concert at 91, which was chronicled in a documentary, “Miss Angela,” which shows her emigration from Cuba, her years-long separation from her children and her husband, and her love of her homeland, her family, and music.
When she was a teenager, she told her dad she wanted to compose and perform music. No, he said, girls don’t do that. So she kept her talent within the family, writing about her life—falling in love with her husband, leaving Cuba, her daughter’s marriage, gardening, and everyday life. She performed only at family functions, singing and accompanying herself on guitar. She never gave up and, in her tenth decade, her grandson, a composer himself, helped her collect, record, and perform the music she kept in folders all those years.
