Book review blog:
I published my first book “The Frog Snogger’s Guide” back in the 1990s. My co-author on the project was Susan Lancaster. Susan, business Coach and author, lives on Vancouver Island overlooking the straits of Georgia in Western Canada.
Her new book ‘Stay Young The Golden years Are The Pits’ is a collection of jottings and musings of personal happenings and events funny, amusing and serious. They include stories about animals, trips to various places, touching on God, family and friend’s activities, memories, in the kitchen and forgetfulness with lack of focus.
The purpose of this book is two-fold. The book echo’s the problems and pitfalls we all meet when growing old. It is definitely an asset if you can keep a positive attitude when dealing with this ageing business and the inherent challenges it brings. You are, after all, as young as your mind.
How many people at the age of 20, 30, 40, 50, are really thinking about their health and wellbeing in the future? At 50 years of age how many people realise that they may yet have another fifty years of life to live? To have a good quality of life it is important to recognise that to achieve this utopia of staying young you must start working on your physical and mental health now to achieve that goal.
There are many books and papers out there on the market peddling the secret of happiness and what it takes to make us happy. The major components of achieving this state of mind are good physical wellness, combined with an alert mind, well-oiled cognitive skills, and spiritual awareness. Well, in her new book Susan Lancaster provides a humorous insight into this issue of age and our need to stay young. Susan writes…
In my book I explain that mentally I am still forty, but physically, I just ain’t there anymore. An example of this would be an individual full of confidence meeting someone for the first time, flashing a brilliant smile and then remembering, in the middle of the smile, that they had forgotten to put in their partial plate. Other embarrassing moments are when it takes one hour to get out of bed and get dressed, or running around the house to find something you have mislaid, only to find that it’s where it should have been in the first place. Or, the most famous one of all, “oh, I put it somewhere for safety” – need I comment further?”
Going back to the matter of the partial plate. That would not have happened years ago, perhaps when a person is younger for various reasons, but the main one being that all the teeth would have been present and correct – then. Why did we lose our teeth, probably because we didn’t take care of them? Like other bodily parts and functions, we just figured they would go on ad infinitum. We certainly did not sit back and plan for old age, which is what we should have done. We must have assumed that there was going to be a body shop in the future which would supply anything that wore out or was missing! In some cases this has actually happened.
Perhaps some of you are snorting “ha – minor details”, but if we want to have quality of life in our Golden Years instead of just ‘old age” with all its creaks and groans and being sick for the last ten years of our lives, then we should be planning our later years to avoid the pitfalls that will surely come.
There are many other elements that make up quality of life as you age and I would be very pleased to hear from you, what you think they may be.
With this in mind, I try to see the humour in all our circumstances and this may help to lift our spirits, deal with the situation and get on with our lives without becoming depressed. The other purpose is to help younger people realise that eventually we do get old, we do have problems and we must recognise this fact and not push it to the back of our minds and wait for the inevitable to happen. We must accept what life may be like as we age and work to prevent these changes, just by adequately looking after ourselves and our health.
I am writing a follow up book, which includes the views of people like you who are reading this blog, so please jot down your thoughts for me.
Susan Lancaster
P.S. In the book, I did not address sexual health and ageing. How do you keep the flame burning – please feel free to share your thoughts on this.
Thanks Susan. Your work reflects ours at Live In The Present. Awareness of our health and wellbeing in the present moment is vital for surviving healthily into our golden years. That means realising that change can only happen right now in the present. It is the changes that we do not make that are usually termed regret which, in the main are the seeds of depression. Health and fitness of body, mind and emotions is vital for our wellbeing.
Please share your comments with Susan at info@snosrappublishing.com and please get involved in her work. Susan’s next book will be based on readers views.
You can get Susan’s new book from Amazon it’s a cracking good read.
Take care, look after yourself and, live in the present
Sean x
