Dr. Linda Helps - Seniors can be innovators. That’s the opinion of many including Maggie Kuhn, a co-founder of the Grey Panthers. Aging is not a time to shrivel up and die. It’s a time to use gained wisdom and experience to form new ideas for the future and upcoming generations. Take pride in your age, history, and life experiences. The interplay of your wisdom and experience with the energy and freshness of younger generations is needed.

Earl Nightingale, writer, broadcaster, philosopher and motivator, for years tweaked our thinking via his short, pithy radio messages. He often observed that “old” ideas might come in youthful-appearing packages while fresh new thinking often comes for the aged.

Whatever your age, if you prefer to think “old”, here are Nightingale’s rules for how to be miserable.

• Think about yourself.
  
• Talk about yourself.
  
• Use the personal pronoun I as often as possible.
  
• Mirror yourself continually in the opinion of others.
  
• Listen greedily to what people say about you.
  
• Insist on consideration and respect.
  
• Demand agreement with your own views on everything.
  
• Sulk if people are not grateful to you for favors shown.
  
• Never forget a service you may have rendered.
  
• Expect to be appreciated.
  
• Be suspicious.
  
• Be sensitive to slight.
  
• Be jealous and envious.
  
• Never forget a criticism.
  
• Trust nobody but yourself.

Dr. Mintle – author, professor, Approved Supervisor and Clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy – is a speaker and media personality, as well as a licensed clinical social worker with over twenty years in psychotherapy practice.

For more articles and information, visit Dr. Linda Mintle's Web site.