The more we study ageing the more it becomes apparent that what we know is less about fact and lived experience and more about perspective. The topic is researched, monitored and analysed from the economist’s perspective, the medical practitioner’s perspective, the historian’s perspective, the sociologist’s perspective, the psychologist’s perspective, the employer’s perspective - and many more. And often the information we are exposed to is what is reported upon from the journalist’s perspective, i.e. what makes a good story.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that and to accept what we read and hear as “fact”. Fact it may be in a particular arena but without a context the implication and importance of it all is debatable.
When interpreting the significance of trends on our own ageing selves we need to bear in mind that every rule will have its exceptions. For example, we may all be living longer overall but many will still die in “young” old age. What this means is that as individuals we need to cherry pick our own best case scenario and use that as our guiding perspective. After all, belief precedes action; if we believe that we will, individually, have a happy, secure and fulfilling old age then we have a better chance of making it so. Not by pure belief alone but by manoeuvring our own way through the forest of predictions and perspectives and choosing those actions which will help fulfil our own vision of the future.
