It Starts with Courage

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

(from the archives)

Next month, I turn 70. That’s an age that more people are reaching but few are confronting.

There are different dimensions to turning 70. One, of course, is a simple fact that physically and sometimes mentally we are not the same men and women we were when we were 20 or 30.

Another and equally important is the way that 70-year-olds are dismissed and ignored in our culture.

You can tell in US culture what 70-year-olds are thought of by the advertising that targets them.

Happy people in the retirement community.

Hearing aids,

Look! I’m still active!

I saw an infographic that identifies the characteristics for which people 70-years-old and older are targeted. They are presented as — feeble, sick, stupid, unhealthy, disabled, clueless — do I need to go on.

What’s the message that society is sending when it communicates with any demographic in this way?

The message is, “Get out of the way you dumb @ss!”

Changing this starts with courage.

That’s because it’s easy to allow yourself to get put on someone’s conveyor belt and move along the assembly line…