Because we all want to feel we still have something we can contribute to the societies we’re currently living in, generativity vs. stagnation, remember??? From the Newspapers, translated…
“The Intern” was on the main character who’s already seventy years of age as he’d reentered into the workforce, and used his life experiences, to help the managers of the younger generations solve the problems. The Tainan Long-Term Program’s counselor taught the elderly interns, and after they retired, they’d found, that youthfulness, that sense of purpose back in their lives, making their lives more meaningful.
At 75 years of age, the man who’d owned an enterprise, Shih showed off his biceps and triceps, it’s hard to imagine, that just ten years ago, he had osteoporosis. He said, that as his business expanded to China, his physical health worsened, he tested a negative 2.7 for bone mass, “I can’t even walk further than just one kilometers back then”, he’d decided, to hand his business over to his own son, signed up for the muscle mass improvement program at the senior community college program, it took him three years to train his physique, and, his bone mass was normal, and, he’d improved on his cholesterol, HDL, and high blood pressure as well!
The professor who’d trained them, Lin said, Shih was the very first group of instructors sent to teach the exercises to the elderly in the distant areas, and a lot of the elders locally saw that he was already seventy-five, and was still very active, they couldn’t, say no to his offering them to help them strengthen their muscle tones either.
At seventy-four the other training instructor, Huang said, some of the elderly were very stubborn from the start, he’d taught them the simple elastic band exercises, and afterwards, a lot of the elderly would come up to him to ask where they can get the elastic bands, “it’s easier for the elderly, to teach a class of elderly.” He and Huang are both retired instructors, they’re both sixty-six years old right now, as they’d gone to the communities to help, they saw an older gent their age, who’d needed someone else’s help to get to the lessons, but now, he can come on his own.
Wu, at fifty-eight, is the youngest of these trainers, three years ago, he’d retired from his position of a manager of a hi-tech company, and, as he’d heard a former colleague died shortly after retiring, it’d, shocked him, “aging is a process of learning”, through the right beliefs, plus long-term exercises, then, you’ll be healthy growing older, he’d hoped, to affect more to age healthily alongside himself.
like this??? Photo from online…
The seventy-year-old Huang, eight years ago after he’d retired, he’d looked after his aging mother, after his elderly mother passed away, in order not to become a burden to his own young, he’d decided to get trained as an elderly volunteer, and afterwards, he’d gone to the public elderly daycare center locally to accompany the elders in chess, art, singing, and mild exercises, to help the elderly maintain their physical abilities and keep them active.
The sixty-seven year-old Liu had helped a total of eighteen elders, and volunteered for over 2,759 hours, “It’s addictive, being an elderly volunteer who helps out the elderly”, she’d smiled and told, looking at how the lonely elderly smiled when they’d visited, all her fatigue, gone. There was a time when she’d recited the Buddhist verses and not gone to accompany the elders, and an elderly woman at the center called and asked, “Why didn’t you come again?” then, whenever Liu wasn’t reciting the Buddhist verses, she’d gone to the center to accompany the elders.
And so, this is a great program, it gives that sense of purpose that those who had retired lacked, by placing them with the elderly people who needed the company, and, it’s, a new start of the next chapter in their lives, and, these people were able to find a new purpose in giving back to the community, which makes their own retirement, more fulfilled.