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Alphonso Sirtle...'s Articles in Home and Family

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Working Together for Working Out Baby boomers are tremendously health conscious. That means that they are, as a group, baby boomers are highly aware of health issues and the need for plenty of exercise and a lifestyle that includes good diet as well. But there is a big difference between being health conscious and becoming active in a healthy lifestyle. Many times we may be well aware of what we SHOULD do to be healthier so we can live a longer and healthier life but following through on those goals is much more difficult than just knowing about them. Things Grandparents Know Baby boomers seem gifted with perpetual youth. But they are also people of passion. From the moment this generation arrived on this earth, they seemed to be bringing a mission and a different vision for society than had existed before. This sense of knowledge and of vision accounts for the incredible drive baby boomers have shown throughout their adult lives which have resulted in changes to society so profound that life in America today only faintly resembles how we lived in the 50s and 60s. The Plague of Worry Baby boomers are no strangers to worry. It seems from the first decade this generation began to become aware of the world, there were big things to worry about. This was the first generation to grow up with a reality that world destruction is possible at the hands of a man made weapon that did exist and was pointed at them. In the 1950s and 1960s, the decades when this generation was entering youth, it was common for children to have to run drills to hide under their desks as a defense against the arrival of a nuclear bomb. Even back then, those baby boomer children know those desks were faint defense against such a devastating weapon. The Joys of Gardening If you are not a gardener, you may wonder why this hobby has become so popular even with city people who have the resources to go to the grocery and get food with much less effort. Perhaps much of the joy that comes from gardening originated in our baby boomer values that came from those golden hippie days of the 1960s. Part of the ethical and moral system of that time in our cultural history was the back to the land movement to get back to our roots and away from the alleged sins of modern society. The Fountain of Youth If there ever was a generation who would put every resource known to man against the challenge of defeating aging, it would be the baby boomer generation. Of course the deeply rooted desire in mankind to stop or turn back the aging process is as old as time itself. We have ample evidence of that in literature. From The Fountain to Youth to Peter Pan, there have been many efforts to just stubbornly say I wont grow up as though stamping ones foot and refusing to participate can actually keep us from growing older. The Actor Inside You Baby boomers love the theater. And with good reason. The theater has always been an art form that teaches the love of culture and values that were important to baby boomers when they were enjoying those explosive years of youth during the 50s and 60s. You can see the influence of the stage even in the clothing and ways of expressing themselves that the hippies demonstrated when they were at their zenith. Starting Over The phenomenon of a worker who may have been in the work force for 40 years suddenly starting a new career at 50 or over is a trend that is exploding as baby boomers hit that age bracket. There has always been a phenomenon of older workers trying something new but the trend has hit such a new high in the baby boomer retirement picture. So you have to wonder what about baby boomers makes them want to start new careers late in life. Smart Baby Boomer Travelers If you ask a representative sample of baby boomers that are approaching their retirement years what they are looking forward to the most about retirement, the most common answer that comes back is, travel. There is something about the romance and fun of travel that appeals to us as we think about stepping out of the work world and doing things we have been hoping to do for all our lives. And travel has that sense of adventure that calls to us when we look forward to a time when our responsibilities are few but we have the resources to realize our dreams. Selling Out Buying and selling a home is one of those things that baby boomers have learned to deal with in adult life. For many who may have lived in their homes for decades and raised a family there, the physical space can take on tremendous sentimental attachment. As you walk around your home, you can think of a memory for almost every corner and square foot of floor space of that house. But there comes a time when it is time to loosen your grip on the old plantation and prepare to let a new family move in. Selecting Soldiers The baby boomer generation grew up with a number of specters hanging over their heads. One fear that seemed to hang like an inevitable doom for the childhood and youth of this generation was that of nuclear war and the potential end of life on earth that these weapons could cause if used unchecked. Rock and Roll Never Forgets Its a sad thing when we, as baby boomers, begin to feel like old fogies when it comes to music and the hip things going on in popular culture. Its also easy to forget that the rock music and many other genres of modern music got their launch way back during the days when baby boomers were the young people changing society and it was our music that changed the world. Pampering Your Skin The quest to stay young looking has become a virtual passion especially as baby boomers move through middle age. You can see it in commercials, particularly for women, who maintain that the effects of age can be defeated so the skin can remain smooth, soft and wrinkle free. While its easy to discount this quest for great looking skin as vanity, there is truth to the idea that taking good care of our skin is a worthwhile ambition for baby boomers as they approach their retirement years. On Not Being Stressed Out The one thing that virtually all baby boomers have in common is the stress of living in this modern age. So much has changed for baby boomers since they first enjoyed those days of youth culture when hairstyle and rock music seemed like the most important things in the world. But, like all generations before them and to come, baby boomers had to grow up and take on the responsibilities of raising a family, making a living and figuring out their place in this big complicated world. Now is the Time to Quit Smoking We can only hope that the baby boomer generation will be the last one who grew up in a culture where smoking was cool and acceptable. The health passion of baby boomers that comes out of their dislike of anything that accelerates the aging process is one of the reasons the anti smoking movement has gained strength in the last decade. The reasons for quitting smoke are well known to anyone who has paid attention to the issue at all. Next Stop Retirement It seems almost absurd for baby boomers to think about retirement as the next stop in their long and eventful lives. But the absurd has become a reality. As the baby boomer generation moves into their mid fifties and sixties, that specter of retirement looms ever closer. So its natural and appropriate to sit back and review exactly what that means to each of us. Mentoring Baby boomers owe a lot to mentors of their own youth that instilled the values that brought them into the world. You might not think back on the wild days of the 50s and 60s as a time when mentored youth were expressing the values of their elders. But there is really no way that such a powerful explosion of culture change could happen without the influence of teachers and mentors on the youth of the time. Meditation for a Richer Life Meditation became part of the vernacular of lifestyle choices and a source of a lot of conversation as far back as the 60s for baby boomers when there was a big interest in eastern religions and things that were exotic and new. But while many of the flash in the pan interests in exotic religions during that time frame faded away in the life style of baby boomers, meditation has endured and become a common practice and resource that has benefited this generation in every decade of their lives. Looking Young and Feeling Young Baby boomers may not have a corner on the market for an urgent desire to stay youthful but they certainly have set a high standard for creating a virtual avalanche of products and services to attend to that need. The quest to look young in baby boomers has resulted in an explosion of profits in the cosmetic and plastic surgery markets. Its easy to criticize the desire of baby boomers to want to see themselves as youthful as simple vanity. But it goes a lot deeper than that. Hippies A lot of baby boomers would like to forget that one of the watershed movements that defined the personality of this generation was the time frame dominated by, for lack of a better word, hippies. That term that seems somewhat quaint and antiquated now had a tremendous power in the mid to late sixties when it carried with it the impact of tremendous social change as well as a massive shift in public morality and consciousness. So while this is often a time of a bit of embarrassment for the baby boomer generation, it is also a formative part of their history and it deserves respect for that reason. Defining Marriage All Over Again Marriage is a funny thing. How you view it is drastically different if you are a teenager or youth with stars in your eyes compared to your vision of marriage when you have been ensconced in the practice for 20-30 years and looking toward a life in retirement as a married couple. Baby boomers have experienced every aspect of marriage from that early idealistic stage through divorces, various redefinitions of marriage and now taking their marriages into their retirement years. It may be that this next transition of marriage will bring as many changes to that special relationship as any that have gone before. Creating Retirement Wealth As baby boomers are rapidly approach what used to be defined as retirement age, a big concern often comes up about whether there will be enough retirement savings in place to be able to live a comfortable life later in life. There have been plenty of rumbles from Washington that the Social Security system will not be able to bear up under the huge demand the boomer generation will put on it. So few baby boomers are looking to depend on that money being there, even though we are all paying into it every month. Building Retirement Fortune Through Online Trading There is a certain romance to trading on the stock market. Wall Street and all the drama of what goes on there seems exciting and a place where millionaires are made in a day. Fortunately, for most of us, Wall Street is a far away place and we would be too intimidated to actually try to trade in that complex environment. If you get a chance to visit and watch the frantic trading floor in action, thats plenty. An Aversion to War If there ever was a baby boomer issue that has become engrained into the heart and psyche of a generation, it is an aversion to war due to the horrific experience if Vietnam. While a relatively small percentage of surviving baby boomers actually went to and fought in Vietnam, the scar on the national psyche was so deep that it has influenced the way baby boomers have thought about war and how they selected their government representatives for over 30 years. A Second Career at Craft Shows Baby boomers are a very creative people. But so often the demands of career and raising a family leaves little time for creativity in your middle age years. But as more baby boomers complete their years of service in their careers and move toward retirement, they have plenty of energy and creativity left for a new passion in life, one that expresses all that creativity of their youth.

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