.: Sage Vita - Living Longer, Living Wel :.

Also, like many of us, I reached an age when I began to take a measure of my circumstances and my life. Here I was at nearly 60 with a solid professional background but with my physical health worn down by the lifestyle I had pursued. Though good genes (people in my family typically live into their 90s) and a solid constitution held out the prospect of a longer life, the erosion of my health left me with a medical diagnosis that was dire. I was overweight, suffering from osteoporosis, severe digestive problems and a chronic cough. Together, these symptoms of my physical deterioration combined to make me feel older than I really was.

Yet. the idea that I might “retire” from life in whatever condition I might be in was unacceptable. I had never retired from anything important in the past. Besides, the whole concept of “retirement” is a relic now, from an age when people used themselves physically in demanding labour, ate poorly and generally expected to die soon after 55 or 60. Can you imagine, with today’s life expectancy, waiting around to die for another 40 years? The conventional “retirement” makes no sense anymore, nor is it an attractive proposition for people who have led busy, dynamic lives doing mostly what they wanted to do.

What I really wanted was to do new things, experience new adventures, think about life and the world as I had not done before, when other preoccupations imposed their rules. I wanted most of all to be the master of my own time – deciding for myself the balance between work and leisure, earning money and giving back to the community. There was a problem, however, in achieving a new way of living. I had succeeded at nearly everything except taking care of myself. I had had the means to have a comfortable life but I faced the prospect of a hard life, suffering poor health and the low morale that comes with it.

There was no sudden revelation in the process of understanding how I could turn this situation around. My work and career had conditioned me to analyze a problem, work out its components and devise an approach to dealing with it. The difference now was that I turned my analytical skills inward, to understand my own physical and mental state. The result was not encouraging but it was a good start. I accepted what became obvious to me: I was eating badly, drinking too much alcohol, spending too much time being sedentary and too often feeling sorry for myself as a consequence of my own behaviour.

Personally, the key was simple enough – I had to manage my nutrition, health care, physical activity; also my sexual life and my spiritual well-being. I had to bring all these elements into a single vision of how to live longer and live well. There was nothing radically new about any of these individual choices. They have been part of people’s lives forever. It is also true that our generation has ignored many of them, to the detriment of our prospects for a healthy life.

The approach I chose for myself is based on common sense as well as on the latest knowledge about health and well-being. I call it the Sage Vita –the wise life – because it is based foremost on insights gained about yourself, your body, your emotions, and your financial, sexual, spiritual existence. It’s not necessarily the case that we all grow wiser with age. Neither is it always true that we are wise about age and mortality. But I firmly believe that among the lessons learned in making a career, a family, relationships, is the ability to live a wise life – one that is thought through, built on a plan that suits our own pursuit of Sage Vita.

I have lived this Sage Vita for the last decade and the results are not surprising to me. When you apply your mind and experience to living well the results are more than likely to be beneficial, not only to your current state of health but most of all to the prospects of living a longer, healthier and more satisfying life.

The specific choices I made are not for everybody. Each of us has to look inside – hard and honestly -- to shape the elements of our own Sage Vita. Personally, I went back to university to do a Masters degree, because I understood that though I had learned a lot in a long career, I had not appreciated that the process of learning can be rejuvenating, as the mind and the senses are stimulated by new ideas and information. I assembled other elements of my plan for living longer and living well from various sources, including advice from professionals on healthy eating, and regular physical exercise. My premise was always that the choices I was making should be done in consultation with medical and other specialists but that the final decisions would be mine – because only I could understand my own physical and emotional needs and therefore how to adopt or adapt the choices being offered.

This can sound very self-centred and almost selfish as an approach to life. But the real Sage Vita combines introspection with engagement in the world. What is the point of looking after yourself if you have no ambitions to fulfil, no tastes to indulge, no adventures left to live, and, most of all, nothing to give. A sound plan for living wisely extends beyond yourself. For me, this meant becoming involved in philanthropic and charitable organizations, where my experience in finance, management and in living a wise life could help me make a contribution to others. My own Sage Vita has been a rewarding experience. The physical ailments I suffered, which threatened to cripple my future age, have been reversed or controlled. I am fitter, stronger and have more endurance now than I had earlier in life. My spiritual life is an important aspect of how I live, and that life is enriched – and kept very busy – by the commitments I have made to be actively engaged in organizations that provide support and assistance for others.

© Copyright 2009 Sage Vita