The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly: Top 10 Takeaways

While on a gal-date with my bestie Jacqueline a few weeks ago, we went to Kepler’s, a local bookstore in Menlo Park and I picked up The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly by Margareta Magnusson along with a novel. As I’ve been thinking about creating more energy around Piloting Your Life, I’ve been reading books on aging, finding purpose, and women’s health.

The other day I sat down with a cup of coffee, my trusty highlighter, and quickly read through this series of essays that the 86 year old author wrote during the pandemic shutdown in hopes of sharing some of her hard-earned wisdom.

This is her second book; her first book was The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning which I read and summarized my Top 10 Takeaways in another blog post. She said she received questions from readers and included the answers in the appendix.

I wanted to summarize my 10 key takeaways for my future reference and am sharing them with you here.

Did I love this book? Not really. Was it an interesting diversion? Yes. Was it inspiring? Again, yes. My highlighted copy will be in my lending library if you are interested in reading it and passing it along.

1. We “should not leave a mountain of crap behind for our loved ones.” With “less mental and physical clutter [one can] enjoy life more fully.” This is where the death cleaning comes into play and in midlife, there’s no better time to begin to say fuck it and chuck it as I wrote about in this week’s PYL In-Flight Entertainment Love it or Lose It. As the author continues to say later in the book, “Death cleaning is not just for older people; I even think that people as young as forty can begin the process.” Lose the extra shit, people. It’s weighing you down literally and physically.
2. “Find a way to make aging itself into an art; where you are creative in how you approach each day. There are always new discoveries, new mind-sets through which to see your life and the experiences you have had. And new and familiar pleasures to be had every day.” I wholeheartedly agree with this approach. In midlife we often wonder if this is all there is and if all of our ‘firsts’ are over. They aren’t and we can always create new experiences every day. Be bold my friends. Try something new. Go to a new place or to an old place but by a different route. What do you see? Smell? Feel? Hear?
3. “Be less afraid of the idea of death.” I don’t think I am afraid of death although the idea of it does bring about serious FOMO for me. I am more afraid of being critically injured and limited in what I can do in living my life to the fullest every damn day. I’ve been working on getting our financial affairs in order and purging something every day to live lighter and have fewer things (and beliefs) limiting me and my life.
4. “Extreme horrors and the simple joys of the world can exist simultaneously.” This is a tough one for someone like me who likes to easily categorize things into a single bucket or pigeon hole. I am working on embracing the ‘ands’ in my life; two things can be true at the same time and that’s ok. It doesn’t make things more complicated. In fact, it opens up new possibilities.
5. “Volunteering makes you feel useful and good about yourself.” On the days that we are most wrapped up in our own garbage, helping others is one of the best ways to get outside of ourselves and get unstuck. The time focused on others gives us space and perspective, and a lot of warm fuzzies. That reminds me, I need to get back to hitting tennis balls with the 8th grade EPATT kids on Thursday afternoons.
6. “Hinging your life on looking young is such a bad idea. If we laugh and try to have as much fun as possible each day, we’ll get laughter lines instead of bitter crow’s feet. Start laughing early enough to spend more time laughing than frowning.” I don’t think any amount of laughter (or Botox) is going to minimize the furrow lines between my eyebrows but I really like this idea, that to laugh is to create the happy lines on our faces as we age. Our youngest, Finn, once asked my husband about the ‘stripes’ on his forehead. Perhaps laugh lines can draw the attention from those ‘stripes.’ BTW, this memory makes me laugh every time.
7. “Keep young people around you. Just ask them questions. Listen to them. Act interested even if you are not. Surrounding yourself with young people is a way to stay in tune with the young person you were at some point.” I absolutely love this. Spending time with my kids’ friends makes me reflect on what I was like, and what I was doing, at their age as an attempt to relate to their current experiences. Some of those memories conjure up happy or proud feelings, and others make me cringe and celebrate that I am no longer that dumb and young!
8. “If you are over eighty, you must not fall.” I’ve read about the dismal prognosis if you are over a certain age, fall, and break something that it’s almost always a death knell. Lately I’ve heard the chatter that if you can’t stand from a squat unassisted, that you are 6 years away from death. This is why strength, flexibility, and balance are so important to me these days. Fortunately, tennis is considered a weight-bearing exercise (as is pickleball) and Zeke and I are trying to get back to our daily yoga practice for flexibility and balance. We are doing everything to remain upright and in one piece.
9. “It is nice to have something to look after other than yourself. With a pet, being kind to them, petting them, feeding them, connects you with another living being. It feels good to have done something kind for something other than yourself.” I’m reminded of my grandmother who, after my grandfather died, had a cat well into her eighties. I am sure she talked to her cat (Sheba) which was an added bonus. My grandmother died a month before her 95th birthday and I believe having a cat kept her young. My empty nest puppy George has been a lifesaver for me. Even if I am having a rough day, I know I need to make sure he’s fed and has had some love and treats which helps me get outside of my own junk.
10. “It’s never too late to do anything. The moment you start thinking it is too late, then you begin to die.” At 53, I am now post-menopausal so it’s definitely too late for me to give birth so there are a few things that are no longer an option. Fortunately, I have no interest in having more children so I am ok with this. The message here is to have an open mind and not easily dismiss opportunities. If it’s important enough to you, say yes and make it happen.

Did any of these resonate with you? Are there other words of wisdom that you follow for aging exuberantly? If so, let me know in the comments or drop me a line at pilotingyourlife@gmail.com.

Next up: What Do You Want Out of Life? by Valerie Tiberius and Generations by Jean M. Twenge, PhD. (My Top 10 Takeaways are summarized in this blog post)

This is not an endorsement for Bird scooters!

About the Author

Terri Hanson Mead is the multi-award winning author of Piloting Your Life, Managing Partner of Solutions2Projects, LLC, and an advocate for women through all of her platforms including YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and this blog. Terri is the mother of a college sophomore and recent college graduate, is based in Redwood City, CA and in her spare time, loves to travel, cook, play tennis, and fly helicopters around the San Francisco Bay Area, especially under the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh, and she loves a good craft cocktail!