Catchy title what? Even more interesting is the subtitle of this research that suggests you can be whoever you want to be and that the body ages in accordance with ones’ state of mind.
Ellen Langer
In the early 80s, I produced a segment for television with a young Harvard psychologist named Ellen Langer. Her research then was the study of aging and the brain. A brief recap of her nascent work includes the following:
“In 1978, Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist, conducted an important study. She gave houseplants to two groups of nursing-home residents. One group was told they were responsible for keeping their plant alive, and that they had autonomy in their daily schedule. The other group was told that staff would care for their plant, and they were not given choices regarding their daily schedule.
After 18 months, twice as many people in the group given responsibility for their plant and schedule were still alive as were in the other group. Langer took this as evidence that the current biomedical model, which views the mind and body as separate, was wrong.”
What she and her team concluded is that chronological age does not set the stage for our identity. Our identity is not fixed or rigid but malleable. This is particularly true as we age, and society and our culture put “older” people in a box or expected role:
Perhaps no one personifies this attitude better than Ruth Finley, a driving force in the fashion industry well into her 90s. In a world where one is considered old after twenty-three, how did this tiny “senior” citizen survive to control the most coveted of calendars in the most competitive of businesses: The New York Fashion Week Calendar.
Everyone who is anyone in fashion subscribes to the calendar and it was Ruth who set the schedules. With no computer or digital files, she kept notes on who and what time slots to schedule on index cards and in shoe boxes! For 69 years, she worked in a cluttered office with three desks, answering her own phone and fielding requests from a diverse range of new talent hoping to get a slot on the calendar. She refused to put the calendar online, instead printing it on pink paper and mailing it.
There is a new documentary about her called “Calendar Girl” that is available digitally. We hope that it will be more widely distributed in the future. Read more about her and enjoy wonderful photographs of this remarkable woman:
https://fashionista.com/2020/11/ruth-finley-calendar-girl-documentary-review?utm_
No matter the times, no matter our years, we all have the power to set our own stage. Every day we have the right and the privilege to decide for ourselves who we are now and what we want for our next act.
For us, it is not about living in the moment which can be challenging in the best of times. It is about sharing a new idea, learning a new skill, discovering a hidden inspiration, researching a new lesson. How fortunate we are that learning has never been more accessible. Take that Covid!
Stay safe and well.
Lucy and Claudia
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