Are you ready to
live your promise?
Prior generations at this stage believed
they had run out of time. We haven’t.
Your Role
Thanks to the longevity revolution, we are in a unique time and place in history. Until now, many reached their 60s and 70s and believed it was time to stop.
That isn’t the thinking of most older adults today.
Think about it: Why stop when you have 15-20+ more years before reaching your mid-80s and beyond? Leaders in D.C. on both sides of the aisle and the last two presidents are 70+. Actors, musicians, business leaders, and regular folk are all still bringing it.
Case in point: At the 2021 Oscars, Anthony Hopkins, age 83, won Best Actor and Frances McDormand, 64, won Best Actress — her second since reaching age 60.
Keep on keeping on.
Live Your Promise
At this age, you have experience, wisdom, ingenuity, perhaps some money, and most importantly, time, that you can offer to your family, friends, organizations, your community, and society and culture. But how?
Let’s start with the person in your mirror:
Frances McDormand, Oscar Winner at 64.
Red Carpet Report on Mingle Media TV, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Be Openly Gray:
Accept and Celebrate Your Age.
You can start by changing how you think about being older. It’s much healthier to acknowledge what life has to offer now than to live in denial.
Share and Be Public About Being Older.
Talk with pride about your age, life stage, abilities, and dreams. That means not letting others define you and your capabilities. There’s no shame in growing older.
Recruit Others to Embrace the Openly Gray mindset.
We can’t change how people view growing older by ourselves. We need advocates and champions willing to stir the pot and rally the troops. That means YOU!
Join the movement and we’ll send you ways you can become more Openly Gray on the inside and outside, and how to recruit others to the cause.
Participant Media teamed with AARP a few years ago in this three minute video that captures how we need to shift our own thinking. It’s about how we need to retire this compliment: “…for her age.”
Take a look:
Our Plan Starts With You
Our goal today is to find Openly Gray people. Then once we’ve come together, we want to connect like-minded Openly Gray people and go forth to change how older adults are viewed.
As a first step, we want to encourage older adults to use the hashtags #openlygray and #beopenlygray. The more people who use it, the easier it will be for us to find each other and to connect.
So follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Share your perspective on your social accounts on what it means to be Openly Gray, using the hashtags.
You can connect with us immediately by raising your hand and expressing interest in the movement.