Dear Ann Landers,
ou hear from so many crazy fools, I thought you might appreciate a letter from someone who is sane for a change. My story might also make some hysterical woman think twice before she takes extreme measures against a husband who is having a fling. My wife learned from one of her "friends" that I was seeing a young lady in my office. When confronted, I admitted it and asked for time to get the young woman out of my system. My wife was very sensible and agreed to be patient. For five months, I did my own thing. My wife never asked questions when I phoned to say I wouldn't be home for dinner. She didn't throw a fit when I was going away for the week-end. One day, I decided my romance had run its string. I told my wife her ma

DEAR G.,
I have no good-conduct medals for the likes of you, Buster. Just because your wife didn't stick her head in the oven doesn't mean she wasn't deeply hurt. Don't deceive yourself into believing your affair improved your marriage. Just consider yourself lucky your alley- catting didn't destroy it. THE ANN LANDERS ENCYCLOPEDIA 41 Aging How to Do It with Style* Knowledge of life prevents one from becoming passionately concerned- from behaving madly over nothing. Such a sense of proportion helps in accepting the thefts of time. One year, time steals a dear friend, the next, some lower teeth, and the following, a driver's license. Time steals from everyone and is not just picking on you. Such thefts are unacceptable to the grasping. They tend to harp on the triv-ial. The elderly who can accept these losses bring with them the infection of courage. To be able to lack things gracefully-that's a prayer worth praying. In most books of spiritual direction, patience seems to get a good press. It's a virtue worth cultivating for selfish reasons, if for no other. Patient people seem to have a better time. While the elderly may enjoy various vocations, the one they share in com-mon is that of giving courage to those who are still on the way. We all need models. Every old person can be a model to someone who will someday face the inconveniences of accumulated years. To keep free of self-pity and bitterness means reminding yourself that the important thing is not so much what happens to you but how you feel about it. Learn to compensate. Put aside one aspect of life and turn to something still within range. The voices and faces of old people give them away. They did not develop those overnight. All their lives they have been feeling sorry for themselves and blaming others for their plight. In old age they are the same as in youth, only more so. If they want to be looked upon as subjects rather than objects, they need to make themselves worthy of such regard. To be loved requires being somewhat lovable. Saints can love the unlovable, but there are not enough saints to go around. Serenity and wholeness in a healthy, well-formed old age come when you sense that if you lead the life you should, everything will end well. This is a consolation, but there are no money-back guarantees. Part of being human is * Edward Fischer, author of Everybody Steals from God. Excerpted from an article, "The Vocation of Aging." Reprinted with permission of Notre Dame Magazine; copy-right � 1978 by The University of Notre Dame. Original copyright � 1978 by The Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota, Worship, March 1978 issue. 42 THE ANN LANDERS ENCYCLOPEDIA learning to live with uncertainty. To have the courage of your doubts, as time runs out, may be more difficult than having the courage of your convictions. The media specialize in hawking tragedies without putting them in perspec-tive. Spinoza, who would never have been interviewed on the evening news, believed that tragedies are trivial things when seen in the perspective of eter-nity. Once you share that belief, troubles no longer diminish you. This insight is a grace that comes from spiritual resources beyond yourself, a comfort that can be the greatest gift of old age. The elderly may find that their delayed vocations bring more delight than the ones they made a living by. They have reached the point in life when making full use of human faculties can be more important than making money. This new sense of purpose can give a great lift to the heart. In retirement you need to face yourself afresh-have the courage to explore some other aspect of yourself. Try to find something you have left undone, some interest that got covered up over the years. Prove to yourself that you still have reserves, mental and physical. Without a new vocation you might find yourself surviving rather than liv-ing. You might get the feeling that nothing in life requires your presence. The past has congealed, the present is dreary and the future is limited. So you freeze. You can learn something when you come upon someone who hoards life in this way instead of using it as an investment. Such people serve as ex-amples of how dreary the clutched life can be. When you see the boredom that smothers them you may be jolted into doing something that you should have been doing all along. Many people find out that they cannot endure retirement in the sense that they looked forward to it-leisure time, freedom from effort, uninterrupted loafing. They awaited the unencumbered years and dreamed of a long Indian summer with nothing to do. Suddenly such freedom is a burden. They need something to give direction to the day. If these people see aging as a vocation it could give new meaning to life, a help to both body and soul. Dr. Victor E. Frankl, a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna, said as much. As a survivor of four concentration camps, including Auschwitz, he said the only prisoners who survived those dreadful experiences were the ones who managed to find some meaning in their existence. Those who could not find such meaning in-variably died. I learned of the needs of the elderly while writing a book, Why Americans Retire Abroad. Having heard that more than 300,000 Americans have re-tired overseas, I wondered why so many, so late in life, pull up their roots and try to transplant them in foreign soil. For the answer, I made several trips to Italy, Greece, England, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. During the interviews, I learned the importance of getting ready psycho-logically for old age. There is no reason not to prepare the mind for it. It is THE ANN LANDERS ENCYCLOPEDIA 43 not like death, standing at the elbow every minute, threatening an unan-nounced visit. Old age never comes suddenly. When we speak of the need to get ready for old age, we usually mean financial readiness. We act as if someone who is without money problems has no problems at all. I met people who will never suffer a pang of hunger in the stomach but whose souls are painfully hungry. They have money to spend and time to spend it, but they lack the inner resources to spend either in a satisfying way. To find an abiding interest that brings satisfaction, they seem to have a light with them. It is not exactly a joke, the story about the doctor saying of his patient, "She died of a retired husband." Starting to study again is one way you can lift the heart. Classes are taught almost everywhere. Once you enroll in a class you might be surprised to find the mind more ready for an education in old age than it had been in youth. By now, you know more of what is important and what is not. Youth, with its retentive memory, is best for schooling; old age, with its un-derstanding, is best for education. Old people used to avoid classes unless they were labeled Adult Education. Now it's common to find the elderly sit-ting among undergraduates. Here are some examples of a few second careers: A retired businessman, long fascinated by animals, conducts tours at the zoo. He specializes in grade-school classes, helping the children develop a sense of wonder. A cav-alry officer at age ninety-one is still teaching young people how to jump hunters in a horse show. A retired accountant took a course in income tax law and returned home to teach what he had learned to sixteen other ac-countants. Much is written about how unfair our society is to the aged. But in many instances the aged are unfair to themselves. Society cannot make you a dignified, interesting person. It is something you must do for yourself-like getting your own haircut-nobody can do it for you. Living with dignity means living with the grain and not going against the grain. Old age is part of being human. By refusing to accept it, you deny your humanity. Anyone who sees aging as a vocation can agree with Bernard Berenson, who in his eighty-second year wrote in his journal: "There is a certain sweetness in being what one is now-not reduced but contracted-so appre-ciative, so enjoying, so grateful for what has been, and for what is now. It means something to be able to rise above aches and pains and inertias, and to find glory in the world." 44 THE ANN LANDERS ENCYCLOPEDIA Agoraphobia {Fear of Leaving the House) FROM FEAR TO RECOVERY