What Are You Doing With the Rest of Your Life?

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“Men and women approaching retirement age should be recycled for public service work, and their companies should foot the bill. We can no longer afford to scrap-pile people.”  Maggie Kuhn. Elderly citizens can no longer be found within the community. Instead, they are herded into retirement communities, “homes,” or to God’s waiting room-Florida. There they will remain, engulfed by depression and loneliness that plagues two out of three senior citizens in retirement communities.  Some may adapt, and even flourish in the company of others in their age bracket, but the large majority feel isolated and are without hope. Not only are the elderly being cruelly abandoned, but the children of this generation, are having to muddle through their own lives without the benefit of their experience. A great natural resource is being wasted in letting this happen, for senior citizens possess a wealth of insight and experience that the children of today should be the beneficiaries of.  

ntro, why i was interested in this group, their communitiy, conflicts, soultions, conclusion

A sukkah, a traditional Far Eastern hut, is fragile and perhaps even a bit flimsy. In a good sukkah, the walls shake a little when the wind blows, and the twinkling stars can be seen through the spaces between the firmly placed tree branches that hold up the roof. Like this hut, communities that share a culture, a common heritage, are often bound together. What binds these people together is centuries of self satisfying effort placed on developing their moral codes and preserving a heritage; this pride often prevails over a global responsibility for the safety and respect for all people. These slight misgiving may turn into widespread violence felt by humanitarians around the globe, as in the case of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Inspired by the recent widespread animosity towards the Palestinians, I have embarked on my journey into understanding the compelling heritage of the Palestinian people through their lives as a tight knit community, while analyzing their acrimony and possible solutions towards the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, which has thus far evoked powerful passions involving identity, honor, and the propriety of cultural claims.

 

AARP Chapter 2889, Elmhurst (Queens), NY

WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?

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Over the past few decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the average human life expectancy in the United States. For example, those born in 1900 expected to live about 47 years, on average. Life expectancy currently is about 76 years old. Twenty-nine extra years have been added to life for most of us, sometimes even more.

"The second half of life-from the middle years into the nineties- can be a time of productivity, success, and personal power. The middle years are a gateway to the second half of life," explains Paula Hardin, Ph.D., founder and director of a ...

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