Four out of ten rules for life over 80

I'm not there...yet. But I plan to be.

Roger Rosenblatt, How to Be a Happy 85-Year-Old (Like Me), NYTimes, April 13, 2025.

Here's four of the 10 rules:

2. Make young friends.

For older folks, there is nothing more energizing than the company of the young. They’re bright, enthusiastic, informative and brimming with life, and they do not know when you’re telling them lies.

Something me and my young friends accomplished a few years ago: It took 13 years, but Jersey City finally has a poured-concrete SK8park – A story of local grass roots politics.

5. Don’t hear the cheers.

This applies at any age, really, but perhaps a little more to people in later life, who are given lifetime achievement awards and other statements of how wonderful they are. Pay no attention to those accolades. Just proceed to live the life you’re living, giving it whatever it requires.

Bill Russell, the great Boston Celtics center who was responsible for many of the Celtics’ N.B.A. championships, used to be booed every night by the racist Boston crowd. The league’s greatest player, booed. One day, his little girl said to him, “Daddy, how can you stand all that booing?” He replied, “I don’t hear the boos because I don’t hear the cheers.”

One makes a great mistake believing the grand things said about him or her, even if those things are true. Especially if they’re true. The important thing, at any age, is to do the work. The work is far more satisfying than a truckload of compliments. It also takes the place of self-love, always a good thing.

This blog, this new savanna, it is the core of my work.

8. Join a gang.

This advice is meant for men more than women, because women are always part of one group or another. The value of socializing comes to women naturally, which is why the world would be better if women ran it. They know how to get along in groups. Men, on the other hand, are solitary, static things. Generals without wars, astride iron horses. They don’t band together naturally, but they ought to, especially when too much solitude leads to self-conscious gloom. Join a gang — that’s what I say. I do not mean a motorcycle gang, simply a group of guys who share an interest. Joining a gang also serves society at large. It keeps us off the streets.

Alas, I have yet to find a gang. But perhaps I'll have found one by the time I'm 80. Keep on truckin'.

10. Start and end every day by listening to Louis Armstrong.

“West End Blues” or anything, really. I won’t tell you why. But you’ll thank me.

Now, go read the other six rules. Oh, and here's a lesson in grace:

Bonus: Here's a long post I wrote when I turned 70. I figured my best years were ahead of me. As far as I can tell that has turned out to be true, though there have been some rocky times, times when I almost became lost in self-pity. But, hey, it's only yesterday that I learned it WAS self-pity. There's hope for me yet.