Some people dread getting old. They focus on the limitations rather than the possibilities of aging. The actress Bette Davis, seeing few film roles from her agent and more wrinkles in the mirror, famously said to a reporter during a newspaper interview, “Old age ain’t for sissies.”
Yet, we all grow older or at least hope to do so. And more of us are growing older and living longer than ever before. More than 75 million Americans almost 22% of us are over age 60 according to the 2020 US Census.
In the October 1974 general conference, Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone shared a quote from Stephen Horn, the president of California State University suggesting that we even revise the negative connotations of “old” by replacing it with “living longer” and emphasize the value that experience brings rather than declining physical abilities.