DOROTHY FIELD, a specialist on aging, says her research convinces her that in spite of the problems of aging, most people are increasingly satisfied with life. "Life doesn't get better for everybody," she says, "but the myth is that life gets worse and worse."
Because there is a notable increase in the number of centenarians in the United States, I've been talking to Utah people 100 years old or more - about their remarkable lives.I sat down with seven of them and found all of them lucid and pleased with their lives. None of them have any idea why they have lived so long and are not so sure it's a good idea.
Yet most are in remarkably good health for their advanced age, regardless of the fact that they've taken very little time to care for their health.
All of them eat whatever they want - and always have - without regard to sugar, salt or fat content. They have exercised little or not at all.
They remind me of George Burns' famous line when asked if his doctor would approve his level of activity: "My doctor's dead."
The common physical problems most share are hearing loss and arthritis in the hands. Many have difficulty walking, or they have suffered loss of visual acuity.
Some are a little tired of being asked how it feels to be 100 - and a few even went to the trouble to think up witty, planned answers to such insistent questions.
Yet none of them thought their long experience qualified them as experts on life and how to live it.
"You're asking advice from me? Far be it from me to give anyone advice."
When pressed, they would offer simple gems of wisdom, such as "keep busy," "stay active," and "do all things in moderation."
I was especially interested in the fact that most of them seemed to be unusually optimistic human beings, mellow people who are slow to anger.
Maybe they always were.
Most professed to have been avid readers most of their lives and thought reading was an important way to exercise the brain.
Those whose vision had dimmed were saddened by their inability to read.
I noticed once more how many of us who are a little younger tend to treat the elderly almost as if they were little children. I saw people talk to them in baby voices, using an unsettling, patronizing tone.
These people pinch the cheeks of the elderly and tell them how "cute" they are.
How odd it seems to see younger people treating the most experienced among us as if they were starting all over.
As I think of how I might act if I were to live to be so old, I think I would speak up, maybe lash out and teach the insensitive types a lesson.
But that would be wrong. That would make me a cranky old man.
The fact is that none of the centenarians I talked with seemed cranky in the least. They are at peace with themselves and with the world.
They have established a life based on the well-known maxim, "Those things that matter least should never be at the mercy of those that matter most."
I have wondered if I would want to live so long, suffering predictable physical frailties - knowing virtually all of my friends and contemporaries have passed on, knowing I may be treated as if I were in my second childhood by those who remain.
But after talking with these people - people who have lived and understand, people whose facial lines suggest unmistakable experience, people who have come to terms with life and feel a sense of assurance - I've changed my mind.
I'd like to go for 100.