I’m not sure if this applies to everyone my age, but pending
retirement is dramatically changing my perspective on living. I’ve stopped thinking about the manic need to
“get ahead” or even to “survive until I can get out.” I now find myself
dwelling almost exclusively on quality of life issues. For my retirement, I’m way more interested in
having less stress, enjoying what I like to do, and hopefully doing so in
relatively good health. The “next phase”
of my life is mine to design, and it’s an important decision because it’s
likely to be my last major one.
Topping the list of quality of life issues occupying my mind has been the “where” aspect of retirement – most particularly the
urban vs small town vs rural choice (unfortunately all three isn’t a
financially viable option). I’ve touched
on this dilemma in an earlier book review: Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac.
Two recent reads have added many new points for me to
ponder.
Florence Williams’ The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us
Happier, Heathier, and More Creative is a thought provoking book that views one’s
relationship to the outdoors in measurable medical and mental health terms –
ranging from its impact on stress & blood pressure, to its therapeutic
impact on veterans suffering with PTSD, and on “troubled” children. As a big fan of Frederick Olmsted, William’s
does not automatically disqualify urban environments as unhealthy – though as
someone who lives on the edge of Chicago’s “front yard,” a.k.a. Grant Park, I would find the neighborhood less stressful with more trees and fewer drunken/drugged
concert goers, and don't get me started on the subjects of car alarms and endless sirens. However, where Chicago will
always score high is in the devotion of its residents to its beautiful
lakefront and refusal to let “philanthropists” with big ego’s and connections
to City Hall further desecrate it.
William’s “ultrasimple” coda:Go outside, often, sometimes in wild places.Bring friends or not. Breathe.
And speaking of Grant Park, when I first moved to the city
Dutch Elm Disease was devastating hundreds of trees in the
park (since replaced with hardier stock).
Williams devotes a lot of time to documenting the positive impact of, in fact
the necessity of, trees to the health of the environment, justifying the
sentiment behind “tree-hugging” -- we should hug them, they do good work! My one
and only complaint with The Nature Fix is the standard placement of the Epilogue
which contains a brief recap of Tim Beatley’s (Biophilie Cities Project at theUniversity of Virginia) “nature pyramid.”
This discussion would have made an excellent opening chapter, before
heading into the case studies.
While what we see, breathe and experience in Nature plays an
outsized role in the quality of life, so too does what we eat and how we live. Dan Buettner’s New York Times Bestseller The
Blue Zones is a treatise on demographic pockets from around the world where
people have a life expectancy well above the norm. While I’m not particularly interested in
living to 100, I am interested in what might help one maintain a healthier life in retirement.
In his book, Buettner examines the diets and lifestyles of people in:
Sardinia, in the Mediterranean Sea; Okinawa, Japan; Loma Linda, California; Hojancha,
Costa Rica; and Ikaria, Greece. Shared
by these very different communities is not only a longer life, but a healthier
one. What he found was not a common denominator “miracle” food,
but a combination of diet plus other important influences, including social and
genetic – call it a holistic approach.
Since the publication of his (two) books on the subject,
numerous communities around the world have begun work at emulating them. One of those communities is Paducah, Kentucky,
which is high on my retirement list for multiple other reasons.
Recommendation: If you are prepping for retirement, or just looking for a way to lead a less stressful, healthier life, you should find both of these books interesting.
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