Do you like

this article?


We send out articles like this one in our free weekly newsletter.  The newsletter is written to motivate, inspire, educate, and entertain you.  


To sign up, send us an email to Subscribe@TomorrowsEdge.net with the words "free motivational newsletter" in the subject line.  We will be happy to add you to the list.


Looking Up Newsletter


Thumbnail of self-esteem book.


Quiet your inner-critic.


Move beyond fear and doubt.


Stop negative self-talk.


Accomplish your goals.


Beyond the Inner Critic

answers these questions

and more

Tomorrow's Edge Night Sky Logo

The author,

Skye Thomas is available

for one-on-one consultations.

Life Coaching with Skye Thomas

Please tell your friends about our website...

Young female laptop user.
Copyright 1999-2012, Skye Thomas, Tomorrow’s Edge.  All rights reserved worldwide.

Living To Be Over 100 Years Old


I was about ten and a half years old when we celebrated the Bi-Centennial anniversary of our country's birth.  At the time, I thought it would be cool if I could live to be 111 so that I could see the Tri-Centennial anniversary too.  Back then, my parents and other adults thought my idea was crazy and unobtainable.  People do not think that way anymore.  Now it is quite common to read stories of people who live beyond their 100th birthday.  Take a moment to search for the term "living to be 100 years old" in a search engine and you will find many websites telling us how to live that long and plenty of other websites showing us profiles of interesting people who are living well past their 100th birthdays.


The National Center for Health Statistics and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention offer us charts showing the life expectancy rates of people living in the United States as being somewhere between 70 and 80 years old depending upon gender, race, and a few other things.  There are websites with some interesting tests you can take that will help you predict how old you are likely to become.  Some are there to help us decide how much money we will need to save for retirement and some offer health tips and lifestyle changes that might help us improve our odds of getting to that 100th birthday.


It is only natural to want to live to a ripe old age and to want to enjoy a happy and fulfilling long life.  What many of us do not think about is how many years we will look "old" versus looking young and "sexy".  Unless we can afford a lot of plastic surgery, we are bound to start earning our fair share of wrinkles and gray hairs sometime between 40 and 50.  It is rare to find a woman who looks like a 30-year-old starlet after reaching her 50th birthday.  That is not to say that we cannot still look beautiful and charming after reaching 50, it is just that we are not going to look "young" forever.  If most of us will live to be in our seventies, then that means that most of us will spend at least 10, 20, maybe even 30 years NOT looking young.  If I achieve my childhood goal of living to see the Tri-Centennial, then I will have spent at least half of my life as an "old woman."  


We cannot live a long happy life AND never show our age.  Logically, we know that, but emotionally, it can be hard to take.  Yet somewhere along the way, all of those charming old ladies I have read about who are over 100 years old, somewhere along the way, they all got over it.  We never read about these centenarians longing for lost beauty.  They are people who are adaptable, resilient, and able to deal with whatever life might throw at them.  Somewhere along the way, we all have to learn that we have more to offer the world and more to offer ourselves than just beauty and feminine curves.


We do not live to be 100 years old by being obsessed about wrinkles, gray hairs, and drooping body parts.  We live to be 100 by making friends, sharing laughter, eating right, getting regular exercise, and keeping our minds challenged and open to learning new things.  We enjoy living to be 100 by realizing that we are so much more than our bodies.  We are hearts and souls, creative and funny.  


Plain women and average looking women do not have as much trouble with the aging process, because somewhere along the way we had to make peace with the idea that we were not going to be runway models, long legged ballerinas, or Hollywood beauties.  We all had to learn that we had better find some other form of personal identification.  And we learned to be happy being moms, employees, artists, writers, saleswomen, executives, sisters, and friends.  We learned that we had so many other beautiful traits, gifts, and positive aspects that not being flawlessly beautiful became "no big deal."


The great beauties have the hardest time with aging and looking "old".  Many of them have spent their entire lives being treated as, identified as, and resonating with the concept of "beautiful."  Unfortunately, for some of them, they never had to learn to see themselves as more than just their looks.  I have watched a handful of these ladies as they have approached their 50th birthdays.  Each of them had a meltdown and went into a depression despite still looking fabulous.  No matter how much I tried to tell them that they were still really quite lovely, they just could not believe it.  They were stuck in an old definition of beauty from back when they were younger.  It was quite interesting to watch each of them wrestle with their self-image and make peace with the aging process.  Eventually, they all came to realize how lucky they had been to get to experience "beauty" and how lucky they were to also get to experience "a long happy life".


Now, when I notice a friend is going through an aging-related depression, I tell her it is because she is beautiful that she is so upset about it.  I remind them that if they had spent a lifetime being plain or ugly, they would not care about such things.  In a small way, it seems to help them to regain a little perspective.  Of course, we mourn the loss of beauty, because it is artistic, inspiring, and sometimes it is the main source of our personal power.  Sometimes, they just need to be reminded that we all have other gifts that are also pleasing and we all have more than one source of personal power.  Nobody is ONLY pretty and nothing else.  


And there are no 100-year-old super models... not yet anyway.


Please help us to spread the word about

our website.  Email this article to a friend,

bookmark it, or “like” it on Facebook.  Just

click on the “share” button at the top of

the page for a list of ideas for how to

share this article with your loved ones.