The Secret Of A Healthy Long Life

As told by a man who found it and seems to be living it

His old mother died when he was about 80, which made it tempting to assume longevity runs in the family. If he hears you say that, he tilts his head to some angle and shrugs before saying ‘maybe’.

Press him further and he tells you he does not have enough evidence about inheriting longevity because his father died quite young. ‘What about luck?’ he would ask.

Nobody really knew his mother’s birthdate. She and her parents could not read and write. We assumed she must have been about 100 at the time, a little less or more.

When we heard of the old lady’s passing on, we told him he has had an undue advantage over those of us, much younger folks, who had lost both parents. And his quick response was if those were our condolences then he would wait for us to redress and treat him with the compassion he deserved as an orphan.

He engages you wit for wit, a pun for a pun. He is such a sweet and caring soul and that you can only but love him. Around him you find yourself being humourous and jocular too. His charm is just that infectious.

When we complain about anything, including the government or the neighbours, he asks us to look inwards to see if in some way we have not contributed to what we complain about and reminds us that when we all changed for the good, our circumstances and surroundings will become better.

We have been friends for many years and never seem to notice any visible body changes in him. He has no wrinkles on the face not even laughter lines around the eyes given the bouts of laughter and mirth he brings whenever you speak or meet with him. He reads and walks sprightly about without glasses and remembers what was discussed when and where much more than the younger folks around.

What is left of his hair is in a massive struggle to fully go grey and when you point that out to him, he simply tells you ‘not my fault’. As if it has nothing to do with him as a person. His hair — full or balding — has its own existence, as far as he’s concerned.

Being in the mid-’80s is not such a huge achievement, according to him, but what is spectacular (according to us) is looking sixtyish, being very fit and healthy.

And because of the sharp wit and the flow of jokes rendered effortlessly, you always want to be near him and ‘catch up’. He has been a radioman, a mass media communicator, and has quite a flair for words. Good diction and enunciations, good sense of timing and pausing, spiced with rich philosophical comments.

He still recites long passages of Shakespeare’s writings he learned as a teenager in high school, remembers the names of teachers who made the greatest impressions on his young mind, and even recalls his scores in some class tests written almost 70 years ago.

He enjoys collecting artworks and encouraging young artists. He gives you loads of credit for you putting your talents to good use and for your insights. He listens well and allows you to tell your story. And when you get to the points of your obvious errors and mistakes and expect him to come hard on you with his usual open frankness, another side of him sneaks out. He passes it off as if it does not matter much and you retrace the story to highlight what you think you did wrong, then he makes it clear he heard you the first time and overwhelms you with sheer wisdom and kindness.

‘Listen’, he says, ‘I am not sure at your age I would have noticed the error. I was brash and impatient and proud of my being brainy. I can’t make those mistakes now if I must tell you, because I don’t think I have that much time left to make amends. That makes me more cautious. But look at you, you know what is required and you have the time to make corrections. Can’t see you are doing well because you are learning from these rich experiences?’.

And you can see he means well. He had at some point led us to make some investment in which we later suffered minor financial losses but recouped more than 90% of our initial outlay and he offered to use what he recovered to cover our shortfalls because he was the one who brought us into the transaction and in his thinking bore some responsibility for what happened. Yet we made all the business decisions together. Is it generosity that makes him such a warm soul? Or is it his warmth that makes him that generous?

Maybe humor imbues one with longevity because come to think of it if one finds laughter in things that weigh others down, then the one is likely to be mentally, emotionally, and physically healthier. And good health is the highway to a long life.

So we turned our attention to monitoring his other personal habits. He exercises. Mildly and regularly. He enjoys driving himself and would offer to be at the airport early in the morning to pick you up if you coming into his town. He is always looking out for new ventures to engage in. He retires from one and soon starts another one. He eats moderately. Drinks alcohol moderately. Enjoys coffee. Not decaffeinated, he announces each time he gets to the coffeepot. Well, these are common and not unusual habits.

Maybe there are other things he picked up from his mother. Some secret recipe that is the fountain of youth and long life we can get from him if we stayed close and kept probing.

He promised to tell us all he knows and to answer all our questions. So we ask him to think deeply before answering this basic question which we have tried to ask indirectly in different ways.

‘What, in your experience and considered opinion, does one need to live a long healthy life?’

“Oh dear,’ he says, ‘that’s simple. Really simple. That’s what I do every day. Listen. Make sure you wake up every morning, no matter how long you sleep. Sleep deep, but wake up every day. If you do that regularly and religiously, you will live long and keep living. Just make sure you don’t cannot wake up’

We waited. Silently.

Then he adds, ‘that’s really all. And that’s all I have done as long as I can remember.’

Maybe our disappointment showed even though we were laughing and without remorse, he looks at us and says ‘you could have saved yourself the trip and could have asked me that on the phone and that too could have saved me this bottle of red wine I am going to open for this your visit’.

‘Anyway’, he continued, ‘you never seem to take me seriously after all these years. Do you?’.

‘Do you think you will make it to a 100, like your mother ?’

‘Maybe, if I did not have folks like you ruffling my feathers. She kept warning me about the younger generation. Oh dear, now I wish I listened.’

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