Baby Boomers Are Us

We are Changing what Aging and Living Looks like.

Photo by John Bakator on Unsplash

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Learning the scope of how a society works seemed pretty simple in 3d grade, growing up in Norway. Pictures in our textbooks showed a smiling mom who made dinner and helped the children. The image of dad was a man, sitting in an armchair, smoking a pipe, and reading the newspaper. The reason I remember the latter so vividly is because my dad was rarely home. He spent eight months a year in South Georgia, hunting whales for a living. My mom fit into both these roles. She did the helping, the smiling, the cooking, read the newspaper and sat in the armchair, smoking cigarettes.

The smallest society is the home-based family. To this, we add men and women working in the community. The fireman and the police officer, the baker and the banker, the teacher and the nurse, the butcher and the fisher man, the doctor and the lawyer, and the builder and the home maker. Everyone has a duty to serve, to help, or to protect their fellow citizens. In the mind of my nine-year-old self, this social construct seemed logic and easy to understand. Our job was to ponder who we might want to be as future self grownups.

My chosen adult roles became that of a mother, a writer, and a nurse. At no time did I envision myself growing old. Today, at age 72, I find myself far away from Norway, living healthy and happy in the USA. My primary roles now are those of a grandmother, writer, and a newfound small business owner.

Before starting a business, writing a book, or creating a product, the first question to ask ourselves is this, “To whom do I direct my product, service, and message”? Who are my customers and who do I serve? Who do I help and how can I help them. Every business owner wants to build and maintain a balance where we give with one hand and take with the other.

In my case, I am both. I am the seller and I am the buyer. My core customers are adults over age 65, AKA Baby boomers. The products and services I create, teach, and sell are Health & Happiness related, driving the underlying objective of human existence, survival. According to the United Nations, people over age 65 are growing from an estimated 703 million in 2019 to 1.5 billion in 2050. Who are we, the famed boomers?

The answer is nothing short of mind blowing, intriguing, to say the least. “Some of us were born during the second world war, but most were born after the war. My father was one of the soldiers who came home after the war and helped spike the growth of this generation.

We are called the Baby Boomers, children born between the years 1946 and 1964. This generation is segmented into two. I belong to the primary, called the Leading Age Baby boomers who were born between 1946 and 1955. We came of age during the years of the Vietnam war. One of my sisters, born in 1959, belongs to the Late Boomers who were born between 1955 and 1964. By the year 2030, everyone from this generation will be at least 65 years old.

Who are we? We are the boys and girls who played in streets without pavements and helicopter parents, ate what was for dinner, listened to the radio, feared stories from the war, had no television, got telegrams, and dialed numbers on the classic, black telephone when making a phone call.

We grew up listening to rock and roll from vinyl records; Chubby Checker, Elvis, and the Beatles. Miniskirts and skinny legs were in fashion, thanks to Twiggy. Woodstock, the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, and the moon landing are events that are embedded in our long term memory.

When my father was listening to the radio news about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, I watched him weep. Shortly thereafter, he went to sea, on what was to become his last voyage. Later, when Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were fatally shot in 1968, my father had already been gone for four years. He died from an acute heart attack when he was 41, and I was 14 years old.

The boomers grew into hippies, radicals, workaholics, and strived for the American Dream. We got married, mothers joined the labor force, and we had the highest divorce rate in history. Cigarette and pot smoking, alcohol, drugs, and processed foods were abundant. We have loved and we have been loved. We are in wheelchairs, we use walkers, we are hard of hearing, and we have had wins and losses.

We became overweight, obese, diabetic, got high blood pressure, and coronary heart disease. Many died before their time, but many more are still here. Life is precious. With the beat of the Golden Oldies, “Let’s Twist Again”, “Suspicious Minds”, and “Let It Be”, we sing and our hearts remain young and still rock. This is my target audience, and I am one of them.”

We are the adults over age 65, and “Houston, we have a problem”. It is called cardiovascular disease and I am doing something about it. Awareness has the potential to improve quality and quantity of life as we age.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) refers to diseases of the heart and the vascular system. This includes uncontrolled high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, angina, peripheral vascular disease, history of a heart attack, angina, history of a stroke, and other vascular conditions. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), between 2017 and 2020, 127.9 million US adults had some form of CVD. This is not all right. Much can be done to improve cardiovascular health. Life essential 8 are the key measures for improving and maintaining cardiovascular health, as defined by AHA. It is all good lifestyle advice. But somehow, it does not seem to be enough. Year after year, heart disease and CVD are the leading cause of death in the world. Something is missing.

As humans, we are made up of a body, a mind, and a spirit. The mind and the spirit parts are missing in then Life Essential 8. With the understanding that we can connect to our higher selves and become what we are meant to be, takes more than 8 simple lifestyle choices. We must connect, not only to who we are, but to each other as well. We all need Purpose Driven Health.

“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”

-Maya Angelou

🇳🇴Annelie Holmene Pelaez believes that everyone has an attribute to share with others. Promoting cardiovascular health and helping adults over age 65 is her contribution. When we don’t let age define us, but rather empower us to grow, we discover health and happiness are byproducts of who we are.

Annelie is the author of the book, Say Yes to A Better Life, available at Amazon.

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