You are too old for that……..!
To laugh at old age is a worthy sentiment, but dying and being lost at sea through a foolhardy adventure is quite another.
I was moved by the saga of 75-year-old Frenchman Jean-Jacques Savin, attempting a solo row across the Atlantic Ocean.
The planned 100-day voyage on a small rowing boat suitably called L’Audacieux, The Audacious, was to challenge age itself.
Savin wanted to prove he wasn’t too old to attempt such an adventure, whatever the age-related limits imposed by society.
But just a few days in the sea had the last laugh. He was found dead in the cabin near the Azores.
It made me think of the many far less dangerous actions we might take to prove somehow we ‘are not too old.’ I have a few. Do you?
Last night, I was thinking about Savin while pushing my folding bike, which has childishly tiny wheels.
“Make you think you’re a kid again, does it,” ventured a passing and slightly drunk woman in her thirties.
I replied without thinking, “As a matter of fact, it does.”
Had it been a tricycle, she might have had a point. Many of us wear clothes, drink cocktails and listen to music that might not be strictly appropriate to our years.
There’s plenty of advice online for women, and even us blokes, about what not to wear if you are aged over 50. This summer, I’m in trouble already, having donned cargo shorts, sandals, tennis socks, backpacks, and slogan T-shirts.
Do you plead guilty to such fashion breaches, or frankly, do you not give a damn?
Likewise, some chose to mark age-related milestones such as fifty or sixty with challenges such as running a marathon (42km) or hiking Tasmania’s Overland Track (65kms).
But not all of them stop there: some up the ante to much more painful experiences. There are ultra marathons, the longest is a 5,000km multi-day race around a New York city block, and I’m not kidding. Or the more sedate pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago in Europe, which boasts various possible routes, all of them long.
Of course, there will be remarkable people of very advanced years who tackle these journeys in their stride. But for the rest of us, what is realistic?
Many of us need a challenge, but what if we push the boat out too far like poor old Jean-Jacques Savin? Then what?
Please share your own or others experiences of trying something perhaps beyond our years and if it ended in either tears or cheers. We love to hear your stories!
Any information contained in this communication is general advice, it does not take into account your individual circumstances, objectives, financial situation or needs.
