How to Grow Old — Bertrand Russell’s Guide for Successful Old Age

“I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake.”

Growing old is either a curse or a blessing, depending on how you choose to see it. However, the great majority consider it a curse, especially when your back starts hurting for no reason and your knees give you a more predictable weather forecast than the evening news.

An expert on growing old (he died at the age of 97), Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, essayist, and Nobel laureate had a few things to say about this subject in his magnificent essay “How to Grow Old.”

1. Choose Your Ancestors Carefully

“My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully.”

Starting with a bit of humor, Russell wakes us up to a harsh reality — our genes determine a large part of our lives, and to some extent, even the length of it. He was fortunate enough to have long-lived relatives who lived past the age of 80. If, however, you’re not that lucky, then take care of yourself. If you know disease runs in your family, do the best you can to decrease the chances of being affected by it.

2. Insist on self-development

Russell says of his maternal grandmother, “I do not believe she had the time to notice she was growing old.”

When insomnia came to visit her in her old age, Russell’s grandmother used the extra time that had now fallen on her lap to read popular science. She kept busy. According to Bertrand Russell’s essay, she devoted herself to women’s higher education, and was one of the founders of Girton College.

Now more than ever, information is at our fingertips. We can learn everything from gardening to astronomy with a simple click. Self-development is easier than it has ever been. We only need the will and the desire to keep growing, because “This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young.”

3. Do Not Be Obsessed with the Past

“One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done.”

The past is for visiting, not for residing. As we grow older, we must fight the impulse of living in the good old days. Our energies are better spent in the future, where we can still have some influence. Living in the past is the easiest and most certain way to rob ourselves of the future.

As Mel Robbins said, “Your past is a lesson, not a life sentence…”

4. Have Strong Impersonal Interests

“If you are one of those who are incapable of impersonal interests, you may find that your life will be empty…”

Impersonal interests are those that may serve no practical or financial purpose. These are the types of interests in which you engage simply because you love it. No other reason needed. These sorts of interests free the mind and subconscious from the constant brooding on life’s problems, and give your mind the sort of liberty a child enjoys in the park — the freedom of being yourself just for the sake of being without the intent to impress anyone else.

Russell also cautions about being overly interested in your children or grandchildren, because “to be interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them…”

Your interests should span farther than your kids or grandkids. They are now free to live their life as are you. Strong impersonal interest will prevent you from becoming a burden to them, and will set you on the path for successful old age.

Russell also likens life to a river, “An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged In the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.”

Let’s keep working on widening our river by opening ourselves up to self-development and impersonal interests, so that at the end we may merge painlessly with the sea.

Happy living!