Written by J.J.

As you gaze into the crystal ball what do you see in the future and what do you hope to see? We ask ourselves these questions throughout our lives beginning in those energetic, anxious young years when we could hardly wait to become adults. For some, in those formative years, parents or guardians managed the future, others had the resources and maturity to think about managing their own future but, by and large, as boomers we rode the tide of our new independence with minimal planning for tomorrow.

What a ride it's been! Ours is a generation filled with enjoyment, creativity, shared tragedy, amazing invention, and new definitions. Ours is a journey of accelerating change. We broke rules and made new ones and, with the incidental power of our generational numbers, the lives we've led and decisions we've made as individuals have transformed the culture of America. Together we've aged into a time of unprecedented resources and technology to guide us through a world of higher complexity and steeper challenge. Now we face the future we've in many ways created; created, yes, but planned for? Well, maybe not.

It's human nature to avoid planning for undesirable events like growing old but it's our human condition to be vulnerable to them. In today's world of information we know there are strong probabilities that, as we age, we'll encounter some undesirable circumstances. You won't, you may reflexively think, but yes, probably others will. In fact, all we have to do today is look around at national and personal catastrophies to know that random undesirable events lurk. And happen. Perhaps you've already met with them. How you react to your experience or the known probability and the obvious uncertainty around us determines the likelihood that you'll engage in solid planning for tomorrow.

We have more access to information and knowledge than any generation before us. We have ample free tools to help us plan the future. Yet this magical life full of magical tools in America can lure us into complacency or give us grounds for wishful thinking about the the years ahead.  Success and investments that may buoy us today can act as hindrances to preparation and needed change as we age. Many of us will content ourselves with gazing into the crystal ball for our future rather than objectively evaluating it and taking control. Crystal ball thinking is easy but it shatters when something happens that we didn't anticipate.

Why did the fortune teller close shop? Answer: Because she couldn't see a future in it.  This chuckle highlights the reflex we experience when we look but cannot see our own future....some of us feel vulnerable, fallible, paralyzed by 'what if's' and fall back into the comfort of denial. We close shop and stop planning for tomorrow. Planning can't prevent all undesirable events from touching our lives but it can put us in a stronger position to shorten and ease a recovery or smooth the journey through. Before we can manage our future we need to manage our crystal ball thinking and take steps to safeguard tomorrow!

Where do we start planning for the future? If you have financial resources and flexibility there are many websites and articles with advice on estate planning and financial investments. Do it yourself or hire a professional but don't wait. Set a timeline to help you get it done. If you don't have significant financial resources then turn to other kinds of important preparations that will help you in days to come. Start with these three essentials:

1) Get your advance directive, living will, POLST form, and Power of Attorney  for Healthcare and Finances in order. If you have property or want to direct what happens to your email or online assets write your will. The first step in controlling your destiny and facing your future is to tell others what you'd like to have done if and when something happens to you. That's what these papers do. Ask a lawyer to make these for you, use willmaker software or, if money is a challenge, talk to your local senior center. They may know about free legal help or have free forms to create these important documents. Talk to your doctor about a POLST form. It tells emergency responders how to react if you're in crisis at home. Don't wait any longer. Think about tomorrow today and make this happen.

2) Do 20 minutes a day of exercise. Run, swim, play golf, climb stairs- it doesn't matter as long as it's exercise. Go to an athletic club or the Y, walk around the block, do yoga, dance at home to the radio. There are so many ways to get this done and so much research that tells us the huge benefit we derive for our aging bodies and minds with this small investment of time. Work it into your daily schedule and have a good time with these 20 minutes. You don't need to do the same exercise every day.

3) Build a preparedness kit. I use a large shopping bag. Some people use a portable suitcase. Fill it with things you'd need to survive 3 days without services. That may be medicine, batteries, money, food, pet food, first aid, and so forth. Keep medicine, foods and pet foods up to date in your kit by checking it with regular frequency.

When you accomplish 1, 2, and 3, add another step from the list below. Do your planning gradually, one step at a time. If you incorporate several of these ideas you'll find that you've built a strong foundation for aging.

4)Design a plan to maintain your mind and memory. Do it through focus on diet, regular exercise (step 2), and learning (taking an interest in it too!) something new everyday.

5) Weatherize yourself. Aging effects the ability of our bodies to adjust to sudden temperature changes and may increase our vulnerability during extreme weather. Curiously, as our nation enters a time of more extreme weather most older Americans are living in nature's danger locations.  Find out what weather to expect in your area and take steps to prepare.  Do you have what you need during a heatwave ? Do you have shelter from the storm or a list of nearby emergency shelters? If you had to evacuate how would you leave? Answer these and other questions now to increase your chance of survival or ease your experience in extreme weather.  Don't have any good answers to these questions? Call or google your local emergency management office and ask them for advice.

6) Strengthen your social network. Meet your neighbors, connect with family more often, join others for dinner, go to a meetup, join Facebook, attend a class, there are so many ways to enhance your social life today! Social interactions and social support is fundamental in staying informed about our world and local community and can become even stronger support when we need help. Social support helps prevent, live with or overcome mental and physical illness. It's essential. Give it your focus today.

7) Downsize. "You can't take it with you" is a popular phrase describing the reality as we age. Ask yourself "when was the last time I used it?" to establish criteria for keeping or letting go of things. You may feel better when you lighten your load. When and if you move to a smaller living space you'll save yourself alot of moving time too! Start in a single room-maybe even a single corner of that room-and downsize one box, one shelf at a time.

8) Evaluate your living situation. You may have adjusted the way you lived to accommodate children in your younger life. In a similar way we need to evaluate our house or apartment with awareness that we're aging. Would better access to the house itself or to services help us adjust to potential changes? Are we safe where we are and would we feel that way if we became more vulnerable? Is it time to consider community living? These are hard but very important decisions to make. Making them while we're still young enough to rebuild our lives somewhere else gives us more strength and security in years to come.

Look into the crystal ball and we see the possibility of many different futures.  One will be our own. Be kind to your tomorrow. Take action today to strengthen your aging. Establish readiness for the days to come.

Written by J.J.

I live in a city on a busy road. It's never quiet. Most of America, in fact, spends their lives in an urban soundscape--some on quieter streets than others. A few have a way of tuning out the noise that surrounds them every day or to draw inspiration and energy from it but not many living an urban lifestyle can claim to be living in quiet. Can you? How do you do it?

Quiet. I don't remember how it "sounds." How many of us can say that we do? If we're not already a statistic in the epidemic of hearing loss  (more silent than quiet) or one of the millions who live with tinnitus we probably can't recall the last time we spent a day without construction, sirens, traffic, cell phones and the dissonant presto movement of modern life. Why is that important? Because too much noise is more than an irritant it causes high blood pressure and disrupted sleep. It creates aggravation and can trigger or heighten problems with short term memory. Too much noise creates stress.

55-85 decibels---that's the threshold beyond which hearing damage can occur. Surely that's not a sound level we reach very often you might think but the facts may surprise you. Do you commute? Highway traffic or multi-lane roadways generate 85 decibels.  Construction zones in your neighborhood generate over 100 decibels. In fact, even hospitals and care facilities with their machines, hallway chatter, alerts, and pulsing call bells often run on an average of 65 decibels. Sound Consultant Julian Treasure writes, "We’re designing environments that make us crazy...It’s not just our quality of life that suffers. It’s our health, our social behavior and our productivity as well.”  Here's a list of ratings for common noise encounters. How much of your day is spent above 55 decibels?

Quieter cities would improve public health and calm our communities.  Quiet relaxes our muscles and calms anxiety. Quiet aids learning and concentration. A walk in a forest or a moment alone in a church can bring us back to the whole body relaxation of quiet comfort.  The farther we drift from quiet in society the more we seek places and methods that help us regain that peace.  Our pursuit, for example, spawned an entire life enrichment and relaxation industry in America.  It's absorption into our culture is the background for Huffington Post's recent story, "Meditation: America's new pushup." The need for quiet brings calm to some yet rouses others to organize and act in the fight against noise that disturbs the city's peace.

As the public seeks ways to revisit quiet so too, increasingly, do planners, product engineers, and design visionaries who are lifting awareness about quiet and appropriate levels of sound.  After years when restaurants, buildings, and product design traded quiet for trendy appearances and/or lower cost the tide seems to be turning.  In London quieter products receive a Quiet Mark rating assuring the consumer of their sound safety much like a UL rating conveys electrical integrity. For more on the quiet mark and quiet products watch this interesting BBC video.  Besides reducing daily stress quieter products often lower energy consumption. In fact, Taisei Corporation in Japan actually generates energy, saves carbon emissions, and controls environmental damage by quietly demolishing skyscrapers! Imagine that! Back here in America though quiet electric cars ran into public safety concerns as  pedestrians, who rely on noise to determine when a car is approaching, prompted new legislation requiring manufacturers to engineer a "car sound" in electric vehicles.

Nearly 100 years ago the director of the American League for Noise Abatement predicted that the city of the future would be "noiseless and noiseproof." We're certainly not there yet and, if electric cars are an example, we may not want a city that quiet but technology and public need is pushing us closer than we've ever been before.  London has already imagined that environment in it's Quiet City Project.  When asked whether they noticed city noise  86% of London's public said "yes." When asked what noise they noticed they described a globally recognizable city symphony: traffic, construction, fans, sirens, airplanes, mobile phones, car stereos, beeping from everywhere, fire alarms, busses, garbage trucks, office machines, banging doors, car alarms, and air conditioning systems. London's Quiet City Project moves steadily toward its goal. What are we doing here in America?

 Update 14 July '13 Author, acoustic ecologist, and filmmaker Gordon Hempton explains his global search for quiet and explains his comment, “Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything,” in this interview for The Sun magazine.

 Update 27 Dec '13 This Atlantic article by Kaid Beanfield, a professor at George Washington University and co founder of the LEED rating system for neighborhood development, talks about the importance of quiet spaces. Beanfield writes, "I have a theory that, the busier and livelier a city is, the more it needs places of retreat, places where one can get away and be quiet and still."

Update 22 Feb 15: This short summary of recent research examining the effect of higher noise levels in parks and wildlife areas shows that increasing noise levels disrupt some species. "'The concern, states Dr Fristrup of the US National Park Service, "is that there is the potential for a shifting standard for what constitutes quiet.'"

Update January 2016 In this article from Mother Jones looks at science which indicates that "Even if you think you're immune to city noise, it may well be affecting your health." Our bodies react to noise whether our mind thinks that or not. Long term exposure non natural noise can increase hypertension, disrupt sleep patterns, impact children's learning ability, disturb cognitive performance and increase our vulnerability to cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, and dementia.