The 3 keys to aging successfully

"Aging is like climbing a great mountain ... While climbing, the forces diminish, but the gaze is freer, the view broader and serene" (Ingmar Bergman).

Get older? Perhaps many of us, especially the younger ones, have never considered how we will mature and grow personally, until we reach old age. And, above all, how will we adapt to it: will we be happy?

If we want to ensure a happy life and old age, we can attend to three easy steps proposed years ago by an author named Baltes (1990). This author proposed a model that he called: Selective Optimization with Compensation (SOC).

Although it can be applied to any life stage, this model has its maximum expression in old age, since the experience accumulated throughout life allows many older people to be able to apply it in their day to day to be happy.

Abbreviations SOC refer, as the model name indicates, to: selection, optimization and compensation.

1. Selection.

It refers to the ability that we all have to select our relationships and our activities based on the conditions that characterize each of us: abilities, tastes, environment, etc..

This is, one of the keys to being happy is the ability and ability to adapt what we choose to our preferences and tastes (choosing the partner we like, practicing hobbies and sports that we like, ...), to our abilities and aptitudes (working on what we feel competent for and that, in addition, we like), to the conditions of our environment (choosing a hobby that suits our economic level, working in a place where we can move, ...), etc..

2. Optimization.

With it, it refers to the ability to get the most out of it and perform as much as possible in what we do. Namely, "Give the best of oneself": get involved in our neighborhood association, collaborate with causes with which we feel identified, perform the best we know and can in our work, get involved in our personal and partner relationships, etc.

3. Compensation.

Finally there is the compensation of those difficulties or obstacles that one may encounter throughout his life, changing previously employed strategies to achieve goals by others more appropriate to the specific situation. A clear example of this aspect can be seen in those people who have lost physical agility to perform a certain sport that until that moment they practiced and who, as a consequence, have to do it at a slower pace or with less intensity..

The experience acquired throughout life makes it easier for us to act optimizing, selecting and compensating for the deficits or difficulties that we may encounter. This attitude is related to the call "wisdom".

How to put it into practice?

Rubinstein is a successful pianist all over the world and, in his 90s, he explains what he does to beat his age and remain a great concert pianist:

• From the entire musical repertoire, choose the pieces that you like the most and with which you feel most comfortable (selection).
• He practices the same hours every day, but since he rehearses fewer pieces, he spends more time on each oneoptimization).
• When he has to interpret movements that require more speed in his fingers than he can manage, he slows the previous movements to the faster ones to give a feeling of greater speed in them (compensation).