New ways of being myself

 "Growing Old: Or Older and Growing" by Carl Rogers; published in A Way of Being (1980)

Starts with "What is it like to be seventy-five years old?"  It's different than 55 or 35... but not as great as you imagine.

I have been so uniquely fortunate.

The physical side.  

"I still enjoy a four-mile walk on the beach. I can lift heavy objects, do all the shopping, cooking and dishwashing when my wife is ill, carry my own luggage without puffing.

"So, I am well aware that I am obviously old. Yet form the inside I'm still the same person in many. ways, neither old nor young. It is that person of whom I speak."

Activities... 

New enterprises... many involving psychological or even physical risk.

"... I have learned and put into practice new ways of being myself."  

(participants should experience their own power)

Risk Taking

"the experiences I value most in my recent life all entail considerable risk."

"I am bored by safety and sureness..... It is necessary to my life to try something new."

"But perhaps the major reason I am willing ot take chances is that I have found that in doing so, whether I succeed or fail, I learn. Learning, especially learning from experience, has been a prime element in making my life worthwhile. Such learning helps me to expand. So, I continue to risk.

Writings

4 books, forty shorter pieces, several films... since I was 65!  

Serenity

...events that touch me personally evoke a stronger reaction than before

Opening Up to New Ideas

here he talks about biofeedback, intuition... precognition, Kirlian photography

Intimacy

"I am more ready to touch and be touched, physically.  I do more hugging and kissing of both men and women. I am more aware of the sensuous side of my life. I also realize how much I desire close psychological contact with others. I recognize how much I need to care deeply for another and to receive that kind of caring in return..... I feel as though a whole new depth of capacity for intimacy has been discovered in me. This capacity has brought me much hurt, but an even greater share of joy."

"With these close friends, men and women, I can share any aspect of my self -- the painful, joyful, frightening, crazy, insecure, egotistical, self-deprecating feelings I have.  I can share fanatasies and dreams. Similary, my fiends share deeply with me. These experiences I find very enriching."

"It is so much easier to care for others for what I think they are, or wish they would be, or feel they should be. To care for this person for what he or she is, dropping my own expectations of what I want him or her to be for me, dropping my desire to change this person to suit my needs, is a most difficult but enriching way to a satisfying intimate relationship.

Personal Joys and difficulties

He separates from his wife.. "to live a life of my own"

Thoughts regarding death

"It may surprise you that at my age I think very little about death."

"I have been able to live my life -- not to the full, certainly, but with a satisfying degree of fullness -- and it seems natural that my life should come to an end."

Conclusion

"for me, these past ten years have been fascinating -- full of adventuresome undertakings. I have been able to open my self to new ideas, new feelings, new experiences, new risks.  Increasingly, I discover that being alive involves taking a chance, acting on less than certainty, engaging with life.

All of this brings change and for me the process of change is life.  I realize that if I were stable and steady and static, I would be living death.  So I accept confusion and uncertainty and fear and emotional highs and lows because they are the price I wilingly pay for a flowing, perplexing, exciting life."