← Bill Monty's Guide For Getting Older: Aging, Living Well, and What Comes Next
Bill Monty's Guide For Getting Older: Aging, Living Well, and What Comes Next
The Preciousness of Time: How Aging Reminds Us That Every Moment Matters.
00:22:36
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- [00:01]
A
Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to Bill Monte's Guide for Getting Older, the podcast where we talk about the lessons that life teaches us about aging, the systems that support us, and the wisdom that sometimes only time can give.
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Welcome to Bill Monte's Guide for Getting Older.
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A
Today, I want to talk about something that might sound simple, but actually it becomes more profound the older we get, and that is this. Life is precious. I know you're going, all right, thank you, Captain Fortune Cookie. But it is true. Life is precious. And I wonder if we're not losing that very simple message and idea because of everything going on in the world right now. Life is precious. Not in a greeting card kind of way and not in a philosophical quote on social media, but in the real, honest sense that one day you're here and then one day you're not. And the older we get, the more we begin to understand the truth. So let's dive into it. So when does time start to feel different for you? Well, it's different for everybody. I can tell you that. For me, you know, I'm like everyone else. When I was younger, and especially my late teens, in my early 20s, my mid-20s, I had that sense without it being a, you know, it wasn't always a present thought in my mind, but that this all would go on forever. Life would go on forever. I always had endless tomorrows. Somewhere in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, in raising a family and working, I'm not sure I thought about it at all. Life became almost a job or a chore. But when I hit my 60s, that's when I started thinking about things a little bit different. Yeah, back when I was young, I always assumed there would be another summer, another holiday, another visit with my friends, another opportunity, another tomorrow. But time isn't endless. Life does not stretch out forever in front of us. Instead, at some point, and for me, it's the last few years especially, you start to look back and think, how did the years move so fast? It was just in the moment of a blink of my eyes. It was gone. All of those times you remember being a kid, your first job, your first love, your first apartment, the first time you felt like an adult. And suddenly decades have passed. And that realization can be sobering, can also be incredibly powerful. Once you understand that time is limited, you start to appreciate life a little more deeply. There's a reality of aging. Let's be honest. Getting older is not always easy. I've talked about that so much on this podcast that your body reminds you of that. Your knees in my Case my hip and back hurt a little more. Getting up in the morning, morning. And in the course of the day, you move slower than you used to. You notice that you don't quite have the same energy. Things that used to feel effortless now require a lot of effort. That's just part of the human experience. If we're lucky enough to grow older, our bodies will change. Nothing you can do about it. You can exercise, you can eat right, you can do it. Still is going to happen to you. Maybe it won't be as drastic for some people as it will for others. Others based on your lifestyle and the changes that you make as you get older. But your bodies are going to change. Sometimes we become more fragile. Sometimes life asks us to slow down. But while some physical abilities fade, other things start to grow stronger. Things like your perspective on life, it grows. Your wisdom about things grows. Your appreciation for life grows. Grows other people's appreciation for you. And what you know diminishes. Kind of a trade off that you have to put up with. So let's talk about perspective. One of the best things about getting older is perspective. Because when you're younger, life feels less urgent, right? Everything feels like maybe it has to happen right now. You worry about what people think. You try to keep everyone happy. You compromise your own peace just to avoid conflict. You'll do anything to keep that job, to make that dollar. But something changes over time because you begin to realize you don't actually have to do that. You don't have to say yes to everything. You don't have to carry everyone else's expectations of you. You don't have to be disappointed or upset because they're disappointed in you because you didn't live up to their expectations. I have enough problems living up to my own expectations. So everyone else get off of my back. And that's one of the things that age lets me say. Because 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I did not have that perspective about people and about life. And I do now. You don't like me. I didn't live up to what you thought I should do. Or you had this vision of me that wasn't actually true because that's what you wanted it to be. Not to be rude. I don't care. I don't. I don't care. I'll do the best I can. I try to be a nice person. I try to do everything I can to make the world a better place. But I no longer am going to bend over backwards just to make your life a little more Comfortable. You don't have to sacrifice your own peace to keep someone else comfortable. That's one of the quiet freedoms that comes with age. You understand that your time and your energy are precious, and you begin to protect them. Another thing that changes as we age, the beauty of simple moments. It's the way we notice the world. Things that once seemed ordinary suddenly become extraordinary. A sunrise, a sunset, a full moon in a dark sky. The way the sky turns orange and pink over the water when you're younger, maybe you rush past these moments. Maybe because, especially in my late teens, early 20s, I was so involved in water sports, scuba diving especially. I would spend so much time on the water down in the Florida Keys. Maybe I had a little more appreciation for those, because I've always appreciated a really beautiful sunrise or sunset or a beautiful blue sky. Still, today I see a beautiful blue sky and I just stop and stare and think, wow, how glorious is that? But if you don't have those moments from when you were younger, later in life you will stop. You will notice, you will take it in. The laughter of a child can stop you in your tracks. The warmth of a quiet afternoon can feel like a gift from God. You start to realize that life isn't made up of giant milestones. It's made up of small, beautiful moments. Moments we often rush through when we were younger. Moments we now understand are the true treasures of living. One of the funny things about life is that many of its greatest lessons arrive much later than we expected. We learned that worrying rarely changes anything. Oh, this is like just one of the biggest things I've learned. What am I worried about? There. There are people, and I used to be one of them. People that worry about things that already happened, that happened yesterday. What is the point? Yesterday's. Go on. You worry about what's going to happen tomorrow or a week from now or in the future. There's almost nothing you can do to control that. You can make plans, you can do the very best you can, but there's nothing you can do to control it. The only thing you can control that you maybe worry about is right now. However, worrying rarely changes anything. We learned that time with people we love is more valuable than almost anything else in this world. We learn that happiness isn't something we chase, it's something we notice. And maybe the biggest lesson of all is that life is not about perfection. It's about presence. It's about being here, being aware, being grateful for the moment that you are in. One day, I'll put a link into My one day episode, which is one of my favorite, one of my personal favorite episodes. Bump it in the show notes. But one day, all of us will take our last walk. We will watch our last sunset. We'll hear our last laugh from someone we love. We'll give or get a hug for or from someone we love. That's the truth of life. And while that may sound heavy, some might even say depressing, it's a fact. It's just going to happen. But it's also, it's what makes life so beautiful. Because if you're paying attention, it reminds us that every moment matters. Every conversation, every smile, every quiet morning, every shared memory, they are all pieces of something extraordinary. The simple miracle of being alive. So what does getting older really teach us? It teaches us to slow down, to notice. It teaches us that the opinions of strangers, even close acquaintances, don't matter nearly as much as we once believed. It teaches us that kindness matters even today. Patience matters. Connection matters. And maybe most importantly, it teaches us that the present moment is the only moment that we truly have. Yesterday is a memory. Tomorrow is a mystery. But today, this moment is real. And that, my friends, is something worth appreciating. Life is an incredible journey. So, my friends, when did you discover the truths about life? Have you discovered them yet? What are some that you would like to share? I'd love to hear from you. Please do me a favor. You can go down into the show notes to the link for the Speak pipe. It says you can leave a message. That's a free 90 second tool that will allow you to talk to me and tell me your experiences or you can write me at billmonte04gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you. Up next, our new segment, get off of my Lawn. We'll be right back.
- [11:54]
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Hey, welcome to dad Space. This is a podcast for dads by dads. If you're a dad, if you know a dad, then we have a space for you. It's called dad Space. You can find us at dadspace.ca that's all things dad. This is a podcast designed to help you as a dad, give you the tools, the connections in the community to be a better dad. So if you're a new dad, congratulations. And if you've been a dad like me for a long time, there's room for you at dad Space. Come join us on dad Space, the podcast. My name is Dave. I'm excited to have you join us over at dad Space. Thanks for listening.
- [12:41]
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This week on get off of my Lawn. I Want to talk about insurance companies? Now, I've got a whole episode planned about insurance companies, so we're not there yet, but I want to specifically talk about insurance advertising because I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make to your customers, all of you insurance companies, but you seem to portray either the general public or your employees as idiots. Doesn't really work for me. And honestly, if insurance wasn't such a scam, I might be doing that episode right now. If insurance wasn't such a scam, I don't think any of us would have anything to do with you. I mean, let's face it, you know, you have auto insurance in case something happens, and then if you try to use it because something happened, they either raise your rates where you can't afford them any longer, or they just drop you completely. I think that's kind of what Don Corleone did in the Godfather, right? Am I wrong? Doesn't it seem like the RICO act would apply to insurance companies? I don't know, it could be me. But I want to talk specifically since this is about Bill Monti's guide for getting older, about the progressive ads. Now, you've all seen them. If you watch TV and you watch tv, that has commercials. You have seen the white haired gentleman who's accompanying a 30 or 40 year old adult. And that adult seems to have no idea how to exist in the world except for trying to be nice to people or be curious to people. And the job of the white haired gentleman who represents progressive insurance is to stop you from becoming your parents. So the message is, at least as I receive it, is that it's really bad to become like your parents. You know, your parents, the people who loved you, who raised you, who taught you values. Remember those kind people, they fed you, they gave you shelter, they gave you clothes, made sure you got an education. They loved you no matter how many times you screwed up. Well, the message from progressive is that it's really bad to become your parents. And what are the things that they show that are in their eyes? Parent like, well, one is someone trying to help people at a coffee shop get their orders. Yeah, annoying. But is that the worst thing in the world? I mean, the worst thing perhaps could be, you know, bombing another country and kidnapping their president. Another commercial shows a woman talking to her neighbors in a restaurant. Now, I actually find that annoying and I wish people wouldn't do it. It's not the worst thing in the world. And is that really something our parents did? Because frankly, I Never saw my mother or father walk up into a Starbucks and start calling out orders in people's names. If they did talk to someone at another table in a restaurant, generally it was because the person at that table asked the question. I see you got the chicken parm. Did you enjoy it? I'm thinking of getting that myself. Really? Not the worst thing in the world. The people who observe workers in the street and talk to them. Hey, what are you doing? What are you guys digging for? Oh, a little curiosity about what's going on in your neighborhood that's bad. I just don't understand what's so bad about being our parents. And I don't understand the whole marketing structure and ideas that said, hey, in order to sell insurance, we should insult an entire generation, Two entire generations, the parents and apparently their stupid kids. I don't. I. Maybe it's just me. I don't get it. I think it's a really strange marketing plan, you know, and maybe it's because all of my. Everything I knew about marketing until I actually started working as a marketer came from the show Bewitched. You know, Darren Stevens was a marketing person. His boss, Larry Tate, was always mad at him, and they were always having to do these wild presentations that either Endora would mess up or Samantha would save. That's everything I knew about marketing. I never watched Mad Men, so I can't take anything from that. Progressive is also the same company that has flow. And now all of Flo's friends who work at Progressive, and most of them are about as smart as a walnut, apparently. Look, I'm not the one writing the dialogue. I'm not the one showing them to be this stupid. But it does not give me, as a potential customer, any great boost of confidence to see this company portray their employees as morons. I don't get it. And I don't get why I have to have insurance to begin with. Because apparently the only insurance that ever really is going to matter is the life insurance. Because if they cancel you once you use that, it doesn't really matter because you're not around anymore. You actually canceled them anyway. That's my thoughts. What do you think about it? Do you get annoyed by insurance commercials? And especially the Progressive ones? Because they absolutely drive me nuts. And don't get me started on why an insurance company needs a lizard to sell you insurance. All right, next update on the political situation in our country, that country being America. I know I have listeners all over the world, so I hate to just keep it centralized, but apparently Our problems here in America have now become your problems, especially if you live in the Middle east or if you live in South America. Because if you're in South America and you're out on a boating trip and for some reason the administration thinks you might have drugs, they'll just bomb you, no warning. They'll just blow your boat up, kill you and your family. If you live in Cuba, they'll just do everything they can to make it to where you don't have any power and they'll try to strangle you that way. Our fascination in this country with Cuba has always amazed me. A little island 90 miles off the coast of Key west, except for the Bay of Pigs and the whole Russia trying to arm them with the missiles back in 19. What was that, 1962? What have they ever done that's got everyone so upset? They're communists. Well, so are the Chinese. We don't have any problem working with them. But now our beloved president Don Snorleone, Donnie Dahl hands the president, CEO, the head of the Donald Trump Board of Peace, even though there was no threat that anyone in the world seemed to know of, except perhaps Israel from Iran decided that the best way to keep peace of the world is to make war. And so without warning, we just started bombing Iran. Now, look, I've been around long enough. I remember, you know, the hashi situation from 1979. I remember I'm no big lover of Iran. I don't have anything personally against them either. I don't know if I've ever known anyone from Iran, but if I have, most people I've known are nice. So I guess I don't have a problem with them. If they're trying to blow up the world to destroy the world. Yes, I'm glad that we stepped in, but that doesn't seem like the situation here. It seems like we just took a little prodding from Israel and I don't know what's happened to Israel. I love Israel. I don't know what's happened with them either. Suddenly they're just mad at the world and we just decided to destroy a country which we haven't done. And apparently the Trump administration is really surprised that Iran can fight back. Bombs are flying everywhere and their neighbors must really be surprised. The people in Dubai must be going, what? Missile just hit our hotel over there, our beautiful hotel. We don't have a dog in this fight. What's going on here? 150 children in school were killed by a missile fired by Israel on the first day of bombing and that's a real problem. And we need to get mad and we need to get upset. Mostly, we just need not to make light of a horrible situation. But things are getting worse every single day, friends. It's not getting better, and I'm getting tired of it. So just like our neighbors used to yell at me when I was a little kid, I yell to Donald Trump and the Trump administration, get off of my lawn. Until next time, my friends. I remind you, if possible, and it's getting harder these days, be safe and please do what you can to be kind.
- [21:43]
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If it's warm outside but you're feeling cold or not sure what to do without a friendly shoulder, you're not alone. So start feeling bolder. Welcome to Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Old.
- [22:07]
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Hi, this is Bill Monte inviting you to take a talk down memory lane on the podcast Tales from South Florida, where we dive into the people, places and events that make our corner of the Sunshine State unlike any place anywhere. So sit back, grab your headsets, get a slice of Key lime pie, and come along for the ride. Full episodes, music videos and more are available at talesfromsouthflorida. Com. Tales from South Florida, where the stories meet the sea.