Watch Meetup Live for a conversation with Steven Petrow, author of the new book, Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old, Washington Post columnist, and host of the 3 Ways to Practice Civility TED talk. Steven speaks about finding common ground across the age divide and making friends at any life stage. You’ll learn how to build bridges with those you care about, how the pandemic changed our notions of friendship, and how to deal with loneliness and disconnection.
Main Takeaways:
- What’s really key is to find new ways to meet people. I joined a number of Meetup groups in my area – an LGBTQ+ group, a hiking group, a kayaking group and some other groups. And what I really appreciated about these groups were how diverse they were. And it also seemed if there was one characteristic that defined people in these groups, it was they wanted to make new friends and were really open to making new friends who were different than themselves.
- One lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t get everything from one person, but from a group of friends you can get almost everything.
- I would pick up the phone when I thought from someone’s Twitter posts or other posts showed that things were hard. I would just pick it up and talk to them. I also started a gratitude practice which I think people can do, it’s very simple, and it’s free. What I do at the end of the day is write down three things in a little journal.
Top Q&A Questions/Resource for Aging Gracefully:
- Is it possible to educate others to be open minded?
- I think modeling the kind of behavior that we would like to see in others is one of the most important ways that we can push someone along.
I have seen people in my life who exhibit values that I don’t have and I think, “Wow, I want to be like them. I want to try to be a little bit more like that.” And then I’ll try it because I see that it’s working for them or it’s something that I emulate or appreciate.
- I think modeling the kind of behavior that we would like to see in others is one of the most important ways that we can push someone along.
- What advice do you have for someone to be more of a “perennial”?
- It’s about retraining your brain and saying, “I am going to live large, and I’m going to have an expansive world and I’m going to take risks. I’m going to get out of my comfort zone, I’m going to pay attention to those ruts, and change them.”
- Resources:
- Check out Steven’s book Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old. Use the promo code PETROW15 to receive 15% off the book and free shipping.
Last modified on August 3, 2021
