Engaging with Ageing: What Matters as We Grow Older

When we read about ageing, we are often overexposed to the downsides. How do we cope with the psychological degeneration that accompanies dementia? What if our retirement savings aren’t enough to see us through? How can we prevent ourselves from being financially abused, from succumbing to social isolation, from becoming unfit and frail?

Each October, however, brings Positive Ageing Week, an initiative that seeks to combat this pessimism – to ‘reframe how we think, feel and act towards ageing’ and celebrate the wonderful contribution that older people bring to society.

In 2021, Compass held a series of events as part of Positive Ageing Week, one of which included a keynote address by Dr Anne Ring, who sought to ‘destigmatise the word “old”’ and focus on the benefits and joys of ageing.

Since then, Ring has penned a whole book on ageing, a detailed ‘travel guide to old age’ — so, what more positivity does she have to share?

In Engaging With Ageing: What Matters as We Grow Older, Anne Ring wants us to learn how to age well.

As a qualified health sociologist, Ring has the professional experience to understand the different ways that old age affects us. She also has qualifications in psychology, medical anthropology and health education, and her PhD thesis considered how ageing issues are presented in popular media.

Ring worked on the book’s manuscript for more than 12 years to ensure that she could best create a ‘realistic, practical and largely enjoyable’ guide for people to ‘make the most of life while growing older’.

It’s worth noting that Ring was 80 years old when the book was released in 2022. She has the personal experience not only of ageing herself, but of caring for her own parents through terminal illness and dementia.

After theses, journal and newspaper articles, chapters and op-eds, Engaging with Ageing is a detailed culmination of over 60 years of work in researching the process of ageing, and Ring certainly has the credentials for us to rely on her advice.

Ring opens with a blunt question: ‘We’ve got time: how do we want to spend it?’ Referring to the concept of ‘age pride’, she suggests that ageing people are ‘fortunate enough’ to be able to explore old age. Although she acknowledges the reality of deterioration and eventual death, she emphasises the ‘new opportunities’ that can emerge.

But how do we practically take advantage of these opportunities? This is where Ring clearly identifies the different steps that matter for ageing well, and the book’s structure emerges.

She first suggests paths in which we might ‘carry on well’, looking outwards and finding what brings us joy: she provides anecdotes from jazz greats, stunt pilots, charity workers, nude performers and mosaic artists to reveal the variety of personal choices that can emerge in retirement.

These pathways, though, cannot negate the realities of change: whether in appearance, body or mind, the decline and injury that accompanies ageing are inevitable, and they need to be approached with a solutions-based attitude that does not wallow in self-pity.

Alongside this, Ring provides advice on the obligations brought by realities such as grandparenting and retirement. She reminds readers that ageing does not need to bring an end to lifestyle choices such as travel and sex – even though we find ourselves closer to death, the joy in our lives should by no means end any earlier.

At one point in the book, Ring cites the words of Nora Ephron: ‘I was so tired of seeing these stupid, cheerful books about ageing.’ Is Engaging with Ageing a stupid, cheerful, hokey and toxically positive glorification of old age?

Hardly. Instead, Anne Ring provides a practical, honest guide to ageing that gives us hope for a good future. It’s a must-read for those who want to live happily in their twilight years.

View this resource