Life Matters

In this episode of Life Matters, Commissioner Johnston discusses why it’s good to get old and how the language and words we use can dramatically impact our attitudes towards our own aging and towards the aging of others. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (9/24/21), examines how in Japan, demographically the oldest nation in the world, they have begun to re-define what the meaning of what ‘old’ is. For example, the city of Nagano is officially changing its legal definition of “elderly”. Beginning next year, in order to keep residents active and engaged in their lives, what is considered ‘old’ now, 65 or over, will only apply linguistically and legally at age 75.   Nagano was the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics.  Now the new definition will reduce the proportion of its population classified as ‘elderly’ to just 16% from 30% of the population under the old definition, transitioning it from one of the oldest to one of the youngest cities in Japan. Ironically, the values, language, and legal definitions