The Age Guide: Perspectives on the Aging Journey

Aging Unfiltered: Pushing Back Against Ageism - with Ashton Applewhite

• Age Guide • Season 4 • Episode 8

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Welcome to another episode of Aging Unfiltered. In this episode, we are honored to welcome Ashton Applewhite to the podcast for a great conversation about pushing back against ageism. Ashton is a passionate advocate, writer, and thought leader whose work focuses on dismantling ageism and promoting a more inclusive, vibrant vision of aging. She is also the author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism. Through her work, she challenges outdated narratives about aging and advocates for a more inclusive, age-positive society. In this powerful discussion we’ll dive into Ashton’s journey, explore the impact of ageism in today’s world, and discuss how we can all contribute to a future where people of all ages are empowered.

 

Resources

This Chair Rocks – Pushing Back Against Ageism

Ashton Applewhite: Let's end ageism | TED Talk

Ashton Applewhite (@thischairrocks) - Instagram

Take Action Today – AgeGuide

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Unknown:

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Gretchen:

Welcome to the Age Guide, Perspectives on the Aging Journey. I'm your host, Gretchen Knowlton, and this is Aging Unfiltered, a series where we get real about ageism, how it shapes our world, and what we can do about it. In today's episode, we're thrilled to have Ashton Applewhite with us. Ashton is a passionate advocate, writer, and thought leader whose work focuses on dismantling ageism and promoting a more inclusive, vibrant vision of aging. She is the author of the acclaimed book, This Chair Rocks, a manifesto against ageism, where she challenges the stereotypes surrounding growing older and calls for a cultural shift that celebrates the value and potential of older adults. Ashton is also the speaker behind a powerful TED Talk called called Let's End Ageism, which has gained attention for its compelling call to action against age discrimination. As a speaker, writer, and activist, she's been featured in the major publications like The New York Times, The Guardian, and HuffPost. In this episode, we'll dive into Ashton's journey, explore the impact of ageism in today's world, and discuss how we can all contribute to a future where people of all ages are empowered. Get ready for an inspiring conversation with one of the leading voices in the movement to end ageism. Welcome, Ashton.

Elizabeth:

Thank you, Gretchen. Wow, I wish I could record that fabulous intro and make everyone use it.

Gretchen:

Oh my goodness, I cannot even begin to tell you how thrilled we are to have you here with us today. You know, when our CEO, Marla, told us she was going to meet you at that event in Illinois a few months back, she said, I'm going to try to get her on the podcast. And we all just looked at each other like, could we? Would she? That would be so incredible. But Ashton, you said yes. Here I am with pleasure. And yes, and now here you are sitting with us. And I just have to say, this feels like a dream come true. We're so grateful that you're here. My

Elizabeth:

pleasure.

Gretchen:

Thank you. So let's dive in. Let's start with a definition. What is ageism?

Elizabeth:

Yes, definitions are always useful, although one of the many reasons I'm optimistic about our progress in this area is that people don't usually now look, you know, totally blank when I mention the word. And by people, I mean like, you know, Uber drivers and random strangers. Good! That's good news. Yeah, it is. The dictionary definition, which is needless to say, not up to the job, is discrimination and stereotyping on the basis of age. I like the way the World Health Organization frames it. Let's see if I can get it verbatim, that it consists of how we think, feel, and act about ourselves and others based on age. And the thinking piece is the stereotype part of it. And the feeling piece is the prejudice part of it. And how we act is the discrimination piece of it, right? So it's complicated, like all interesting things. I mean, I like to say we are being ageist and we are all ageist all the time. No judgment. Everyone is. Everyone is full of bias. Most of it's unconscious. We are being ageist anytime we make an assumption about someone or a group of people on the basis of how old we think they are. And I should add myself, about ourselves as well.

Gretchen:

We internalized and externalized in how we think about aging. And probably the more we recognize that we're all ageist, like you just said, the more we can deal with it.

Elizabeth:

You know, I think it's less of a more proposition as just an acknowledgement. Oh, gee, this stuff has taken up residence in my head. just like everyone else's. And I need to make self-awareness part of that. It's like, and it's no fun because that's really the hard part because it's not great to realize that you have thoughts that you weren't aware of that are shaping your behavior in ways you may not like. The good news is that it really is like letting a genie out of a bottle. You can't get it back in. Once you see it in yourself, or maybe lifting a veil, then that frees you up to see it. around you in the way older people are depicted in the way we're missing entirely in sometimes the way younger people are depicted right any judgment basis of age and once and that is really liberating because then you're like oh it's not about how flawed i am it's about the culture in which we live and that means we can come together and do something about it

Gretchen:

that's such a positive perspective on it So what are some of the most common manifestations of ageism? Where do you see it?

Elizabeth:

Well, I won't say where don't you see it. Although, you know, that's a big question. And of course it depends on, you know, what you do, what matters to you, what shows you look at, what things you listen to, et cetera, which brings to mind the fact that we live in a very age segregated society. And the more homogenous your friend group is or your workspace is, the easier it is for stereotypes to go unchallenged, whether they're about queer people, black people, fat people, thin people, you name it. If you are confronted with people who don't look like you, it's much harder to hold on to any notion that they are all Insert the adjective, right? Well, and that I will say brings to mind my least favorite stereotype about older people, which is that at some point we become old and cross some imaginary velvet rope and then become lumped into this sad gray group of the elderly. When in fact, the longer we live, the more different. From one another, we become. All stereotypes are dumb and wrong and problematic, but they are especially inaccurate when it comes to age because every newborn is unique, but every 20-year-old, all 20-year-olds are much more alike developmentally, cognitively, socially than 40-year-olds who are way more alike than 70-year-olds and so on out. So I would say if I had to pick one, that would be it. As to where it appears, I don't know, give me a context. I mean, or I'll challenge your listeners to think about where we don't appear. Is, you know, what about at a party? When you go to a party, are people all ages or is everyone the same age? You know, what about TV shows? What about advertisements? What about- What about in the greeting card aisle? Yeah, the greeting card aisle is really a toxic little stroll, right? And the question there is, you know, why would you ever send a card to someone, even if it's funny? And some of them are funny as hell. I, you know, I freely acknowledge that. But humor is a classic defense mechanism. Where's your sense of humor, right? And I will just say, discrimination is not funny. Self-loathing is not funny. You know, we know this from the body acceptance movement. We can learn a lot from that, right? Or the disability justice movement. And would you ever, ever, ever send a card to someone making fun of some other aspect of what they look like or who they sleep with or their ethnic background? Well, why should age get a pass? Yeah, why does it get a pass? Because we haven't done quite enough work yet.

Gretchen:

Okay, something that we need to be working on for sure. And

Elizabeth:

lots of people are. If you don't mind, I will make a quick plug for something that I make no money off, but called the Old School Hub. And the website is oldschool.info. It's searchable by topics, and one of the things you can find on there is a whole line of age-positive greeting cards, for example. So there are alternatives, and Old School is sort of a one-stop shop, except everything is free except the books for anything ageism-related, for podcasts, handouts, videos, all sorts of stuff.

Gretchen:

We have lots of resources and tools that you can use. Yes. I've ordered some of those greeting cards before. They're excellent. I love it. Yes. So what inspired you to decide that this was going to be your thing, Ashton? You were like, okay, I see that there's ageism in the world and I'm going to tackle that and I'm going to become an anti-ageism activist.

Elizabeth:

I was in it for the alliteration, you know? Yeah. I just wanted to give people a tongue twister. Right. I wanted to have more A's. Yeah. Well, I will say, first of all, for any late bloomers who are listening, I'm sure we late bloomers all think we're the latest bloomers of all. I imagine. I mean, I have never, ever had a career plan. I always know I'm in trouble when someone wants my CV or my resume. And I'm like, well, this will make no sense. Yeah. I mean, I didn't start writing until I was in my 40s. Really? Yeah, no. And I never, ever in a million years thought I would become a public speaker or a public figure. I'm an introvert. I like to be alone. But ha ha. Yeah. something happened and I'm very happy and proud that it did. I can't, I won't pretend otherwise, but I don't think anything about my path is very instructional for anyone but me. I will also say I am a generalist. I think if I had a real job, I might've been a journalist because I think journalists are interested in the full story of things. And if you had told me You know, 15 years ago, you'd be all up in aging. I would have said, ew, why do I want to think about something sad and depressing that old people do? And aging is not something that old people do. It's something old people do do it, but so do young people. So we all are doing it every time we wake up, right? And it touches on every field of study. And it touches on every aspect of being human. But I didn't know that when I'm 72 now. And I was in my mid-50s when I looked in the mirror and went, oh, this getting old thing, it's happening to me. And I think it's hard for all of us to imagine that. And I think that's human. I think it's a little bit because we think it's icky and we're afraid, many of us, but also we age slowly. It's genuinely hard to imagine being older. And as species, we're not good at it. We're not good at saving. We're not good at anticipating the future. i went oh yeah it's happening imagine i'm not the only human being to get get a you know get out of jail free card and so being nerdy i started interviewing people over 80 and researching longevity and learned within a matter of months the facts that i started my ted talk out with a decade later uh that that um most of what i thought i knew about later life was flat out wrong or way off base way too negative or just not nuanced enough and it i had i started a blog um that was back when blogging was big and it had a word cloud i don't know if your folks will remember what that is but it maps the size of the word with the frequency of appearance and it was obvious to me early on that ageism was a big word and was a reason, if not the reason, why we only ever hear one side of the story. And I want to say in giant, also capital letters, that we need both sides of the story. You know, a lot of people start to get old and they're like, oh, this isn't so bad. You know, it's not like what I imagine. And if I just eat enough kale and do enough sit-ups, it's all going to be great. Well, maybe, but maybe not, right? And it's really important not to sugarcoat it. and to discuss the scary things too, especially the loss of physical function, your body works less well, but also let's contextualize them. No one gets all the bad things, right? And even more importantly, the reason I became obsessed with the subject is because I am, I don't know, I don't wanna say politically oriented, but I have been interested in social justice in various guises my whole life. And I started, to think about what the forces were that were drowning out the positive stuff, right? What are the forces and interests and corporations that want us to stay afraid, that want us to buy things we don't need, and that want us to want to divide old and young and et cetera, et cetera. I could go on for another half an hour, but I'll wait for the next question. So I was off and running.

Gretchen:

So your perspective on aging is, has evolved over time it sounds like it does it continue to evolve all the time I mean you're doing this work you're continuing to talk to people and to do research and to write about it is it continuing to evolve oh my

Elizabeth:

gosh yes um I I hope I hope you believe me I'm not very good at faking things um when I say it gets more interesting all the time because I know more and I can ask better questions or go more deep, you know, go maybe, you know, into, into better wormholes. Um, and, um, geez, I never wanted to write a first book. I, it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I really thought I could do this ageism thing without having to write another book. And then that didn't turn out to be the case. And if God helped me, I ever write another book. I do not know how people pop them out every two years. Um, all I have is the title and a couple of index cards, but the title will be things I used to say. Oh, excellent. Because I keep revising, right? I keep thinking, oh, that's, you know, that's out of date. I can think of a better way to say it. I now understand why that's not an okay way to say it. And for me, That's super interesting and super gratifying. So did that answer your question or did

Gretchen:

I go down another road? Yes, thank you. And one of the things that I thought was really interesting in your book too is the way you talked about the language that we use to talk about aging. Will you share a little bit about the terms? That's a

Elizabeth:

perfect follow-up. Seniors, elderly. Yeah, perfect follow-up, Gretchen, because language is a moving target. There are no, I really took me a long time to find my way. I will tell you that between starting this blog and figuring out what my path was with many, many years of just plugging away, not sure where I was going, but knowing I was onto something. And one of the, I woke up in the morning with, oh, I've got the title, binaries are bad. Now, that was not the title. It was one of those genius ideas that when you wake up in the morning is not genius. But binaries are not our friends and right, wrong, good, bad. You know, the language you use may not be right for me. Take the word elder. It's a beautiful word. Indigenous cultures use it. Some African-American, you know, communities use it. Those are not my cultures and I don't use it, but there's nothing wrong with it. To take a less charitable example, you know, I am a geezer. I'm a geezer. I like being a geezer and I'm going to call myself a geezer. If you want to call yourself a geezer, more power to you. And I'm not being snarky, right? Yeah, right. Aging is complicated. We need to do it in our own way, at our own time, in our own speed. So with some obvious historical examples, there are no rules. I will say that on old school, oldschool.info, search for language. There are some really, really excellent guides to non-ageist language. I don't love elderly. It's elderly is a perfectly okay word, but in an ageist culture, it connotes frailty and weakness. The thing I really don't like about elderly is the the that comes in front of us. The elderly do this and elderly think that. Right. Right. It's a grouping everybody into a bucket. Flip off the road into some gray gully of sameness and nothing Nothing could be further from the truth. So, you know, so there are, you know, I would, I guess the over an overarching suggestion I would make about language is deceptively simple. To suggest that your listeners think about how they use the words old and young, because if you want to super simplify it, Ageism is any bias on the basis of age, including you're too young for that. But in a youth-obsessed culture, older people do bear the brunt of it. Most of the standard stereotypes are against older people, as a consequence of which we tend to use old as a substitute for insert negative thing. And, you know, I feel so old. Why do people, what are people, what are they really saying when they say that? They're saying, I feel invisible. I feel unattractive. negative

Gretchen:

for sure well guess

Elizabeth:

what i don't know about you but when i was 13 i felt all of those things worse thank god than i ever have since they are not about how old we happen to be right you can feel with it you can feel sexy you can feel all sorts of zippy nifty things in later life and you can feel all those awful things um earlier on so think about how you use you know what does old feel like well it feels like you know, how you are today, which is maybe a better day than tomorrow. And maybe today everything sucks, right? But tomorrow you probably will feel better or worse or whatever. But the point is, it's really never about age. Because someone else the same age does or doesn't feel like doing that thing is or isn't capable of doing those things. So dig down to the actual feeling or the actual, you know, capacity that you're trying to describe.

Gretchen:

Oh, really? You got to, you got to stop and think about it. It's not just going to come naturally if it's become a habit. Yeah. And no,

Elizabeth:

no judgment. The first and most important step is to stop and think, huh, why did I say it that way? What did I mean by that? And that's also a really good, gentle response to when you hear or C, something ageist or perhaps get one of those awful cards, you know, or the sales lady says, I assume you want to shop in the shapeless frump department, you know, is to say without the snark, if possible, sometimes I manage it and sometimes I don't. What do you mean by that? Or my daughter is a facilitator and she says, tell me more. And that then makes the person stop and reflect. Well, what did they mean by it? And it does take courage, right? It is a little uncomfortable, but changing the culture is uncomfortable and we're not going to get anywhere if we stay completely within the dotted lines. That's true.

Gretchen:

So you got a question, ask some questions. And I like that real gentle, even asking yourself instead of beating yourself up. Oh my gosh, I'm so ageist. How did I let myself get to this point where I have all these judgments? And instead you just, why was I thinking that? Why did I say that? I like that.

Elizabeth:

And remember that just by thinking it yourself, By reflecting, you are changing the culture. I think there's an idea that we have to do it full time or become a social justice warrior on the ramparts. No, you don't. Anything you do, no matter how small, and honestly, correcting ourselves without judgment is really hard, especially for women. If you do that once, you are changing yourself and that is changing the culture.

Gretchen:

Wow, that's so empowering. Thank you for sharing that. You're welcome. I mean it. Wow. So what word do you use for older adults? We use older adults here at Age Guide.

Elizabeth:

Oh, I have a better idea.

Gretchen:

Okay, okay.

Elizabeth:

But see if you like it. When I was writing my book, I literally got tired of typing older people or older adults or older Americans. And I shortened it to olders. Olders. Olders and youngers. And I'm a writer and that makes me very, very leery of inventing words. But I will tell you, I see your face lighting up, you know, if you use olders and youngers, it is an eulogism, an invented word, but nobody doesn't know what it means. Right, they'll understand if you're saying olders. And it is being adopted. I was just at an event sponsored by a wonderful organization called Cogenerate with older and younger leaders. And they use olders and youngers in the title and throughout. Nobody didn't know what it means. And another really nice thing about olders and youngers is that it emphasizes the super important point that we age in relation to others, right? A five-year-old will assure you that she is older Ben, her three-year-old sister, right? At 72, I'm getting towards, you know, typically being the oldest person in the room, but if I visit a senior center, I'm not, right? So we are olders and youngers at the same time. Yes, it puts us into community. Right. And it busts up that binary, that old young binary, right? And it emphasizes that we're all, you know, on this journey together. So I like that too.

Gretchen:

I like that

Elizabeth:

as well. Go forth with older.

Gretchen:

See

Elizabeth:

what

Gretchen:

happens. Okay. We're going to steal that. We're going to start using that. I have read your book. I love this book. I'm going to show it again so that everybody can see it. This chair rocks a manifesto against ageism. And I am not a nonfiction reader. I can't make it through a book. But in trying to skim this book, I couldn't skim it because I was so drawn in and I have it all marked up and tabbed up. And I used a pen and I don't like to use a pen in my books either. But this book required that because I was so drawn in. many good things. And I said, I have to underline this and go back to it. So I highly recommend this book to our listeners. It's a book that everyone needs to read if they're aging. And we've already discussed that everyone is aging. Anyway, in your book, you say that all aging is successful, not just the sporty version. Otherwise, you're dead. What does that mean? Can you unpackage that for us?

Elizabeth:

I love that quote. Thank you. Yes, I used to. I mean, one of the things I I probably used to say, and lots of people still do, is aging, aging is rough, but it beats the alternative, right? And I thought, oh, that's cute. Oh, wait, that's really saying that the only thing worse than being old is being dead. So I don't say that anymore. But what got me on the successful aging anti-bandwagon was encountering that phrase, successful aging. And just one more suggestion for your listeners that if you want to go deeper into anything I'm saying now, my book is great, but it's not free. But I have been thinking out loud since I started that blog in 2005 at thischairrocks.com. slash blog. So if you, and it's searchable by topic. So search on successful and you can see the long pinky post I wrote about this. Excellent. We'll put a link in the show notes too. So people can find all these things that you're referencing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You encounter positive aging, active aging, successful aging, and successful is sort of the worst of them in parlance. And I just want to say being active is fantastic. We're all in the same boat, right? Doing so is positive aging. We need to counter the narrative that aging is gloomy and awful and terrible. So all these folks and I are in the same boat, on the same team, and I am really glad they're doing what they're doing. But the thing I'm taking issue with, first of all, is the idea, and this was, I learned from a scholar named Tony Calasanti, like, why is aging something to succeed or fail at, for starters? We don't fail in childhood. You don't fail in adolescence. So what's up with that? How can you fail at it? But the in Western thought under capitalism, under patriarchy, under beauty culture, with all the misogyny and all the stuff that we swim in, the ideal aging that is held up in that context is to work really hard and hopefully spend lots of money to look and move like your younger version, right? Women age successfully in air quotes, by appearing to not age. Men age successfully by moving like younger people. Once again, the most important thing about women is how we look and so on. And the underlying message there is really aging is bad. The better job you do of it is the degree to which it looks like you're not aging at all. And that is impossible. It's expensive. It pits us against each other. It's highly gendered. You cannot fail at aging if you wake up in the morning. And another thing I want to point out about that is that, and this didn't dawn on me until after I'd been at this for a decade and actually sparked by the COVID pandemic and thinking about chronic illness and disability. The model of active aging, it's everywhere and independent everywhere. aging, right? In disability communities, disabled people know they need each other and they need us too. We need to be better at, you know, at being, acting in solidarity with disabled people. And it's really important to stay as active as you can. But that model that you need to be, you know, hiking and skiing and doing all these things makes physical activity, gives it a very important value. And it's important to realize that lots of people can't do those things, don't want to do those things, can't afford to keep those things, and that all of us are going to encounter some degree of of incapacity, possibly temporarily. There's a saying in disability communities, they call people who are not disabled tabs for temporarily able-bodied, you know? Oh, wow. Right. Did you ever break a bone? Did you ever sprain your foot? Did you try and get in a door holding a baby and a bag of groceries? You know, those, none of us We all need help. We all need help all the time. The best cultures, you know, way of living are interdependent where we celebrate the ties that connect us and that we, you know, asking help, giving help. And so to hold up active aging as the ideal to which everyone needs to aspire and means that those of us who are less active or who aren't able to be active in those ways are somehow screwing up or not as well-filed and not as successful. Right. That we're failures. And that is just a punishing ideal.

Gretchen:

And that's going to perpetuate ageism and the fear of what if I can't be this amazing, super ager, super successful, Instagram worthy, 80 year old, then... it's scary to get old because i'm not going to do

Elizabeth:

that exactly you know and none of us can none none of us is perfect in all the ways and even if you're doing it now for some reason not all cliche about is it a duck that looks calm on the surface but is paddling like hell underneath you know right all those things take effort and um you know cognitive decline is not inevitable About 20% of the population escapes it entirely. And we all know some of those really sharp 90 year olds. Most of us lose some processing speed in the ability to remember the name of the movie we saw with what's her name. But guess what? Young people forget things all the time too. Yes. But that's all we lose. But physically slowing down is inevitable. And if we hitch our self-worth to being able to, you know, ski a black diamond slope. I think that's the thing. I'm not a skier or, you know, or run a certain distance if that's, or, or looking a certain way, you know, we know that it's, we know it's corrosive. We know it's not bad for us. So try to be more generous to ourselves and each other about, about, you know, these physical and cognitive and, you know, appearance things too.

Gretchen:

Yes, and that's just going to help. Like you said, it's going to reframe for us in our minds when we stop and we think about it and we question why we're assuming that. So it brings us full circle to what you were talking about. So next I want to talk about action. Can you share some suggestions, tips, advice? on how to conquer. First, let's talk about our own internalized ageist attitudes.

Elizabeth:

We have so much more work to do around age, but the bright side, it's like cleaning a really dirty window. You can see where you've been. I mean, one of the reasons my work is making an impact is not because I'm such a genius, but because I kind of got here first. And I can't wait, P.S., for more competition. You can see where you've been. These are new ideas to people. And if you can introduce them in a gentle way, start a bigger lift, invite some people over to talk about age. We don't talk- Maybe have a book club. Start a book club. On Old School, we've created guides to starting a consciousness raising group, which is a big lift. There's one called Who Me, Ageist. Ageist, Sexist, Who Me, about how age and gender intersect. Ageist, Racist, Who Me. They're free. They're downloadable. Download them. If it's too heavy a lift, just have some people over, you know, that you don't have to commit to having the same people, you know, meeting for six months. Although if you do, it will change your life. Consciousness raising is the tool that catalyzed the mainstream, you know, second wave women's movement because people came together and realized that what they had been assuming were personal flaws or personal problems We're widely shared because of the systems in which we live and that we can come together and do something about them. And we're in the process of creating just conversation guides, which are a lighter lift. And also, if you wanna talk to people about this or listen to it, again, on Old School, and again, I co-created it, but I don't make any money off it, but one of the things we'd like to do is to bring people together who are thinking about this stuff. and or just want to hear about it. And we have an open to everyone Zoom on Wednesdays at 1.30 PM ET. And you can talk about what you're up to. You can just lurk. You can come late. You can leave early. But we want to increase the number of people who are talking and thinking about this because more of us need to. And it's so interesting.

Gretchen:

That's great. We will definitely want to share that on some of our social media. And again, we'll put all this stuff in the show notes. I didn't know all that was going on. There's great ways for people to get involved. Excellent. Okay. So now that we know what to do with our own attitude. Okay. Podcast over. Yeah, we're done. We can drop the mic on that, huh? But what you started talking a little bit about how we're all living within the same systems and getting together helps us to recognize that this is sort of a universal thing. So then we're looking at some of the entrenched systemic ageism that we find in institutions and in our societal structures. What can we do about that? Is it this getting together, recognizing that and talking it through? Are there other specific challenges that you can give to listeners on that aspect of ageism?

Elizabeth:

I'm going to toss that back to your listeners and say what systems do you inhabit? I mean, we all live under capitalism. We're all prisoners of gender, most of us. Actually, much less so, so that's a good thing. But Think about, I mean, a place where age discrimination hits a lot of people is, of course, the workplace. Because if you can't, you know, make a living and pay the rent, then other things become sort of secondary. And ageism in the workplace is often the first form of discrimination that white men encounter.

Unknown:

Yeah.

Elizabeth:

So there's an opportunity there for white men and for people who know and love white men to not hit them when they're down. But if that's their first experience of, oh, it's not a level playing field out there. It feels awful to be denied access to opportunity because of something you cannot change about yourself. So how could that be a way to expand their understanding or a collective understanding of the barriers so many other people face to getting stuff done. Healthcare, you know, there's, I mean, if your doctor says, what do you expect at your age? Find a new doctor. If you are accompanying an older person to the doctor and the doctor insists on talking to you and not the older person, don't let them get away with it, right? If you don't like the advice you're getting from a doctor, say, you know, is this the advice in your older? Is this the advice you'd give a younger person? Right. You know, call it out, whatever the context is in. I don't know. Give me, you know, give me a context. I mean, we can only each of us has our own circle and we're going to be the most effective in domains that we know about and care about. So think about how age offers an opportunity in that context or denies an opportunity. Think about that. Reflect on that. If you have a question, come to this. Come to our Wednesday session. It's called Office Hours, 1.30. And you don't need the right answer. There isn't a right answer. You may or may not be in a position to call something out, but just thinking about it and thinking of a little something, you can say, what's up with that? Why is it like this is a way to help move the needle. And we close every Office Hours by saying, you can't start too late and you can't start too small. Anything you do helps move the needle.

Gretchen:

So that's encouraging. It looks like the future is bright. It looks like we're making some headway and moving the needle on this ageism thing. And I just appreciate your hard work on this and all that you're doing. And it's so encouraging to hear you talk about the things that we can do as individuals. So I hope you keep up this great work and that we can stay connected with you, Ashton. I would love that. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for being here.

Delaney:

This is your call to action. Every single day, 11,000 Americans turn 65. Our parents, our grandparents, our neighbors, ourselves. And right now, the programs that keep us healthy, independent, and thriving are under serious threat. The Administration for Community Living and Older Americans Act that provides services like meals, caregiver support, falls prevention, are on the chopping block. $1.5 trillion in spending cuts? That means real people could lose lifelines. But here's the truth. When we speak, they have to listen. And we cannot stay silent. Congress is moving fast. They could vote by Memorial Day. So we need you to stand up and take action today. Write your legislators. Use AgeGuide's advocacy toolkit on our website. Call your legislators. Flood Washington with our collective power. Share stories. Real voices change minds. This isn't just about budgets. It's about dignity. It's about making sure our loved ones don't go hungry, don't lose support, don't suffer because of cuts. We are the voices they can't ignore. So let me ask you. What kind of future do you want as you age? If you believe in compassion and justice in community, then act now. Follow the link in the show notes to find Age Guide's action alerts. Together, we are unstoppable. Now, let's go make a difference.

Val:

Hello and welcome to your Medicare Minutes. My name is Val Guzman and I'm the Benefit Access Specialist here at Age Guide. Today we are checking in on a Medicare cost-saving benefit called Extra Help. This is a program that helps reduce the cost of Medicare prescription drug plans and the cost of your medications. I've gotten more calls recently about people receiving a letter about this Extra Help program and the letter can be a bit confusing. Something that happens when you're new to Extra Help is that you're automatically enrolled in a Medicare drug plan. But something that's new is that the Extra Help program gives you the option to change your drug plan once a month at any time in the year. One good reason you may want to do this is if you have to take a new medication and it's not covered by your current plan. Extra Help gives you some additional flexibility to set up your coverage in the way that works best for you. If you received one of these letters or you have questions about Extra Help, feel free to call Age Guide at 1-800-528-2000.

Gretchen:

Thank you for listening to the Age Guide, Perspectives on the Aging Journey. Age Guide coordinates and administers many services for older adults in Northeastern Illinois. Our specially trained professionals are available to answer questions and connect you with local service providers and resources. If you are interested in these services or want to learn more, go to our website at ageguide.org or call our offices at 630-293-5990. Please follow our podcast so you can be notified in your streaming account. Thank you, and we will see you next time on The Age Guide. Guide podcast.