Dear X,

Your stepson just wrote to say you had had a minor stroke and he thought you might be ready to take a peek at something like the enclosed book, Younger Next Year.

It’s presumptuous of him and presumptuous of me, I guess, to send it, but this little book has changed a ton of lives and saved a few. We have sold a couple of million copies and it’s a bit of a cult book for Baby Boomers and others. The basic message – which may or may not be a horror to you – is that you can radically change the quality of your life – and especially the quality of your aging – by making some behavioral changes. Do some hard stuff (ok, exercise SIX DAYS A WEEK, which has to be nuts, and quit eating crap) and you can put off 70% of aging until close to the end. AND you can flat out eliminate 50% of the major illnesses and accidents the other kids have completely.
Those, of course, are wild claims and hard to believe. But they are absolutely true. NO ONE disagrees.

So what’s this got to do with you and me? Start with me. Through no fault of my own I turn out to be 83 years old (Good Grief!). I am a wretched athlete and hate to do strength training (or used to, anyway). But I do it all, because of the darned book, and here’s the thing: I am about ten times more fit, energetic, happy and effective than almost all the people I know who are anywhere near my age. And bear in mind, this is not even counting the dead ones, who are in even worse shape.

For example, I was hit by a reckless driver, six weeks ago, walking across the street with my wife. Almost anyone my age would have had a) a broken hip, b) a broken pelvis and c) probably a ruptured spleen. Not so hot. I more or less walked away. Merely because I am in decent shape. No busted anything, mostly because I still had muscles in my butt which most folks my age don’t have at all. Just an example but a mighty pleasant one for me. Beyond that, at 83, I am still very similar to a human being (not identical but close) and am working, socializing (a lot) and having a major good time. Unlike most of my peers who are hobbling around like dopes, bores and losers. Okay that’s me.

What about you? All I know is that you have a step son who is nuts about you, that he just had a kid and that both of you have a major interest in keeping you alive and WITH-IT so you can enjoy the new kid and he can enjoy you. Well, that isn’t so easy but it is entirely possible. Read this darned book and give it some major thought. It will work, honest. And make your life a ton more fun.

Try it and send me an email, if you like. I’d be glad to kibitz with you about it. May I – again presumptuously – say that you have had some major good luck in your step-son and his new kid. And some bad luck with the heart. You can rise above the latter and enjoy the former for a long, long time, if you just do what we say in the damned old book. No joke. Let me know. And good luck! Your step-son says you deserve it. Fine. Now earn it!

Best,
Chris