Quality of Life #2 – The Seven Pillars !

  By Richard from Canada | October 27, 2012 - 06:17 | ,

We all look for experiences that make us feel most alive—most engaged, most appreciated, most loved.

To feel most alive, you need to actively participate in the seven key areas of life: social, environmental, spiritual, sexual, emotional, physical and intellectual. The more engaged you are, the richer and more fulfilling your life will be.

I discovered these seven pillars while reading a retirement condo magazine during a hospital visit!

http://www.comfortlife.ca/seven-pillars-retirement.php

I would argue that whether you are retired or not your quality of life can also be measured by the following seven pillars.

1. SOCIAL: Living in a community of your peers is important for your physical, mental and psychological health. It gives you emotional support and interesting things to think about, and it inspires you to participate in a variety of activities.

2. ENVIRONMENTAL: In order to thrive, you need to live in an environment that makes you feel comfortable and at home. It should include common rooms, areas where you can visit with friends and family and quiet spaces where you can reflect and relax.

3. SPIRITUAL: Volunteering gives you a sense of purpose, adds meaning to your life and makes you feel valued. You can lead a group within a retirement residence, and you can also give back to the wider community.

4. SEXUAL: Experiencing love and sexuality in later years fulfills a need for emotional comfort and intimacy. This vital part of life also has a positive impact on self-esteem and physical and emotional health.

5. EMOTIONAL: Moving from your home to a retirement community is often challenging. Compassionate staff understand this change and will help you work through it and embrace the opportunities that it brings.

6. PHYSICAL: The exercise programs and personal and group instruction available in retirement communities are geared to your individual fitness level and help you maintain an active and healthy lifestyle.

7. INTELLECTUAL: Retirement residences understand the importance of lifelong learning and offer many academic and non-academic opportunities to expand your knowledge both at the residence and in the wider community.

Have we missed something about life ?    Is our participation on “over the peak” social, spiritual or intellectual ?

Maybe peak happiness is supposed to happen in a retirement home ?

 

 

Written by: Richard from Canada on October 27, 2012.
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  • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

    There are some very good points written by that `comfort life` magazine.  Strange, because I would say normally it would be banal `space filling`. 

    OTP to me is a lot of those things, no doubt.
    Maybe because it is so much to me, I would like it to be more for other people too.

    I would note one thing.  It is very hard to be `friendly` on the interwebs.  We generally are a good deal more aggressive than we would be face-to-face (and that leads to problems).
    This is one reason I use video a lot.  People can see my facial expressions and can relate to me as a person. 
    This is very hard to do in print alone.

    I would take this whole idea on as `a big thing point`, but I am deep in the `Ideas` at the moment.

    This is after all, surely, a much more important subject.

    Thanks and I hope some others take up the conversation.  You and the subject deserve it~!

  • Bourgogne

    Dear Mystic…here is my attempt to be interweb friendly…

    I would argue that it is very important for those in their senior years to be frequently interacting with those who are much younger than themselves.  To be out of touch with youth, and only involved with the day to day of your peers, although beneficial, does not expose one to the power of youth.  This must be done physically and not through the medium of the interwebs.

    Failure to understand and practice youth as a state of mind in the senior years, can accelerate the minds deterioration towards dementia. 

    Perhaps my suggestion would fall under the Social category, but I would add to the comfort life list the category of egalitarian pursuits.

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

      The post was put up by Richard, but your comment was addressed to me, so here I am ….. in the keyboard.

      I know what you mean and am tempted to agree with you, but I think the interwebs can be a good thing for the `olding`.

      Most (a lot anyway) of the `olders` that I know, spend most of their time watching `soaps` or `sports` on the television.

      Can we at least agree, that the interwebs are one step better than that~?

      • Bourgogne

        Agreed…the interwebs are indeed wonderful.   We are just at the beginning of this new era of human interaction.  Very exciting!

    • CSArichardo

      Good point !  I think there are many older people who would saying hanging around younger people keeps them young at heart, mind, etc