Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) believed that "Getting old is like climbing a mountain; the higher you get, the more tired you become, but the view is much better." Aging inevitably brings limitations, losses, and unwelcome surprises. But it can also bring perspective about what truly matters.
Earlier this spring, after my wife, Most Beautiful One, suffered a fall on a Seattle city bus and underwent shoulder surgery, we both received a preview of the challenges aging can bring. While I was happy to help, I discovered that at 76, caregiving required more stamina than I remembered. By the end of her recovery, we felt motivated to move to a place where emotional support and healthcare services are woven into everyday life.
During a recent stay at the Seattle retirement community we hope will eventually become our next home, we had dinner with two resident couples, also in their seventies. They were warm, engaging, and refreshingly uninterested in impressing us.
At one point they shared the community's unofficial motto: FIP — Formerly Important Person, as the residents jokingly call themselves.
Many of the residents, they explained, had enjoyed distinguished careers as physicians, executives, authors, and professors. Yet here, titles fade. Doctors go by their first names. Accomplishments are respected but no longer define a person's place in the social fabric.
We found the idea quite liberating.
Of course, my wife—who has a gift for uncovering people's stories—eventually coaxed out some of their former occupations. But what struck me most was how little those achievements seemed to matter compared to the qualities that remained: kindness, curiosity, humility, and a desire to connect.
The lesson followed me to Jazz Alley the very next evening, where I heard electric bassist Marcus Miller perform. Here was one of the world's most accomplished musicians, yet what impressed me most was not his virtuosity but his humility. His confidence seemed to come from mastery rather than status.
Then I discovered, thanks to Google, that the unassuming person I so enjoyed chatting with between tunes was a former major city school district superintendent. The FIP lesson was being pounded into my sometimes stubborn brain.
Perhaps this is what aging with grace really means: not measuring ourselves by what we once did, but polishing the qualities that endure—compassion, wisdom, gratitude, humor, courage, and love.
The community's FIP motto made me smile. But it also offered a profound lesson. The goal is not to remain important forever. The goal is to become more fully human—to play our part in the ensemble, less concerned with the solo and more appreciative of the music we create together.
From that perspective, the later chapters of life may offer the clearest view from the top of the mountain.
