Savoring the Simple: Self-Esteem, Aging Gracefully, and Cyber Security

As the dough rises and the scent of pumpkin spice fills the air, I, Marcy, invite you to join me in a conversation as comforting as the bread I'm perfecting. This week, we're getting personal. From the vibrant glow of city lights that grace my home on the 36th floor to the soft paws of my cat Pickles making her presence known during our chat, we're sharing it all. I'll reflect on the beauty of routine, the role of faith and community in my life, and the spark that keeps my husband Craig's passion for his cathedral organ project alive. It's about finding joy in the little things and embracing the calm of an uneventful week.

Let's then shift from pumpkin bread to heartier fare. Together, we'll explore the seasoned journey of aging, not as a time of decline but as an era of wisdom and continued self-worth. I'll tell stories of vibrant souls who've inspired me, people who've woven curiosity and activity into their golden years, outpacing any outdated stereotype. We won't shy away from the digital realm as I arm you with strategies to fortify your online presence against cyber threats. We'll talk about why embracing technology like two-factor authentication can be as secure as locking your front door—because your peace of mind is priceless at any stage of life.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hello and welcome to the A&A for Sissy's Podcast. My name is Marcy Backes and I'm your host. Well, hello everyone. Hope your week has been good. Mine has been very uneventful, which is the kind of weeks that I like these days. Sometimes it's just nice to go through a week and have a good week.

Speaker 1: 0:25

So, on today's episode, what are we going to talk about? We're going to talk about self-esteem. I think self-esteem as you're aging is just as important as when you're young. So we're going to do a little chit chat about self-esteem and where I'm at, where you're at, some thoughts about that, why it's important and things like that. So we'll talk about that. But first we're going to talk about my week. Grab yourself a cup of coffee, Get cozy wherever you are, Grab a Diet Coke, iced tea If you're in the car, focus and listen. And we are going to get started now.

Speaker 1: 1:06

I'm recording this on Sunday night. I'm trying to do Sunday nights. That kind of gives my whole week a chance for me to talk about. But I just made some pumpkin bread and it smells so good my stomach is now growling. So if you hear a growling noise, it's my stomach, but it's the package mixed from Trader Joe's couple eggs, oil, water, Zip Zab, Zoom, stick it in the oven and it's a giant loaf of pumpkin bread that smells so good. And now I'm deciding do I ice it or do I not ice it? That's the question for me. I think I'm going to ice it. I don't know. Do you ice your pumpkin bread? I get a really good piece of pumpkin bread every once in a while from Bloomingdale's on my way home after the gym and they have icing on it. So I think I might ice it. I don't know. I'll let you know next week what I did.

Speaker 1: 2:01

What a week, let's see this week. Good week, Thank you, if you listened to last week's episode about my journey into retirement and all the things that I'm doing and it's going well. And funny when I said in the beginning that uneventful weeks are good too, I prefer the uneventful week, Kind of just writing it down. The middle is kind of nice. Not too high, not too low. Got all my work outs in this week, which was great. No doctor's appointments, Awesome and what else Not a whole lot.

Speaker 1: 2:40

It was very foggy here the last couple of days, Today not, but one of the things I love about living on the 36th floor is the view and all the buildings and seeing the little parts of the Lake Michigan that I see. I don't see big parts, little parts, but I can look down and I can see what's going on in the ground. And at night, like right now while I'm recording this, you see all the lights on in the buildings and I don't know there's. It's funny, it's a very cozy feeling to me to look at my neighbors in their homes doing whatever they're doing. I can't see them directly, but you know what I mean. There are lights and at Christmas the Christmas trees in the other rooms and for the last two days you'd look out our windows and it was white. I felt like I was trapped in a box, like right in a darn box, and honestly, yesterday it kind of got to me. Yesterday was a little bit of just a down day and today we got a little bit of sunshine, no clouds, and tonight I can see all the lights in the city and I'm happy again. Light is really important and I've been debating on whether to get myself a light that you can sit in front of and it kind of feeds you when things get gloomy here. It seems like just as I start to get to that point. Today the clouds broke.

Speaker 1: 4:04

We went to church, we went to the annual meeting for our church and some great things are happening for the cathedral and really getting to be a part of our church community, which is exciting. On the 10th we're having a meeting with all the leaders of the church and people that want to be leaders, and Craig and I will be going to that. Craig is leading the reconstruction of we've got a new organ that's coming from England and we're going to be reconfiguring some things in the church and Craig is a part of that and I am going to step up and start leading some social gatherings. It's what we're missing right now. If you hear a little meow, that's Pickles trying to get out of the room. I gave her every option to get out of the room before I started this and she did not take it, and now she's giving me a hard time. But that's just a little mew from Pickles. She said hello and so I'm excited about becoming a leader at the church and getting some things started.

Speaker 1: 5:02

Covid took a real hit here in the city. The church went through a whole lot. Coming back from COVID, we had a change in leadership. We've had a lot of things going on and it looks like we're going to start being able to get some things going. So everybody from my church in Gloria Day in California knows I love a good event, knows I love to throw an event, put an event on. So I'm looking forward to this.

Speaker 1: 5:30

It's interesting because our church is a very eclectic church, being a cathedral number one and being in the heart of the city of Chicago, and when I first came I was asking if they had women's programming and so on and so forth, and they didn't. Like I said, programming had taken a quick halt. But after spending time with the congregation and the people in our congregation, we don't need a women's group, we need a everyone group, just a group, just a social group. And so that's what my goal is is to start a social group, not just men, not just women, not just a gay group, not just a you know, not pinpointing a certain group of people but just an everybody group, a social group. So I'll let you know how that goes. Let's see what else happened this week. Talked to my son a lot this week. He's going through a lot, so just being supportive there and I don't know.

Speaker 1: 6:29

Oh, I know I planned my trip to Arizona to go see family and I'm excited about that. I'm going to get out of here for a while. It's so funny because people have told me oh, the weather not people from here, but people from Arizona. David and people from California have said, well, it's not going to be that warm. And I'm like do you understand that? 60 to 65 degrees is something that we haven't seen here in Chicago since October. So we're talking November, December, January it's been three months since we've seen any temperatures anywhere near that and it's probably going to be February, March probably three months, before I see any temperatures near that. So I will take the 60 degrees while I'm in Arizona. If I get any higher, I feel blessed. I want to thank my niece, Angie, for finding me some water aerobics while I'm there what a gift that was and it's so great that she thought of me and knows that that's something that's so important to me now and found me a place right near the house to go. So that makes me happy. But I'm looking forward to that trip. I will be maybe, maybe it's time to have Brooke back on. We'll see what we can come up with Brooke and I to talk about and do a Brooke and Marcy anti-M episode while I'm there. So that's what's been going on with me.

Speaker 1: 7:45

I hope things are well with you. I hope that you're finding some joy in your retirement, or joy in getting ready for retirement. Oh, that is something that I finally, Craig and I, sat down and looked at. I'm taking spousal social security. So if you don't know about that, that's something we've got to talk about.

Speaker 1: 8:06

I know I just haven't had a social security person that I've wanted to talk to, but even if your spouse is alive or if you are divorced, if your spouse, half of your spouse's social security, is more than yours, you can take it. It's called spousal social security. They don't have to be dead for you to do this. So Craig and I looked at everything half of his is better than mine and we figured out, if I take it now, how long it would take to make that up. You might as well just take your social security as soon as you can. Look at the years of taking it before 67, because 67, for people, my age, 67 is your. That's when you get 100%. So, anyways, go on the Social Security website. They've got a lot of great information. Talk to somebody that understands social security. If you don't, there are several people on TikTok that you can follow. I would love to get this lady I follow on TikTok to come on here and talk to you about social security, but I'm gonna finish filling out that paperwork.

Speaker 1: 9:09

This week I turned 63. Last week and or the week, but I don't know the 18th I turned 63, and it's time. It's time we can invest that money ourselves and I think that's a smart thing for us to do. All right, well, get ready for talking about social speed. Tell me how many students are thinking what kind is fall or embarrassment about what they need to film for puke? Create a Myself, let's see. 64 are off to 16,� smashing so hard.

Speaker 1: 9:45

I'm gonna say one point about your recent withdrawal Alt insertingmeye paper with powder. What are the saker lem suspected caught on your müssen COP great name, just because I was tall and any. You know, kids are the worst. But my self-esteem has never been very good and it's funny this last year getting my act together in retirement, I think I've had the highest self-esteem that I've had in my life and it's interesting because many of us will reach the heights of our own personal mastery, power, status, influence and achievement by our mid to late 60s.

Speaker 1: 10:29

After that, there tends to be more losses than gains in those areas, and I don't think it needs to be that way. But how is your self-esteem? Have you thought about it lately? Is it something that bothers you? I think it's important to have good self-esteem all the way through life, but aging brings difficult milestones. Hold on, we're going to let pickles out All right, she's out. But talking about our self-esteem, I think it's important to have it.

Speaker 1: 11:03

But researchers point to these losses as a possible explanation for the observed decline in self-esteem in old age. But not all studies agree with the decline even happens. I think for some it may and for some it doesn't. At least there's another possibility that could explain a latent life decline in self-esteem. If older people score low on self-esteem assessments, it's mainly simply because their greater psychological insight. They may have made peace with their faults and have less of a need for self. I can't even read this word in this article that I'm quoting. Oh my gosh. Oh no, that's a different word. Anyways, I think that's probably true. We do become more comfortable with our faults, but self-esteem is more than just our faults.

Speaker 1: 12:04

In any case, one thing you can do to hang on to your self-esteem may be to reject stereotypical expectations of old age. Now I joke around with my girlfriend all the time oh, we're so old, we're so old. And you all know that I have become friends with a wonderful group of women who are much older than I am in many cases, 30 years older than me in some cases and they are the most amazing group of women. And last week we had many conversations. After class we sit and have coffee and these are really rich conversations that we have. Sometimes they're just surface conversations, but we have a lot of really rich conversations and after one of those conversations, Christy the next day came and said you know what? I think it's wonderful that all of us are trying to improve, and she's right. We are all trying to prove in different ways.

Speaker 1: 12:58

We were talking about views on things and in changing our views on things it's important to constantly grow. So we're going to talk about, like, what we were talking about is that stereotypical expectation of old age. Don't have it. And I already look at myself now and I think of my mom at my age. My mom was my age when Craig and I got married and my mom was the typical. She had put on some weight doing the things at church. They were traveling, but I never saw my mom do anything to better herself at that age.

Speaker 1: 13:42

It was kind of like that acceptance had set in. This is what I am, this is who I am, and that's great to accept yourself. I accept myself the way I am, but I want to continue to improve and grow and I don't think I saw my mom do that at my age. People who continue to view themselves as relatively young and active despite their advanced chronological age fair better than those who accept the reality of becoming sick, weak and lonely with age. So there it is. It's that acceptance. I don't feel we have to accept that, and if you choose to and that is you that is great. But self-esteem requires us to take a loving, positive action on our own behalf, and I think that's one of the things that I've been talking to you guys about the last few months is loving ourselves and taking care of ourselves and being good to ourselves.

Speaker 1: 14:44

Have good hygiene, a healthy diet, regular physical activity are no less important when you're 80 than they were when you're 20. And for some reason we as a general group at this age? Maybe do not put the importance on that. Tomorrow morning I have a massage. Massages are important to keeping my body feeling good and my mental health. Research suggests age rejecters have better mental health overall. So what's an age rejecter? Just what we talked about Not really looking at your chronological age, but your physical and your feeling age. Craig runs every Monday through Friday five to six miles every day. He does that, he puts that time in for himself and it's super important.

Speaker 1: 15:39

Researchers aren't sure exactly what contributes to healthy self-esteem and adulthood, but we do know self-esteem is generally associated with emotional stability, conscientiousness and extroversion. All of those things are not that easy. I am an extrovert because I try to hide my low self-esteem, so the extroversionness that you see of me sometimes is so that you don't really see who I really am, which is a person with really low self-esteem, and that is changing. I'm working on that, as we talked about this year. My intention is mental health, and mental health doesn't mean you're mentally ill. It means taking care of your mind and what your mind tells you, Spending time with people or animals. If negative stereotypes of aging includes loneliness, then making an effort to socialize and take care of an animal could be protective of self-esteem. Both also involve conscientiousness, especially if your socializing involves playing a role in a club or community organization. Alright, so taking care of your body.

Speaker 1: 17:02

For some it's tempting to take an all or nothing attitude toward health in later life. Well, I'm old. Now I'm falling apart. There's no point in trying to fight it. Self-esteem requires us to take a loving, positive action on our own behalf. Good hygiene, a healthy diet and regular physical activity are no less important when you're 80 than they were when you were 20. So we're back to that 80-20 rule again. What was good for us at 20 is still good for us at 80. And let me tell you, if I had taken that attitude when my body literally was falling apart, I would not be where I am today. And where I am today is healthy, feeling great, probably the best I've ever felt in my life. If I want to be honest and we need to take that attitude, it's never too late. Always consult a doctor before starting an exercise program, we all know that. But consider using all that free time in retirement to work towards improving health. A strong physical body is protective of a strong and healthy mind, and I see that as my physical body is getting better. My mind has been too, and your efforts toward fitness and health can bring a sense of both purpose and pride.

Speaker 1: 18:21

Excuse me, Staying curious, being interested in the world around you, keeps you active and interesting. Okay, so this is something that I find in these women that I've met. They all live in the city. They live in the heart of the city, just like I do. I think it takes a very unique person and now I'm becoming one of them to live in the city and to enjoy the city and to embrace the city for all that's good and all that's bad, and they amaze me. So when you're staying curious, it's hard to esteem a self you believe, harder to esteem a self you believe deep down, to be dull and boring than it is to cherish a self who is genuinely engaged.

Speaker 1: 19:07

Staying interesting by refusing to sink into mental routines. Seek novelty and variety in daily life, even in small ways. At the grocery store, Buy something you've never tried, you've never heard of. Okay, so this is my Bailey Wicke right here. Attend an event you wouldn't normally be interested in. Listen more than you talk. Well, that's definitely not always me.

Speaker 1: 19:30

I try and ask clarifying questions. Self esteem doesn't have to diminish with advancing age. Don't let passivity they have got some words in this Rob you of mental health. Wash up your golden years by rejecting damaging stereotypes and staying engaged. So when I said it's my Bailey Wicke trying new things, doing new things, gosh darn it. Do not fall into the routines. This is what I do every day. Every day I do this. It's good to have a routine, but break it up every once in a while. Go to the zoo on a day you're not thinking about going to the zoo or go to a museum. Go to an art museum. Ask a friend. My friend Leighani is great. She goes and does things all the time. I love that about her. She'll get a group of women and off they go to try something. Off they go to do something. They're traveling. This is what life's about. This is what keeps your self esteem up. This is what keeps you motivated and moving in your later years.

Speaker 1: 20:34

You know you look back at your parents and I look at my mom at 63. She certainly isn't what I am at 63. So we know we're living longer. 73 shouldn't be what you thought. 73, 83, 93. Look at those ages differently. Be excited to. We're still alive for God's sakes, and if things are good, you're monetarily doing well, I know all of those things add up to it too. We need to focus on being positive, and I think the more positive we are about ourselves and our life, our self esteem will be better.

Speaker 1: 21:15

I hope that if your self esteem is low, I've given you some thoughts today on how to bring up that self esteem. Think about your life. Think about what is to come. There's so much more, so much more. I don't have grandkids, Don't ever know when they're coming, and that's fine. I have so much more in my life. It's not just about grandkids. There's more out there. If you don't have grandkids. If you do, don't make your life all about your grandkids either.

Speaker 1: 21:45

Find some things in life that excite you. I'm starting my photography. I'm excited about that, Something I've always wanted to do. I take constant pictures all the time and I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to be able to take my camera on my Greece trip coming up in April and I'm looking forward to doing that and hauling around a camera. Hopefully I'll be strong enough to do that.

Speaker 1: 22:07

Well, again, self-esteem is important just as important when you were 20 as you are when you're 80. Remember the 80-20 rule. What was important when you were 20 is just as important when you're 80 or anywhere in between. Don't give up. Don't give up on yourself. Don't give up on your life. I am a perfect example. If I had given up last year and just fell into pain and depression and loneliness, I would not be where I am. It was by moving forward. No matter what happens in life, move forward, it will get better. All right. Well, thank you for listening to that part. We do have a senior moment coming up, so hold on for a senior moment, All right.

Speaker 1: 22:52

Well, on today's senior moment, I want to talk to you about, you know, being hacked and all those things that are happening. We've talked about that over and over again. We have cyber thieves and getting into your accounts and things like that. Here's a few tips to help you fight back against cyber bullies and cyber attackers and all that kind of stuff. Turn on automatic software and app updates on your computers, Updating your apps. I get so tired of people I don't want to use the memory. Let me tell you there's security updates in those updates on your phone and your computer, so make sure it stays up to date.

Speaker 1: 23:30

Use two factor authentication for logins. Two factor authentication is when you log in and then they send your phone, they text you another number to put in. If you are doing that for everything, it's going to be hard for them to access an account. Of course you should have unique, elaborate passwords. Make sure you're really working on those passwords, Because if you have something and a computer can easily find it and you use it all the time for everything, it's going to be easy for them to get into your accounts. But you should also have a password manager and you can get a password manager so you don't have to remember all your passwords. The number one password is a password manager Bitwarden, LastPass or Dashlane to keep them protected and to sync the information on all your devices.

Speaker 1: 24:23

Freeze your credit at EquifaxXperian and TransUnion. If you freeze your credit, what happens is no one can apply for credit because you're going to get a notification. And let me tell you, if you apply for credit yourself, you will get a notification and you can approve it. So I'm freezing. I have our credit reports frozen. If you have an iPhone, turn on the Find my iPhone option, which enables activation lock and helps secure your Apple identity. Create a dedicated email address for use for only financial services and not for work or personal email. So you can go to Gmail, create yourself another email account that says Marcy1, and I know that's for I use that whenever I am logging into financial institutions. So there's some information. Just, it's a new year. Beware, I've got cats now trying to break in. This is insane. Anyways, keep track of your stuff, Check your bills, Look at things, Be aware Don't answer the phone if you don't know who it is. Again, I'm going to repeat this a million times because it happens to everyone.

Speaker 1: 25:37

With artificial intelligence, they can mirror a phone number. So you think it's your bank. You look at the phone number it is the bank's phone number, but they're calling from another number. They can trick you in so many ways now that even the most astute among us can be tricked. So if your bank calls, hang up on them and call them back. If you're making the phone call, you know you're calling the right place. They can mirror phones. They can sound like someone you know. Just be careful. Be careful, that's my last word for today and remember what I always tell you aging ain't persisting.