Season 1: Question 8 - What if we could level up as we age?

What if we could level up as we age? Every new decade we survive, we unlock new abilities and opportunities. What would that look like?

Transcript

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welcome to 10 women bringing together 10 women with 10 thought-provoking questions based on one theme during this episode of 10 women we'll hear 10 different answers to this question what if we could level up as we age every new decade we survive we unlock new abilities and opportunities what would that look like we wanted to have a fun creative question to see where folks would go with it um we heard a lot of creative answers i think for every decade that I survive I should be able to get two new joints from my body like uh you're now 60 you get two new knees now you're 70 you get two new shoulders oh I do like that can we do that please yes um for me I think I want to have more brain processing so as I've gotten a little older it takes me a little longer to access things in my brain i think I need better storage and more RAM um I essentially when I have an upgrade every decade so I can actually remember things clearly and find information i feel like a lot of times my little brain librarian is having to work way over time to find the things that he needs to before we hear the 10 answers remember to take a moment to think about your own answer to this question what if we could level up as we age every new decade we survive we unlock new abilities and opportunities what would that look like and don't forget that we want to hear your answers too follow our 10 women series on Instagram to share your thoughts and to read the responses of others in our community visit our website to find other ways to connect my name is an sparks hyphen bombgardner and I am a caregiver um I'm a member of a women's organization that I'm very passionate about i am a cyclist um I'm a road road cyclist and um I love being outdoors let's see it might be trying things that I have said in the past I would never do and uh maybe learning how to dance or or relearn how to play the piano or uh do something that that I would have in the past said no no I I can't I can't do that but being more open and willing to try uh try new things and uh maybe try foods that are you know a little bit out of my comfort zone um but uh I think I would never have thought I could drive all the way across the country by myself but I have and uh I I would 10 years ago I would I wouldn't have done it so I am Leana Martin and I am an aunt a daughter and a friend well one thing I mean some stuff you already get as you get older you get like the ability to be unbothered by things that you used to be bothered by that is the leveling up that I think you get anyway and like sometimes you get where um older people get a free pass to like say things and do things and you're like they're old so they can do that like I I long for that ability to sometimes say what's on my mind and people be like it's fine she's old um so it's like I can't wait till I get to that age but uh until then um so what other things can we get i feel like instead of getting weaker you should get stronger as you get older um as you endure things I mean you do emotionally get stronger but physically it's like you shouldn't get weaker and have less energy you should get more the more life you live the stronger you should be you should be able to go all day sleep less cuz you're older but yeah unfortunately it's not like that uh my name is Abigail Dun Moses and I am an educator of adults who heals the brokenhearted what it looks like is my ability to ask the most cogent questions under different circumstances and in many circumstances having to play the truth teller what I'm trying to level up to now is balance that with diplomacy um and it's not that I don't have the choice in my head but I perceive that sometimes the more diplomatic route is not effective it's all very difficult because uh anytime that you're willing to take the risk to ask the most cognitive question that needs to be discussed there's social risk there and so um I'm at the point now where I'm not as willing to always take the risk like I used to it practically kills me but but I might you you ask the question who am I to me right that's when Abigail shut up keep your mouth closed give people an opportunity to have their own experiences you know I think that's moving towards wisdom moving in that in the right direction uh not quite there yet but I'm I at least want it my name is Judy Fowler i am an educator a mom and a team player that was the the question is great like I this one is the toughest one when I have to think about like a path for this one to anticipate where I'm going to think I'm going with this answer you know when I think about leveling up and my my kids are so into Pokemon and Legos right but but the Pokémon thing is really is real by now that I'm in my 50s i wonder how shiny my card would be and what extra powers or how many more points do I get for life experiences you know we start maybe we get this basic card and my son is going to be so disappointed that he has taught me all these things and I cannot recall the different names and levels of Pokémon so sorry Jack if you're listening to this I hope you you just appreciate that I'm using the Pokemon analogy to begin with but I just know when he tries to teach us the game I remember the original he's like "Well this and you know you you get to a certain point you do these certain things you just had a battle this battle and you won so you got a new card and it's like oh oh this one actually has rainbows on it yay i like rainbows." And you know with each each stage or even even during our work week I think we all level up in some ways too when we think about this but I think every time it would be like I would level up like the Pokémon card it'd be but be bigger it'd be much shinier and I would have more points but it's also what are those extra tools in the toolbox that allows you to level up to begin with right so if it is uh being able to manage your peace if it is being able to uh uh cook a better meal you know whatever whatever it is the battle of getting my kids to eat certain foods you know like so it'd be like I think honestly the tools in the tool box that what we need for living but also it's almost like these also other uh magical powers that we wish we had which is you know different words to influence so you wouldn't have to have as many stressful conversations ations about certain things you know as we do go through life but I think I would have the best Pokemon card deck ever being where I am in life so I I have to say that's probably the leveling up i think I'd have bigger wings i'd have a more more fierce mane you know like if I could think about Pokémon characters evolving that's totally what would happen as I would level up the kids have all these these stuffed animals and um and there's actually thankfully there's a Pokemon brushing your teeth app so you get to brush and at times but you get to evolve you get the Pokeball i mean it's a it's a thing like so I don't know the kids like Grooie right now so I have to say I'm I be like Grooie cuz they just love Grrooie so I love the fact they want to nurture so hopefully one day they'll be you know remembering to give me squeezes and you know remember to love on me like they do on Grooie my name is Marie Leonard and I am a mom a daughter and an energetic lover of life so the not PG version is as I think every level up is like you just don't give a [ __ ] every like like every time you're just like cuz I just feel like as I've gotten older there's just a lot of things I'm like I don't care about that anymore i just don't care about that anymore like you just shed that like I just don't care i'm surprised more senior citizens don't commit crime because like are we afraid of jail i don't I don't know because do we they're just I don't care about a lot of things anymore which is freeing but also I was like oh wow that could get scary but I I thankfully we are not u opening up our life of crime era either which is probably good um but yeah there's just a lot of things I just feel like as I level up and grow older that my passion still remains pain so there's comfort I think in that there's like shedding things that I just don't need that don't like that does not like let it go i don't need that um and then accepting things like my house is always going to be a little chaotic and a little cluttered um it's never going to be fashionable and that's okay um so things like that that just is a a matter of like of of shedding and then accepting um and if I could really like I mean it would be really fun like at 70 or 65 maybe like at right at retirement to like finally win the lottery um that would be like a really cool level up because um it would just be fun to like like do something extravagant um like a big trip or something that that I've never been able to do that would be fun um and then like and on top of it because I only have so much runway like I can't hoard it all so then like then like just like give it all away and that would just be so fun to just figure out how to be like let me take this okay children you can have a little something but not so much because you have to have jobs and then like now let's give it all away my name is Susan Sassman and I am an extrovert a creative visionary and a nurturing kind of gal it would be a musical instrument probably that would come into my life i don't know how to read music i don't know how to play an instrument but I'm surrounded by quite a few musicians in my life songwriters and um people who were in bands and I remember earlier in my years when I made a pretend band like in my 30s um I said to some girlfriends"We should start a band." And they said"Well we don't play any instruments." And I said "But we could i mean I could play drums maybe and maybe you could play the piano we should just you know start taking it up and then we could tour together and then we thought about what would our outfits be like if we were touring um and who would be our agent is there somebody we know who could be an agent for us if we were able to really make this happen and over the course of about a year I would send out like newsletters to these women about the fantasy band and how how you doing with those you know piano lessons and do I need to send somebody over to help you because we've got the outfits ready and we've got the agent ready and we're going to want to do a tour a big one so this just became kind of a playful little thing that never took off but I could have I could do that with cooking i could decide to go to culinary school and then when I get out of there I could start teaching classes in my kitchen and I would get children in and get them involved and I mean I have no shortage of imagination of what to do if you unlocked a skill a language if I learned to speak Italian and then maybe I could do tours to Italy from Greensboro and I could you know do a deep dive into what goes on in Italy if you were a tour guide and spoke fluently and you know so I fantasize a lot about taking a skill like cooking or language or music and you know pushing it up and out into what it would become what I'm lacking is the follow through on that i did get a ukulele during um co and I put it my picture of myself on Facebook with that uke and I was like look out world cuz I am going to play this ukulele and I'm going to like just knock it down and I played for about 3 months and I sang a little bit and then and then I didn't and then I put it away and I see it every day and I'm like yeah whatever happened with that ukulele and maybe I'll pick it back up i don't know but um I like that idea of unlocking a new talent and then bringing it up and a little higher you know so that it's really in your face um and maybe I'll do that i still have time i'm not done yet so you know we'll see um hi my name is Michelle i am a gynecologist bicyclist and someone who loves life well for one my knees would be fixed my hands wouldn't hurt anymore and I'd be a little bit more painfree than I am um I'd love it if I could just increase my IQ just a little bit so I can do some of those uh uh Wall Street Journal and New York Times uh puzzles a little bit easier i want to get to genius every time not just sometimes um I think that would be it was be not just wisdom and and knowledge but like really being able to bend the brain in a different way to be able to see things in a different way and to see those patterns that you didn't see before um it's what it's like the the next meta level up like I I do the crosswords regularly so I got the New York Times crossword that's not a That's not I mean got that every day almost that's not a big deal um the Wall Street Journal every Friday has a crossword that then has a puzzle on top of it so once you solve the crossword they ask you for a noun a fiveletter noun a famous person a song from the8s and the only clues that you have to what it is is that plus the title and whatever you can figure out the puzzle is saying and I just can't get them i just can't see into that level so that would be like my next thing would be to say okay I can I every 10 years or so I get a little bit more of that unlocked i have more brain power to be able to to do that my name is Terry Wiggins and I am a woman i am a mother and I am a daughter yes it's really an um kind of an open beautiful window here anything's possible right and I I um had a chance to go to India for 3 weeks about four years ago and I loved that trip it was with a group of people u we were kind of doing a spiritual trek up in northern India and I love the culture i love the food i love the people um and it felt like home in a way and I thought at that time I might want to go back sometime and do volunteer work um I was in the Peace Corps for two years doing volunteer work overseas is not a big deal so uh that's still in the back of my head so that's something um another thing I've done in the past and I haven't done it for the past four to five years is is pottery and I want to get back into that i love feeling that clay and feels like earth and the creativity part of it the other something that I've been very excited about is seeing people have homes there's so many homeless people here and and um so I've given a lot of thought to what that might look like sustainable living um and I thought about creating caves in hillsides and then my daughter was just in Granada Spain and she said "Oh people have caves in hillsides and mountains and they're beautiful." So I thought"Wow that would be fun." one and then the other um I was in New Mexico and got a chance to visit an earth ship home and again very sustainable partly under earth gray water um you know window facing south you have your garden right inside the home anyway I got so excited about these ideas that that's something I haven't put my energy towards yet but it's it's there percolating um and I really want to be alive to see the world shift into a more loving community where there's justice equinimity love harmony unity all those things that the heart holds i want to be alive to see that my name is Kimberly Burke and I'm a human a teacher and a lover this was another really hard question for me a I'm not a gamer um and and I'm not good at imaginary situations i think if I could gain one thing it would be wisdom without the trauma that normally goes along with wisdom to get it so so as crazy as that sounds my level up would be just more wisdom um in terms of opportunities I don't know i really don't know how to answer that i'm still working you know that's part of that work in progress that I think about lots of opportunities that I should have taken some of the biggest regrets I've ever had um so I don't know as if I always recognize opportunity i've always taken the real practical so it's hard for me to imagine what level up I would be available to me my name is Abigail Seymour and I am an entrepreneur a lawyer and an anyagram 7 oh I would be able to talk to dead people i'd be a medium i've always wanted to be like given that power and given that just be touched with that because I think it's something people are truly born with and I always thought like is it something I can learn is it something I could do but I'm very interested in that i could talk about you know past lives and I love all those shows i watch Long Island Medium like all that stuff is really interesting to me and after my dad died we hired a med worked with a medium and it was fascinating and I just kept thinking like I wish I could so that would be a superpower gift to myself was that I would just be a medium and people would come over and I'd say you know oh I'm hearing something from someone let me let me let me pass that along to you i've got no he's he's saying he misses you i would love to be able to do that and it's never scared me i mean I know there's dark energy and all that stuff but um I've just always been like"Oh yeah." Like I see I have a thing about hawks and that um first of all that's the other thing i would I would be a falconer it's my other past life not past life but if I could ever say"I'm going to quit what I'm doing i'm going to have a whole new life i would become a falconer i have no idea how I'd get paid i have no idea what I would do with that but I just want to like own a hawk and have it be my pet it's just nutty i don't know why um but when I see them I think it's I I it's a for me it's a message for my sister so and I see them all the time i'll be driving down a four-lane highway and a hawk will come straight across like just my car i'm like there's all these other cars here like I I always think like am I just imagining this but it's like came right across me i'm like hey so yeah my little hawk my little spirit animals so coming back to our question what if we could level up as we age every new decade we survive we unlock new abilities and opportunities what would that look like and how difficult was this question for you to answer and be honest after you answer this question for yourself think about reaching out to other women in your life for their answers remember to share your answers with us in our 10 women series on Instagram we can't wait to read your answers and speaking of answers we've actually got some different answers on our Instagram page that's because we asked all the women surprise questions to learn more about them join us on Instagram at 10Womenies to hear their answers we hope you will join us every Tuesday for a new episode wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts this series is distributed both as an audio only and a YouTube video format to allow you to enjoy each episode your preferred way be sure to visit our website at www.sassyam.com to learn more about this series and all the places you can find us 10 Women is a production of Sassyam Media Amy Brown and Sarah Howard producers feel free to send us an email at sassymdia@gmail.com special thanks to the women of season 1 Kimberly Burke Judy Fowler Michelle Horvath Marie Leonard Lyanna Martin Abigail Dun Moses Susan Sassman Abigail Seymour Anne Sparks Bumgardner and Terry Wiggins