A trip for red lentils pushed me to learn to drive at age 36:
Then a new resident of Georgia, it once took me 3+ hours to get to and from Whole Foods on MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta “not so” Rapid Transit Authority) and once was enough.
But I was a lucky one because even though I lived in a downtown food desert, I had the means to buy and operate a car to satisfy most of my dinner desires with relative ease.
After housing, transportation is the second-largest living expense, on average, in the U.S. I decided not to own a car so that I could afford to live without roommates in grad school, and wound up using public transportation for years afterwards. But, …
In Atlanta, buses and trains threatened to put me on the path to poor eating and ill health.
Joe Coughlin—Founder of the MIT Age Lab who I introduced here—considers going out for ice cream as a proxy for quality of life and I’d agree: Whether it’s taking a trip for beans or a treat, doing so reasonably means that a person has mobility, freedom and some cash.
Are your favorite foods—and treats!—part of your plans for where to live / grow old?
Last time, I expressed concerns about folks latching onto aging in their homes as the ideal, and endeavoring to do so without asking the right questions. Skipping that process, I said, could lead to someone “successfully” aging in place in isolation and without transportation.
As for me, I chose to live in downtown Atlanta for easy access to MARTA trains. But had I asked myself about getting lentils, greens and other foods to support my health in addition to how to get to work, might I have chosen to live on a bus line close to a grocery store?
Perhaps.
When talking about where to live and living long, Joe Coughlin adds ice cream to the mix to spark thinking about things that make us smile. It prompts us to ask, …
“What do I want to do every day?”
“Will I be able to get there?”
In his retirement, Coughlin wants to go out for ice cream with regularity.
Frances Harmon (my mom) wants to regularly visit her fave thrift store.
I know that for sure because rather than guessing at her preferences, I asked her to tell me about a day that she really enjoyed and listened for things that I could help make happen.
What would make a normal day wonderfully enjoyable for you?
Does where and around whom you live facilitate that?
We know that housing is a major determinant of health and that lifestyle is contagious, for better or worse. We also know that “sick care” isn’t cutting it, but neither is health care that keeps us free of disease but feeling blah.
It’s time for what I call “prosperity care”—care with a focus on helping us feel alive—and that requires questions about our housing, purpose, money and more today and beyond.
Ryan Frederick works to help people better understand the importance of place.
The author of “Right Place, Right Time: The Ultimate Guide for Choosing a Home for the Second Half of Life,” Ryan has a short online assessment to help you determine if you’re in (or planning on) the right place for a prosperous life.
More prosperity-producing tools to follow.
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