Open Mind, Open Heart

It’s never too late to learn something new

- JIM HINCH

THERE’S NO MAGIC FORMULA FOR LIVing longer and better. But a certain character trait makes getting older a lot more rewarding: having an open mind and heart.

Just ask David Starbuck of Chestertown, New York; Shirley Uekert of Marathon, Wisconsin; or Dave Jackson of Fishers, Indiana. These three very different people in their sixties, seventies and eighties live every day with the highs and lows of aging.

They thrive through it all by learning. David, an archeologist, continues digging up military history in upstate New York despite a diagnosis of advanced pancreatic cancer.

Shirley, a farm wife whose husband died several years ago, defied a lifelong fear of water and learned to swim in her seventies.

Dave is a retired pharmaceutical chemist who spent much of his life in a quiet, orderly laboratory—then plunged into acting not long after his own cancer diagnosis.

All three told me it is never too late to learn a new skill, try a new experience or listen intently for whatever life and God are trying to teach you. In fact, David, Shirley and Dave described their openness to whatever comes next as a cornerstone of their vitality. They live longer and better by envisioning their lives, and their souls, as unfinished projects.

Here are their stories—and their hard-won, inspiring wisdom.

Last August, a doctor told 70-year-old David Starbuck he had advanced pancreatic cancer, a diagnosis with a six-month to one-year survival prognosis.

David had a ready comeback. “I vowed I would prove that doctor wrong and live for years,” he told me. “It’s the stubborn, ornery ones who survive. We archeologists are like that. I live for whatever I’ll discover next.”