1. Watch your figure closely, because if you don’t take the time to do so, nobody else will. She watched what she ate and exercised, but she also knew how to wear a dress like nobody’s business.
2. Avoid spending time with people who complain about how old they feel. They will just pull you right down with them and make you feel old too. Instead, surround yourself with people who feel and act young, both inside and out. Seriously, she lived by this rule and only kept the company of positive and enlightening folks.
3. Exercise every day, no matter how tired or lazy you feel. Just moving around will make you forget about how tired you are, and pretty soon, you’ll have more energy to do all of the fun things you truly want to do. She either played golf, swam, danced or walked nearly every day of her life.
4. Travel whenever you are able. Seeing the world and discovering how other people live adds life, love and lucidity to your years. Well into her 90s, Anna Lee was traveling abroad to fabulous and exotic places on a moment’s notice.
5. Take the time to plan wonderful things for the future, this will give you something to look forward to and make you feel hopeful. Whenever I spoke to her, she had something new to tell me about what she was going to be doing—both sooner and later.
6. Be extravagant once in awhile. Whether its eating a decadent piece of chocolate cake, wearing something much too sexy for your own good, or dining at a very expensive restaurant once a year—this can make you feel both happy and young. She could be seen eating a small piece of dark chocolate every afternoon while sometimes wearing a low-cut sweater.
7. On a daily basis, eat whatever you want, drink what you want, and say what you want, but all with a degree of moderation. While she enjoyed a martini, she didn’t get drunk, although she may have danced a bit more because of it.
8. Flirt with life—not just with men and women, but with all of what life has to offer. This will make you feel young, hopeful and excited to get out of bed every day. My grandma enjoyed flirting with any man in uniform, and I am certain that if she were around today, she would flirt with my boyfriend while also flirting with the idea of buying new shoes.
9. Surround yourself with lively, smart, fun and interesting people who adore being around you, don’t settle for anything or anyone else. I once witnessed my grandmother speaking to a man with a mustache who spoke to her in Italian about a book he had just written, while he smiled at her the whole time.
10. Be spontaneous. When you do something out of the ordinary and on barely a moment’s notice, this can make you feel alive and young. She was known to announce unexpected trips and excursions to the beach.
11. Don’t ever feel sorry about yourself. It is a waste of time and a waste of your life. And it also bores people to tears. Never once in all of my years did I ever hear my grandmother complain about her life.
12. Take the time to be beautiful. You can’t feel both depressed and fabulous at the same time. She got her hair done every week; it was dyed a beautiful shade of blonde with perfect flips and fragrant hairspray.
13. Treat yourself regularly to wonderful little things, especially if they seem unnecessary and frivolous. This will remind you that you are wonderful and when you feel wonderful, you just feel better. She often frequented special bookstores and could also be found buying herself shoes and hats on cold winter days.
14. Never say or think that you are “too old” to do anything. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, you are only as old as you make up your mind to be. My grandma was the first person to volunteer to do anything that seemed youthful.
15. Live the way that you feel your real age to be, not what others tell you. If you feel 16, keep that energy up and you will feel like a teenager for as long as you are willing. Even though she was way past sixteen, she could make anyone around her feel as forever young as she was.
16. Every morning when you wake up, tell yourself you are a beautiful and wonderful person while you look straight into the mirror. Anna Lee really did this, I saw her, and she would also sing to herself on occasion.
17. Read a lot of history, it will teach you a lot about what other people have gone through and their stories will inspire you. It will give you perspective about how good you really have it right now. My grandma was absolutely obsessed about history, especially about the soap opera dalliances of English Royalty and the sufferings of commoners and romantics.
18. As soon as a negative thought comes into your mind, make a habit of replacing it with a joke, a humorous anecdote, watch a funny film, or call a positive friend. Grateful to say, she often called moi for a humor boost.
19. Whether you’re a man or a woman, never sit around all day in your bedclothes. Get dressed, brush your hair, spiff yourself up and be ready for the Queen of England if she happens to stop by. Within a half hour of waking, she had her “face on,” her heels and her hair brushed and smelling like candy.
20. Pay attention to children because they know how to be happy, young and carefree. I should know about this one, I was lucky enough to be her granddaughter, and she paid a lot of attention to me and my three daughters.
Tirado
daqui.
