From Archive

After a certain time posts will be taken off the main conversation site. This archive allows these posts to be retrieved.

Gives and gets

This post describes what participants receive and what they contribute. These are the gives and gets!

The LivBetter Group Pty Ltd is the publisher of this website. We commit to create, lead and moderate an online conversation to discuss what we want as we grow old (and what we don’t want). This is what you get.

By participating in the conversation and sharing your views, we can create a better future, together. You share your opinions, perspectives and knowledge. This is what you give.

To lead the conversation we will use the Results Accountability process. This means that, after a short introduction, the conversation will start at the end point: “Describe how you want to live as you grow older”.

Thereafter we can usefully discuss different aspects in detail (such as housing, finance, care etc.) and how best to achieve the various end points.

We will attempt to summarise the conversation at regular intervals. This is our commitment.

Not discussed

This post highlights the topics that are not discussed in the Living Better Conversation. We are NOT discussing what others should or could be doing for us. Such discussion belongs in the many forums about entitlement and welfare.

This is also not the forum to discuss health care, aged care or anti-ageing treatments or products – again there are many other forums on these topics.

Please keep the conversation apolitical.  It is too easy to suggest that governments should just allocate more money to the ageing demographic.

If we can’t describe what we do want, then no amount of money is going to be enough!

Topics to discuss

This posts lists the topics to discuss in the Living Better Conversation. The conversation is aimed at people interested in continuing to live independently at home.

It is about what we can do for ourselves.

We want to discuss what each of us can do to live the life we want as we grow older.

This means takes responsibility for our own wellbeing and life journey’s.

The first step is understanding what we do want and how we want to live for the last third of our lives. Only once we have identified this, can we continue with a useful conversation on how to deliver this.

Why discuss living better?

Many commentators have identified that we are living longer. But are we going to live well? Is there anything we can do about how we live – do we actually have choices? And what do we regards as a good life as we grow older? This is why we need to discuss living better?

Most of us have observed the ageing of our own parents, and are confronting our own ageing challenges. Few of us want to end up in a nursing home, and it is fair to say that many of us don’t want the experience of our parents.

While we can probably describe what we don’t want, we can’t necessarily explain what we do want, except in broad terms such as independence, choice, dignity, respect etc. Why do we need to discuss living better?

Firstly, if we can’t describe what we do want, then we will get what others have decided for us.

Secondly, to help us identify how things have to change to get what we do want. And change will inevitably take time.

So we need to discuss how we want to live for the rest of our lives, before it is too late. Otherwise we will just have to accept what is on offer, what others’ have designed for us.

This conversation is for those who are interested in living independently at home, and taking responsibility for their own well being and rest-of-life-life journeys.

Living better by doing. You’re not as old as you feel, you’re as young as you do!

Exploring our name and functions.

Sky3
A New Old Age emerging from the clouds of denial of our own ageing

This article explores the concept of living better by doing, using the LivBetter technology.

How many times have you head someone say: “I don’t feel that old”, or “I feel much younger”?

Here’s the thing.   How does one “feel” an age?   Age is not an emotion, physical sensation, etc. it’s a measure of time. The time has passed; therefore I am the age I am now. I do not “feel” that age. I cannot touch it and what’s it supposed to feel like anyway.

I don’t like the term young at heart either. It is a denial of where one is. I don’t think denial makes any difference to what reality is. We can say whatever we want, but it won’t change what is. If we try to deny where we are, we are missing the experience of it. I think there is an experience of getting older.  

What if we just live fully as we are, not wishing to be ahead of it or behind.   You’re as young as you do!

That’s why we developed LivBetter, an App and online software to make it easy to put your hand up at any age, and to get help when needed.  This helps people to live independently at home for longer.