Ronna Benjamin

A native Bostonian who loves to spend time with her husband and three adult children, Ronna is a former lawyer who also enjoys sailing, cooking, running, and biking.  

I was having lunch with a friend a few weeks ago at a small cafe. It was a cold late winter day, and when the waiter brought over the big bowl of vegetarian chili I had ordered with a pile of cheese on top, I started to salivate.   The food, the conversation, the ambience- everything was good.  And then our waiter, who looked like he had just started to shave, came over to clear my empty bowl.

“Are you done, Ma’am?  Can I take your bowl, Ma’am?”

I knew he was just being polite, but I had to suppress the urge to say, “Don’t call me that, you twit.  I’m not a ‘Ma’am.’  What makes you think I’m a ‘Ma’am?’”

But I just said “thank you,” made a joke about how I wasn’t going to eat the empty plate, and I looked at my friend.  She knew what I was thinking.

“Don’t you hate that?” my friend whispered,   “Couldn’t he have just said, ‘can I take your bowl?’  Did he have to stick the ‘Ma’am’ on there?  Do you think there is an age where it is OK if someone calls you ‘Ma’am’?”

I gave this a few seconds’ thought.  “It’s not ‘Never,’” I said.  But when is it?

Would I be ok being “Ma’am” at 90?  Sure, that will be ok. 80?  Probably. 70? Possible. 60?  Unlikely.  50-something?  What was it about being called “Ma’am” that made me want to punch the waiter in the face?

“Unless I become the Queen of England,” I told my friend, “I don’t want to be called ‘Ma’am’ again until I am 70.”

A brief survey of my 50-something friends (at least the ones in the northeast region of the country) all agreed.  They hated to be called ‘”Ma’am.” They thought it was synonymous with “old,” or “married.”  Many were offended.

In 2009, Senator Barbara Boxer lashed out at General Michael Walsh for addressing her as “Ma’am” and not “Senator,” (you can watch the video here) and the Ma’am debate went wild. General Walsh was accused of being a misogynist, a sexist, a plain old pig of the worst sort.  Did Boxer over-react?  Was the General simply being respectful?    If you can call the queen “Ma’am” can’t you call a senator “Ma’am?”  And would it be wrong to address a male senator as “sir?”

I asked my 23-year-old son if he ever called anyone “Ma’am.”  He has never lived anywhere other than the northeast.  “Of course,” he said,   “All the time.  It is polite.”

“Do you only use it with people you think are old?”

“Of course not.”

“Would you call a thirty-year-old woman ‘Ma’am?’”

“Of course, especially if she were in a position of respect.  Or my boss.”

“Does it matter if she is married?”

“How would I know if she were married?  No it wouldn’t matter.  Does the term ‘sir’ mean old to you, Mom?  Does it?  What’s the matter with you? It’s the same thing.”

“Huh,” I thought sarcastically,  “My son is hardly ever wrong.”  But it turns out his position is backed up by a number of sources.

Read more from Ronna at BA50!  After 28 years of practicing real estate law at both a large downtown law firm and then solo at her own firm, Ronna realized how much she loved writing and how much she hated lawyering. She jumped into the world of writing at betterafter50.com and never looked back. Read more of her work at BA50 or her personal website http://100sleeplessnights.com!

Also of Interest

• 7 Essentials for Living Your Best Life After 50
• Best Places to Retire: Think Warm Weather, Healthy Lifestyle
• Join AARP: Savings, resources and news for your well-being

See the AARP home page for deals, savings tips, trivia and more

Felice Shapiro

Felice Shapiro is a writer, entrepreneur, and publisher as well as the founder of Better After 50, a weekly online magazine. In addition to being a teacher and avid runner, hiker, and yogi she is an AARP contributor.

Imagine a world without an empty nest?

There’s a big change brewing that could really wreak havoc on our empty nesting cycle.  We’re talking about a change toward online learning. Imagine: your kid does not GO to college, he does college from the comfort of your home!

Google away — you can find plenty of stats supporting the trend away from brick and mortar schools and movement toward on-line learning.  And this is not the future — this is now.  2013 is predicted to be the year that online learning becomes the preferred method of getting a higher education degree.

“The public’s interest in taking online classes has skyrocketed … With an apparent shift towards online education away from traditional classroom instruction predicted to shape the educational environment of 2013, the demise of  brick-and-mortar schools will inevitably be a decisive factor shaping the future of online schools and the students who attend them.”

Okay, so given the rise in online education (an increase of 100% in the past year), it is in fact possible that very soon kids will not be leaving the nest for college.

You weren’t ready to let them go anyway, right?  You were sad and fantasized about keeping them around forever.  Want to think that through again?  With kids able to do college from their bedroom computers, parents may be looking at a very, very, very long four more years.

What would the new nest look like?

Read Felice’s answer at BA50!

Also of Interest

• Parents, Get Your Financial Life in Order. Then Talk to Your Kids.
• Grandparents and Parents Need a College Savings Plan
• Join AARP: Savings, resources and news for your well-being

See the AARP home page for deals, savings tips, trivia and more

Ronna Benjamin

A native Bostonian who loves to spend time with her husband and three adult children, Ronna is a former lawyer who also enjoys sailing, cooking, running, and biking.  

Have you ever seen what a Brazilian looks like?  Do you know anyone who has one?  If you know anyone under the age of 30, then I imagine you do.  Because if my friend is right, “no one” under the age of 30 has hair down there anymore.

Another friend told me she does Brazilian waxes regularly –not for her partner, but for herself –because it made her feel wonderful and clean. As I cringed, she described how a very talented Israeli woman ripped the hair off her most personal areas with melted wax –in a matter of minutes –for only $65.00.  ”She gets everywhere, she even has you finish off the process with your heels over your head.”

Now that was an image I tried to banish from my head.  But, I guess if you’re gonna do it, you might as well go all the way.

“Doesn’t it hurt like hell?” I asked.  I was assured that, yes, indeed it is uncomfortable.  Discomfort, in my experience, is a euphemism for extreme pain, like when a doctor tells you that you may be “uncomfortable” for a few minutes, and then proceeds to stick a needle slowly up your spine and twist it around a bit.  But according to my friend, if you have ever run a marathon or suffered from severe mental anguish –the Brazilian is a piece of cake.  And that was supposed to be comforting.

I know women want to feel younger, but …Lolita young?  And at what cost?  I started wondering what was under all those towels at the gym.  Had she?  Hadn’t she?  Would I?  I have never been so happy to see a few women unabashedly displaying their pubic hair (even if they were in their 70s)!

I am about as daring as they come, but daring enough to go Brazilian?

Read more from Ronna at BA50!  After 28 years of practicing real estate law at both a large downtown law firm and then solo at her own firm, Ronna realized how much she loved writing and how much she hated lawyering. She jumped into the world of writing at betterafter50.com and never looked back. Read more of her work at BA50 or her personal website http://100sleeplessnights.com!

Also of Interest

• Bobbi Brown’s Own Beauty Secrets for Women 50+
• Justice Kagan’s 55+ Curveball on Same-Sex Marriage
• Join AARP: Savings, resources and news for your well-being

See the AARP home page for deals, savings tips, trivia and more

Felice Shapiro

Felice Shapiro is a writer, entrepreneur, and publisher as well as the founder of Better After 50, a weekly online magazine. In addition to being a teacher and avid runner, hiker, and yogi, she is an AARP contributor.

I was running this morning with my girls, and I laughed so hard I almost tripped over my shoelaces. We’re training for the New York Half Marathon. We were talking about our “upkeep.”

“OMG,” my friend said. “I was at Laura Mercier and pulled out all my lipsticks to show the ‘aesthetician.’ She pointed to my ‘off-Peony pink’ color lipstick and scolded me, ‘We discontinued that one seven years ago –it’s past its expiration date —throw it out or put it in the Smithsonian.’”

How are you supposed to know when your cosmetics are expired, and how can a lipstick expire if there’s still more stuff in the tube?  What’s the rule?

Last month I was ready to give up mascara because my eyes were burning when I used it.  Expired perhaps?  I tried to remember how old it was –but who knew, so I threw all four tubes out and went mascara shopping. I wanted plump, longer, darker, curled and of course natural so there would be no trace of a smudge. Wasn’t there a product for that?  You bet –I bought a $50 product –one without a brush so no pulling on those fragile hairs plus it would peel off in little tubelettes. Brilliant –I was down with that.

Later that night, horrified, I was sure I’d peeled all the lashes off my lids. At least it felt like that. As I looked at the chunks of black on my cheeks I rolled the tubelettes between my fingers feeling for a stray. (It was late and I didn’t have my magnifiers on.) I squinted at my reflection; certain I would see bald lids. How could I have taken this foreign substance to my eyes, without reading about the risks? Did I accelerate my eyelashes’ expiration date? I heard once you’ve lost them they never grow back?  I was so focused on the promises of sumptuous Cleopatra lashes I’d ignored the fine print –luckily when I put on my glasses all was intact.

Expiration dates are important, they really are. But they’re not always clearly marked unlike the milk in my refrigerator. For instance, our bodies don’t come with rulebooks and oftentimes we push ourselves past our limits. But how are we to know?

For the first time it has become clear to me that my long-distance running could have an expiration date.

I’ve always known my running shoes have an unmarked expiration date.  I trash them whenever I feel knee and foot pain. I pull out my credit card and shop my way back to health. Recently this changed.

Last month despite new shoes, my foot pain worsened. Googling my symptom, I landed on a diagnosis–plantar fasciitis. The only positive take-away —it makes for a great Scrabble word. Searching for a cure, I “Amazoned” a pair of “Strassbourg Socks” to sleep in for $80. Didn’t do much for my feet or my sex life.  I slept in the knee-highs with a strap of Velcro curling my toes up. Two nights of medieval bondage gave my arch a lift and eased the pain but it didn’t take long for the problem to return.

But, it turned out relief was just one text away. My dear friend who embraces alternative medicine suggested her acupuncturist.  Bondage was out and needles were in.  It occurred to me that I might be living in the wrong century.

Read the results of Felice’s acupuncture visit and her view on expiration dates at Better After 50!

Felice Shapiro

Felice Shapiro is a writer, entrepreneur, and publisher as well as the founder of Better After 50, a weekly online magazine. In addition to being a teacher and avid runner, hiker, and yogi, she is an AARP contributor.

I know I shouldn’t worry. I would prefer to have faith, maybe even a little denial would be helpful. Is Washington really going to throw us into recession? Of course not, no way, they would never, right? If  Congress is going on their vacay, then I can breath more easily, right?

I’m a pretty educated person so it bothers me that I don’t understand all the implications of this Fiscal Cliff. In addition, the terminology fills me with anxiety. What’s with that name? It seems purposely anxiety provoking.  In fact, it sounds terminal. No one survives falling over cliffs.  Is that language necessary?

I decided to dig around to find the origin of the term; certain it was a creation of the media. Turns out –it’s not.   It was the creation of the now famous B.B. (not BB King –of course nothing soothing) but our buddy, Ben Bernanke, who coined the phrase while testifying before Congress when he said that “a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases” would take place on January 1, 2013.

Well it sure has caught on but does it accurately describe what’s about to happen? There’s hysteria building, but over what exactly?

Sometimes it feels like we create stuff to be scared of.

Fear has become an emotional addiction in our country. We live in a fear driven society. We come up with things to be scared of —maybe because we are adrenaline junkies, maybe because we are bored and need drama to feel alive, or maybe to help us feel connected to a group like Republicans or Democrats. Maybe we simply come up with these fears to fabricate solutions, so that when relieved, we feel like winners.

It just seems like we are a nation of anxiety seekers and it’s hard work to stay chill in the midst of daily thrashings and threats of Fiscal Cliffs.

I read The Andromeda Strain when I was ten years old and was sure the world would end just like the book.  I used to have Andromeda Strain nightmares. I avoided looking at blinking lights lest they trigger an epileptic episode. I feared I would swallow my tongue like one of the characters. I feared I would see a nuclear explosion on the horizon when I walked on the beach.

I had stomach aches my entire childhood. The doctor told my parents that I worried a lot and I would be fine.  I had 25 warts on my foot until a very handsome doctor looked me in the eyes with his baby blues and told me “they’ll go away.” And they did.

I have spent a ridiculous amount of time worrying about things that never happened, only to have really bad things happen that weren’t on my worry board at all.

I’d be happy to take on the Fiscal Cliff as something to worry about but I have no idea how to worry effectively. Am I supposed to worry that I am going to lose all my retirement savings?  Am I supposed to worry that my husband and I will have to work forever because we won’t be able to eat?  Am I supposed to worry that total chaos is going to break out and there will be revolution in the streets?

Am I supposed to put cash under my mattress?

Read the rest of Felice’s post at Better after 50!

Felice Shapiro

Felice Shapiro is a writer, entrepreneur, and publisher as well as the founder of Better After 50, a weekly online magazine. In addition to being a teacher and avid runner, hiker, and yogi, she is an AARP contributor.

You may have heard that Oprah just abandoned BA50’s with her announcement this week that “O’s” message will now be directed at the 30-something market.” Ms. Winfrey said she would like to attract women “in their 30s or perhaps their 20s, to be able to reach people when they are looking to fulfill their destiny.” She added, “By the time you’re 40, 42, you should have kind of figured it out already.”

I think Oprah is running in the wrong direction. The 50-year-old market is ripe for the picking.   According to “Selling to Seniors,” a monthly marketing report, people 50 and over control 77 percent of all financial assets in the United States, own almost 50 percent of all credit cards, and account for more than 50 percent of discretionary spending power — 2.5 times the average per capita.

That’s a huge market.

You would think Madison Avenue (I am referring to the media buyers) would be so excited to embrace women baby boomers who have the spending power, but that does not seem to be the case.  In fact, it’s just the opposite.   It’s not just Oprah.  More magazine has also trended “downward” in age since it’s launch catering to a younger mid-40s market.

So why isn’t there a magazine just for us?  It turns out Madison Avenue doesn’t think we’re worth investing in. Oprah’s not interested in “bleeding money” and she can’t get Madison Avenue excited about embracing the 50-year-old demographic. It turns out her shift to a younger market isn’t just about shaping destiny but bottom line.

“Her magazine, in particular, has experienced a decline in advertising revenue and newsstand sales since the talk show finished.”

No problem, I get it.  None of us like to “bleed money.”   But we at Betterafter50.com are betting on the 50-year old-target market. We are married to the message that aging is an “attitude” and we are better after 50 because “we choose to be.”   Our mission is to become the homepage of every woman turning 50.

Recently, I was interviewed by Jean Chatzky for a segment on her TV show Money Matters on RLTV and she opened with a great question:

“What makes Betterafter50.com different than other magazines you can buy at the newsstand?”

I wanted to say “What magazines for 50-year-olds?” but I didn’t want to be impolite. I also wanted to say “We’re an online magazine and not print,” but hey, it was my first TV interview and this is a learning process.  I wanted to talk about the void in the marketplace for magazines for women ages 50 and up that are relevant.  I know there’s Oprah’s “O” magazine and “More Magazine” and there are plenty of us who read Vanity Fair and the New Yorker.   But there is nothing exclusively focused on turning 50 and entering the next half of our lives.    Although AARP is working on getting our attention — many women turning 50 feel disturbed when their first copy of “that” senior magazine comes in the mail.

Our writers speak with authentic voices and are not cowed by Madison Avenue. Our language is honest and direct and BA50’s stories are picked up every week on the Huffington Post and AOL. The Boston Globe has discovered us and now NBC too — we have over 40,000 readers every month and the numbers are doubling each week.

Our writers are touching lives with stories about aging parents and adult children, shifting relationships, our next steps over the 50 threshold into work and play, adventure and survival.  Our curated YourCity  is becoming the go-to link for BA50s looking for goings-on tailored to our demographic.

Our BA50 resource guide will list every resource BA50s want to share with our readers. We are hoping to pack it with where to donate “stuff” from our purged closets to support for aging parents to great BA50 getaways. This section will take time to develop but we all need it.

So, who’s catering to BA50s?

Read Felice’s answer at Better After 50!

Felice Shapiro

Felice Shapiro is a writer, entrepreneur, and publisher as well as the founder of Better After 50, a weekly online magazine. In addition to being a teacher and avid runner, hiker, and yogi, she is an AARP contributor.

This Thanksgiving my husband Bill and I put 1,000 miles on our car chasing down our kids and siblings. It was an “unblended” family Thanksgiving, typical of how we live week to week. We wanted to be with all of them for the holiday — full stop. We were on a journey of love.

Fatigued from excessive workloads, we put the pedal to the metal as we were committed to showing up despite the miles between each of our families. Bill’s gathered Wednesday night on Cape Cod and my family’s celebration began the next morning, many miles north near Burlington, Vermont. We were ready for downtime by Saturday so we headed to my home in New York to relax with the plan of being back at work at Bill’s house in Boston on Tuesday morning. This is a snapshot of our “unblended” home base lifestyle.

As I write this I wonder how much longer we can continue this excessive to and fro-ing, because the Thanksgiving madness was not an isolated event. Bill and I have become nomadic road warriors searching for a common home base since the day we married four years ago.

So, when people ask me, “where do you live?” they get a bigger story than they bargained for. Through the years I’ve streamlined my response, but it remains convoluted nevertheless.  Sometimes I say, I live on 95N and 95S and inevitably stumble my way to some answer that usually confuses the listener. (Hey, it’s not clear to me, so how can I make it clear to anyone else?) This is the fallout of “blending” two adult lives that have been independently established where — in our case — two homes compete to be the primary place of residence.

When Bill and I decided to get married, he lived in Boston and my home was in New York. Merging our lives meant making geography work for us.  We both had faith that we could figure it out. So, the first semester of our marriage, I stayed in New York and continued teaching at NYU and Bill continued working in Boston. He would come to stay with me on weekends.  After four months we needed a new plan.  I landed an adjunct job teaching one day a week at Tufts University so we could be together more often.

Bill and I try to balance our lives between Boston midweek and New York on the weekends. It’s our compromise. It works until we get tired and don’t feel like getting in the car.  It works except Boston has become a city of all work and no play and New York the opposite. I get no work done in New York as I melt into old routines the minute I hit home. Life there is a playground of distractions, and I love it.  Boston is a place where I can be incredibly productive as I am able to focus without the lure of a full social schedule.  Bill also has embraced New York as his playground but craves his desk back in Boston after a full weekend of socializing.

So what’s the issue?  Well, it would be nice to just stay put for a while but we can’t figure this out because neither of us is ready to give up our respective cities. And thus we’ve come to explore the art of rationalizing our decision by redefining our new normal.

Read more of Felice’s post and how she and her husband established “home” at Better After 50!

Felice Shapiro

Felice Shapiro is a writer, entrepreneur, and publisher as well as the founder of Better After 50, a weekly online magazine. In addition to being a teacher and avid runner, hiker, and yogi, she is an AARP contributor.

After Hurricane Sandy’s bluster died down, I felt a strong need to see my home in suburban New York. The problem was, I couldn’t get there for four days because of work in Boston. My friends had checked on the house so I knew it was fine, but there was still no power. They warned me not to come–no one had power except for one friend who was hosting sleepovers and dinners. It seemed incredible that Bill and I would leave the comfort of our heated condo in Boston and head to a land of no Internet, light or warmth, but we did.

Worrying from afar wasn’t working for me. The wrath of Sandy, frightening as it was, didn’t lessen my desire to be there.  I wanted to be with my “people” from my hometown and experience Sandy with them; to battle the beast together.  I felt too far away in Boston as the hurricane blew through, luckily missing us.  (And of course I was happy for the people of Boston). But relying on TV, email, and texts to check on my friends and neighbors didn’t quite cut it.

So once Sandy was done with her screeching, we gassed up the tank and headed south, refueling in Connecticut knowing the gas lines would be killer in New York (and they were). As we started our journey, we felt like we were heading to a war zone and the enemy was Sandy.  (Too sweet a name for a monster storm that had brought our community to a full stop).

We were struck by the darkness as we pulled into Larchmont. We navigated fallen trees and made our way around detours as we headed straight to the “Hurricane Commune” where our buddies were shacked up in the one house that had power. They were on Day 4 of sleepovers and group meals. When we arrived we were greeted by huge hugs, and Sandy war stories, and a group cooking scene that looked like they’d been living together seamlessly for years. It felt so good to have arrived to join our friends.

That first night, Bill and I slept in our dark, cold house grateful to be there and safe with a roof over our heads. We were no longer on the periphery and felt relieved to be home.

The next morning I met up with my two running buddies to tour the devastation.

First we checked out a tree that had fallen across my friend’s lawn. The roots of this enormous oak made it look like an angry monster from a children’s book that was crying as its powers melted away. My eyes welled up while the 100-year-old oak lay with its guts splayed across the lawn. Miraculously it had left my friend’s house unscathed.

Next we headed to our beloved Manor Park on Long Island Sound. The sun was stunningly bright and the waters calm, but we were shaken by what we saw.

Fences along the water’s edge were ripped and thrown clear across the park and sea walls had crumbled like dust. 200-pound slabs of granite that were once our resting benches at the harbor’s edge were lifted clear off their bases. The three of us examined the benches like scuba divers with snorkels: garbling our words as we gasped and nodded to one another. We pointed and observed. This scene of raw beauty and brutal destruction was breathtaking. The sand had been smoothed by the retreating tide and looked like a raked Caribbean beach, safe and inviting. Next to it was a grouping of five trees, toppled on their sides–a woven horizontal forest laid to its final rest.  Beauty and horror inter-meshed.

I subscribe to the theory that nature self corrects. Forests burn to make way for new life but this devastation was hard to digest. The larger message is ominous.

To read Felice’s takeaway on Sandy, read the remainder of her post at Better After 50!

Felice Shapiro

Felice Shapiro is a writer, entrepreneur, and publisher as well as the founder of Better After 50, a weekly online magazine. In addition to being a teacher and avid runner, hiker, and yogi, she is an AARP contributor.

Imagine living in a place that seems more like fantasy than reality…

Imagine living in a place where no one wears watches. They’re not needed because no one is ever in a hurry.  You are invited for lunch and arrive whenever you feel like it, and are greeted with a hug and a smile. There is always someone to share a meal and conversation with–and every morsel of food is savored.

Imagine being able to nap for a few hours every day, sans guilt;  You get your work done, but according to your own schedule.

Imagine being able to talk openly; having no secrets.  Your evenings are spent drinking wine with friends–singing and dancing. You laugh, you dance often, you are filled with joy.  And when day is done, you head to your simple bed and sleep until you feel like getting up.

Imagine your life having purpose, and at 85 or 90 still getting up each day to go to work: teaching cooking, or helping a young one with math, knot tying or painting. No forced retirement!

Imagine living in a place without crime, where there is no shame in imperfection because no one is pretending, where everyone lives in an open society.

This is not Never Never Land; this is Ikaria, a small Greek Island located in the Aegean Sea. 

My friend Lizzy emailed me an article about Ikaria from the New York Times and said, “This place is right up your alley. It’s the commune you’ve been talking about.”

She was right.  I would love to be able to live like the people of Ikaria, but I don’t see that scenario working in this country. But then again, maybe there are some aspects of life in Ikaria that can work here?

I believe there are some amazing teachable findings from Dan Buettner’s Ikaria story that could perhaps help increase our longevity and decrease the challenges of growing old here in our county. Of course there are plenty of obstacles to Ikaria-style living. But how hard can it be to create an environment where we can eat well, connect with others and just enjoy life as we age?

Here are a few consciousness-raising ideas from Ikaria. Perhaps we should consider some?

1. How are we going to get rid of our watches? In Ikaria, “When you invite someone to lunch, they might come at 10 a.m. or 6 p.m. We simply don’t care about the clock here.” Imagine the chaos. I already run 20 minutes late, chronically, and the angst I cause myself trying to get to places on time is killing me –I’m sure of it.  If I could try to put away the watch for just 24 hours and see what happens, who knows, my internal clock might kick in and I just might start arriving on time!

2. And what about the way they eat in Ikaria? Cleanly; fresh, seasonal vegetables from the garden. “A breakfast of goat’s milk, wine, sage tea or coffee, honey and bread” and then a dinner of bread and goat’s milk too, according to the New York Times story. How can we simulate that? In my previous attempts to eat “clean,” I’m sure I have shortened the life span of many a waiter… you know the drill: “I’ll have the salad, dressing on the side, with grilled chicken, dry. Obnoxious I know, and not very Ikaria-like. I know I can do better. I can eat at home more often and try to find restaurants that promote clean eating; menus I don’t have to “manipulate.”

3. Napping?  “That regular napping— at least three days weekly— was associated with a 37 percent reduction in coronary heart disease.” Now there’s a concept. What if our doctors wrote a prescription for napping? Could we get away with it? Unlikely. But, I think I am going to practice napping this month. (My husband was thrilled at the prospect, which leads to number four).

4.  Sex Habits. “80 percent of men between 65 and 100 were having sex regularly in Ikaria.”  We may be a tad younger than those old geezers but if they can do it so can we; we are committing to stepping it up over the next month.

To see how Felice is planning to adopt Ikarian living this week, check out the remainder of her post at Better After 50!

Felice Shapiro

Felice Shapiro is a writer, entrepreneur, and publisher as well as the founder of Better After 50, a weekly online magazine. In addition to being a teacher and avid runner, hiker, and yogi, she is an AARP contributor.

Lance has been teetering from grace for a while but this week he fell off the bike. My Livestrong bracelet is off my wrist until I can create my own separation between the cause and the person.

Lance’s fall has got me thinking about cheating. How is it that a black and white legal rule can be rationalized into a shade of gray? It seems like getting caught is the only deterrent to cheating —at least in Lance’s case. How can that be?

Clearly there is a hierarchy of cheating ranging from outright illegal all the way down the ladder to hand slapping.  The severity of the transgression is defined by the playing field. Professional sports offer more defined rules than recreational sports. However, no matter which playing field one is on, pushing the edges of the rules seems to be a sport in and of itself.

Clearly, the fear of getting caught can be enough to keep one well within the boundaries of the rules unless you believe you are above the law.

As kids we were all taught not to cheat (hopefully). In school, the consequence of failure or expulsion, was enough to get me to wipe the penned notes off my hand before heading into a test. The fear of getting caught kept my eyes glued to my math quiz no matter how much I wanted to check out my smarter friend’s answers.

How much are we willing to risk to win? In Lance’s case, he obviously never thought he would be caught. So maybe doping didn’t feel risky to him. What does that mean to believe you are above the law, that you are untouchable and that you just don’t have to play by the rules?

For the spectator, we count on those rules being followed. It’s tough to be a cheerleader if you think the game is rigged. How could Lance love biking so much but willingly jeopardize its integrity? Those medals meant the world to biking fans. I, for one, was a huge Lance fan and cheered him from tour to tour. Now I feel duped. How come Lance’s moral compass didn’t kick in? Didn’t he care about anything but the win?

Read more about Felice’s thoughts on Lance and how she thinks we should be playing by the rules at Better After 50!