I buried countless time capsules in my backyard when I was around 7 or 8 years old. I just thought it was coolest thing to come back in the future and find my treasure.
Mostly little toy figures in tin cans. I realize now there’s a treasure you have access to but you forget about digging it up. It’s not just filled with the treasures of gold memories of nostalgia. Forget. It’s a bigger lost idea of yourself.
I have featured this in my book DESIGN YOUR AGE,
What’s Best About You Never Ages.

Here’s 12 steps to finding your own personal treasure.
1. Face the mirror and walk through it.
This means audit your personal inventory to determine what you like about yourself. Here’s some ideas. Make a list of 10 things.
Your favorite color.
Your favorite food.
Your favorite rock song.
Your most memorable kiss.
Your first best sexual awakening
Your idea of what you wanted to be when you grew up.
Your first dance or for boys your first fight.
Your first trip away from home.
Your first time you did something you didn’t think you could.
Your first time you felt loved.
Or make your own list of what has been important to you in your life.
Now keep these things to yourself for a while.

2. Next, identify individuals who represented the best of who you wanted to be— when you were growing up that is. Try to remember which individuals you admired for the way they carried their lives, real or fictional. John Glenn,James Bond, Helen Keller, Elizabeth Taylor, Marie Curie etc. For me it was Danny Kaye. Who was it for you?

3. Overcome resistance: It’s not so tough. Don’t fold and give up. A warning! The negative limiting voices in your thoughts, along with the artificial culture we step in everyday is truly not relevant. Wake up. Don’t be a prisoner. You are the boss of YOU. Remember.

4. Laughing Your Age Off.
Another big secret here is remembering to relearn how to laugh your age off. This is where you are truly ageless. Want to look younger instantly? Smile. If you don’t laugh much, well either learn now or have a small child stomp on your foot. Smile again. Practice laughing. Yes you can do this in private to start.

5. “I Like The Way You Move”
While you are on your journey, learn to move again because you like the way you move. You did dance. Get out of your chair and just shake it wherever you are. So what if you get strange looks? Even better. You are losing big psychological calories you no longer need.

6. “PLAY AGAIN.”
Do you remember?
Run up a few stairs? Roll in the grass?
Get a board game to play with your significant other?
C’mon think about what’s real adventure for you now?
Put your fears on the shelf. They don’t serve you.
I’ll send you a permission slip. Just email me at tuck@designyourage.com

7. Rethink where you want to live.
Don’t isolate yourself.
Wanna live near your kids? If you have no kids, how about being near others who share your joy of life. The process even works if you’ve been a hard-working hermit, like Santa, who just happens to come out in a big way once a year. A friend of mine told me about a couple that are 75 years young and they decided to move to Australia to start a new life.

8. Experiment Using Your Wisdom
It’s not about being respected or thinking you are a Smartass know-it-all—but do you possess wisdom. Mentor someone younger. Offer it to others. Find or Create a “Meet Up.” You will continue to learn no matter what.

9. STOP. Start Learning to Stop.
Truly learn to sit still. Stare at something beautiful outside. Look closely. Examine the details. Go sit some place beautiful. Activate the brakes and try, “Stopping.” Come to a complete stop at least once during the day. Shut everything the hell out. When you move again, everything will be so much better.

10. Service To Others.
Do you consider yourself a good person? Consider yourself a Godly person? Make a difference and be of service to at least one other person. I’d much rather help handing out Thanksgiving meals to the homeless than stuff myself at the table. Well, stuffing isn’t all bad, but helping others actually is a positively, positive thing to do. When you give to others, it boosts your immune system in a big way, and there’s scientific evidence to prove it.

11. Use Your Courage Muscle Not Your Fear Muscle.
How much time do you spend looking at fear based news? What are you doing to stay curious? What are you doing that is fresh and new? Learn something new. Realize it won’t kill you to try; it really won’t, as you will discover. Get out of that little snail shell. Your ancestors would be proud of you. They came a long way for you not to cower about anything. You’ve come to realize everyone is making it up, right?

12. The Most Important Thing You Can Do To Be Ageless.
Learn to fall in love again with learning. Practice. Do. We know so many ways to be happier and healthier. Moving our bodies. Eating more vegetables. Less sugar. More water. Little by little be the best you are now. Don’t think about how great it used to be. Practice how it can be great now. Count your blessings. I know this all might sound corny but make a list of what you are grateful for….your friends, children, where you sleep, all those that you love. You’ve got treasure. Now dig yourself up.

My Pal Sam: “I’m just too old”, I can’t wait until I go home.”

This pal of mine Sam was 65 as he looked into my eyes and qualified that “home” was actually “Heaven”.

Tuck : “Sam I can get you “home” today. There’s a gap in the fence off a cliff near the top of Mount Bonnell on Hwy 222. You could drive your car off that cliff this afternoon and be “home” this afternoon. Cause Sam, I really like some of the artwork at your house. You won’t be needing it after you go “home.”

I knew Sam could take the sarcasm. My mouth is triggered by individuals who give up on themselves and think it’s ok to say they are old. The stupid humor of “I’m so old my….fell off” is so old it stinks. I think it’s funnier to make fun of people who say they are too old.

So many individuals attack their own sense of self by announcing over and over again that they are too old. Not attractive or they define themselves by a physical limitation or chronic challenge. Dear God and the Universe I pray to never ever live there.

Here’s proof that what’s best about you never ages. Last weekend I met Tootsie Tomanetz, the 82 year old, Pitmaster of Snow’s Barbeque in Lexington, Texas. Great barbeque. Even more magnificent lady. She showed no aches and pains shoveling the hot fiery coals under the grate where the sausage was cooking.

“I don’t have time to think about what age I am. I’m too busy. My Daddy told me since I was a little girl “Keep working and you’ll be happy.” Tootsie said as she wiped her brow with a handkerchief. Ms. Tootsie is the poster child of what I call a Potential Being. She’s left her age behind and off to working on better things. Plus her real day job during the week is being a janitor over at the local high school.

Since the late 1960’s we’ve made YOUTH our God. The fear of aging runs rampant and plaster surgeons are out there to help nip and tuck you through your fear of aging (“Gerascophobia”). I say no matter what kinds of lotions, potions and surgeries you have, if you still think you are old, you’ll always be of the worst age.

Moving out of the known and try something of the unknown. That’s the best way to continue. Staying curious. Talk to those individuals that stay busy. Focus on creating or producing. That’s ageless stuff. It’s where the real Gold of living is mined. Get out there and dig some of it up. Find out what makes you feel useful again. I’ll be happy to help.

As far as my pal Sam is concerned, I saw him the following day.

Sam: “Tuck last night I had a talk with the Lord and he said “Enjoy the riches of life, right here and now.”

Tuck: “Damn I really wanted a couple of those paintings in your house.”

If you see any scary signs of aging yell “BOO” back into the mirror. Really give yourself a worthy scare by attempting to make something better of yourself.
Or reach out and helping someone else that is struggling. You’ll sleep like a baby.

Place: Patti Welder Junior High School Gymnasium –Victoria, Texas
Time: 7th Grade- P.E. Class with Coach Bohn -11 A.M.

“That’s 3 pops Kamin., ” said Coach Bohn, our P.E. instructor in a calm, matter of fact voice. That meant 3 whacks administered on your behind with a wooden paddle. What encouraged Coach Bohn to make his decision? While our class was standing below suspended ropes from the gym ceiling I decided to right there to initiate my career debut as a stand up comic. “Coach, are you going to climb the ropes too?” I smiling announced. No laughs came from my fellow P.E. class members. I bombed.

Coach Bohn had all the stage presence of being the formidable, evil twin of Curly from the 3 stooges. Burr haircut, feet slightly apart, his clipboard placed over his fireplug belly, dressed in his white gym shorts, T-shirt and whistle. The week before Coach Bohn had asked me, “Kamin are you member of the knucklehead club?” “Uh, no Sir” I said. Coach then heavily tapped the top of my head with his middle knuckle. “There you’re crowned. Nuk Nuk.”

Ugh! The un-fun side of school gym class was what defined all sports activity for me. I lettered in Drama class instead of football.

It wasn’t until I was 50, coming out of a divorce that I became an athlete. An amazing athletic amazing woman taught me to run. And with fits and starts and stops I still run. What I discovered at 50 were the outpouring rewards of sustained physical activity. Not just the sweat. The clearing and calming of my thoughts and my whole body. And I lost over 50 unwanted pounds. Holy Wow I now crave it.

I’m not suggesting you start Running. Just start moving.

Age Scientists consistently tell me that one of the strongest proven age retardants
is exercise. As vigorously as you can start moving your body. I’m not suggesting you start running. I am telling you that if you have the energy to make a pie, cake or whatever hypnotically sugar-fied, diabetic fortified dessert recipe you put on FACEBOOK then utilize that energy to move. You will love the lasting taste of accomplishing the act of building back your physical strength.

Bad knees? Problems with your legs? Get on the floor and move your body. Read about my friend Mark Zupan a wheel chair athlete. He’s in my book Design Your Age. Mark believes as I do that there is always a work around. Intimidating? Humiliating? Dear God what will I look like in Yoga pants? Be easy yourself. If you exercise patience you can get pass it.

Here’s some starter wisdom from one of my mentors, Beto Boggiano owner of Pure Austin. A fitness club in Austin, Texas.
Beto: “Start slowly.”

Too many people start off with too many high expectations. Attempting then failing an exercise they used to do. It’s de-motivating if they get too sore. They stop. They get motivated for a week, and then that motivation will die off. So start slow.

Being around other people that want to improve themselves, helps you stay motivated. That’s just a fact. That’s why home equipment doesn’t work.

*Secret Little Side Note here..
If you can afford it. Hire a trainer for two sessions. “Tell the trainer what you like and don’t like. But most of all tell a trainer you want to come back. Ask them to show you how to do something that will give you confidence to come back. Trainers tell me if they can get a person to come back twice, they are more likely to continue to get better physically.

Beto: Only 10% of the people going to the gym are going to be buff. Find the people you relate to with the same fitness goals. That’s 90% of the people in the gym.

Second secret side note:
It is also about stepping away from so much food we eat. Lots of meat, worthless carbohydrates, and sugars. You don’t need all that food you are now eating.

Tell the gym you are the most difficult member they could ever have. You need as many ways possible to encourage you to stay with it. A smart gym will help you with that.

Find a friend that will go with you. This is a big, big, big advantage. After time you will see results and go by yourself.

Don’t weigh yourself. Throw out your scale. Remember if you can combine physical activity with eating smarter. You are ahead of the game.

A number of studies have shown that exercise works as anti-depressant without the side effects.

(Atlantic Magazine March 24, 2014,)
For Depression, Prescribing Exercise Before Medication)… In 1999, a randomized controlled trial showed that depressed adults who took part in aerobic exercise improved as much as those treated with Zoloft.

I’m not suggesting you throw out your anti-depressant. However I am suggesting you try and keep trying to get up and move your body. And remember 70% of weight loss also has to do with what you eat, so try roasting vegetables. Try new spices. You can get out of your slump. Try and try and try again. Email me. I’ll always be your cheerleader here. I get the pom poms. But really I don’t know how they do it in these short skirts. God Bless Coach Bohn.

AGE SECRETS REVEALED !
Plastered all over the Internet this year is how “Age Reversal” and “Reversing Alzheimer’s” is the result of new, successful experiments on mice. Mice have had a great frigging year when it comes to living longer. Now if we could only figure out how to become mice? Hold on, every story always ends with “In a decade” or “In twenty years” all of this work with mice will be possible for humans. Ok so what do we do in the meantime?

Here’s why it’s better now than ever.

“I want to go out the way I came in. Naked and in the arms of a rich doctor.”
Nellie, Age 89

(All Excerpts from the book DESIGN YOUR AGE . What’s Best About You Never Ages. By Tuck Kamin http://designyourage.com/book/)

BECOME A MOUSE?
BETTER STILL, START CREATING BETTER LATER YEARS NOW.

The Age Research Scientists and Social Scientists I have the great opportunity to meet tell me a lot of aging is about denial. We do know how to take better care of ourselves. Eat less red meat. More greens. Reduce sugar in your diet. Just get up and move. Exercise cuts down on depression big time. Find your favorite music and play it. Don’t post that heart stopping Devil’s Cream King Ranch Chicken on Facebook.

Don’t be a mouse. Don’t be timid. But choose to ride a new wave. See your aging in a more positive way. Yes you can. Continue to be curious and find new friends. Challenge yourself. Life is soooo short. Make it count. Your greatest adventures and best designs on aging are yet to come. Let me know if I can help. Surf’s up. Start by just getting your toes in the water. Put on some Beach Boys music. Get round get round …to it now !