Living My Best Life
Former Senator and newspaper editor, John Whelan, embraced all the excesses of his younger journalistic life but is now a healthy, yoga loving, mellow man at 60… Living his best life.
I turned 60 this year. Sixty is the new Forty. Honestly, I have proof.
But first a confession. When I was younger I thought 60 was old. Today, I don’t think so, or at least I hope not. I have lots of things I want to do yet. My father, Paddy, died at the age of 67, so I’m acutely conscious of the preciousness of the moment, of the need to stay in good nick.
I could be run over by a bus tomorrow but fortunately I feel healthier and happier now than when I was 40. I’m in a better place in my head and my heart, and heart condition. I don’t feel like 60, I don’t think like 60.
I was a smoker. 40-Lucky-Strikes-a-day man holding court in the middle of the Leinster Express newsroom in the mid-1990’s. I loved smoking. Firstly, from the time I woke up in the morning. One more with each coffee and every phone call. Then I’d wake up in the middle of the night to have one. I loved smoking, in the newsroom, in the bedroom, in the car, in the backrows of aeroplanes, in bars, in nightclubs, everywhere. I don’t smoke for over 15 years now. I never fancied the golf so I took up surfing instead. And yoga. Without the bit of yoga I’d seize up.
I used to drink. Every day.
When I joined the Leinster Express as a cub reporter straight out of the Leaving Cert in St Paul’s Secondary School, Monasterevin on June 26th, 1978, I was 17. The average life expectancy for a journalist back then was 55. Pensions didn’t bother us, we weren’t going to be around to collect them. We invested instead in pints. Lots of pints.
I had a drinking routine which made perfect sense to me at the time. On Mondays I went drinking after the Council meetings to see what was really going on; on Tuesdays I went out for a pint as the paper was gone to bed; on Wednesdays it was the start of the newspaper week so I had to suss out new leads; on Thursdays there was always some meeting that I simply had to attend; Fridays, well you couldn’t possible miss a few pints and the banter on a Friday evening; sure Saturday was my day off and I had to have a few and on Sundays I always liked going for a few pints after the matches. The only variation was my much anticipated trips to Dublin on Wednesdays ‘to see what was going on above in the Dáil’ and what the Laois-Offaly TDs were up to before adjourning to Mulligans of Poolbeg Street to link up with the Irish Press crew from next door. After the pints there was the fast food. I was on first name terms in the various chippers, ‘Hi John, the usual?’
I still like a pint, but nothing on that scale. Wary of bingeing at home on more than Netflix during the lockdowns I set myself a cautionary regime as I was conscious that I would put on a gut if I indulged. It worked. I lost 10kg, (that’s one stone and eight pounds in old money) down from 92kg to 82kg. 80kg is my new target by the end of the summer.
Every day is a school day. One of my recent lessons came courtesy of my great friend, Michael Murphy, a hotel manager extraordinaire with Cahersiveen smarts. He’s done a lot of weddings, christenings, funerals, anniversaries and dinner dances. He’s dealt with a lot of people.
He put me on to Chip Conley and his best seller, ‘The Making of a Modern Elder - Wisdom at Work - Stay Relevant in the Second Half of Your Career’. The hospitality management guru has a mantra that when you get to my age you can be viewed by the younger generation as ‘a sour bottle of milk, or a fine bottle of wine’. As someone who can unwittingly appear to have a cross scowl on my face even when I’m perfectly content I have to be careful with first impressions and what vibe I’m giving off. As someone who could be regarded as awkward, obstinate and argumentative, I’m glad to report that those who know me well, say that I’ve mellowed a lot. That’s good, as I want to be good company, like a rich Malbec or a full bodied Zinfandel, even as the new Gardai on the beat look to me as if they have just completed their Inter Cert.
Speaking of school days, I’ve recently been thinking about how much of an influence small interventions can have on us in later life.
Mrs Dunne, my teacher in first class, had a ritual each week in which everyone got a star on their copy books and each Christmas we all got a small gift from her, everyone in the class. Mrs Dunne didn’t just teach us our reading, writing and arithmetic but she put a value on all skills, the lads that could sing, or draw or tell stories about the bog and tractors as well as those who were good at their sums. Mrs Dunne was way ahead of her time. The only woman teaching in the CBS primary school in Monasterevin back in the 60’s.
Then there was Mrs Maher in St Paul’s Secondary School. I wanted to learn shorthand and typing. I knew I wanted to be a reporter in 5th year in 1977. But the secretarial and home economic classes in the run up to the Leaving Cert were restricted to girls only. Mrs Maher gave me access to the Brother typewriters and on her own time after school gave me tuition in shorthand and typing. I never got to master the Pitmans but I’ve been earning a living from typing ever since.
However, we are not defined by what we give-up or quit but rather by what we choose to be. I was fortunate to have my family in my 20’s giving me the opportunity to spend my 60th birthday celebrations this year with my four grandchildren - Kayla, Art, Essie and Charlie - instead of in the pub.
I much prefer to be a cool dude Grandpa who does Iyengar yoga, goes surfing in Lahinch or Rossnowlagh and tours Connemara in his campervan.
After all, who wants to be a sour bottle of milk… and the happy 80-year-old me is already a work in progress.