Better as You Age
It is possible to get better as you age.
Transported while fly-fishing for smallmouth bass, after several hours, I looked up only to realize I couldn’t see a single member of my fishing club. Somehow, without noticing, I found myself standing waist-deep in the October waters of the Juniata River, alone.
Later, at dusk, when I returned to the VRBO, the place felt strangely quiet. Conversations dwindled. It was immediately clear my peers had been talking about me. Then came the questions—half teasing, half genuinely curious:
How do you stay out there wading for so long? Aren’t you cold? Don’t your bones hurt? Don’t you get tired?”
What my fellow fishing club members were really asking was: how is it that I stay warmer for longer while wading in 57-degree water? How is it that I have the stamina to stand and fish for hours?
From my perspective, I heard, “How are you aging better than the rest of us?”
How You Become Better as You Age
I didn’t think sitting around the table after three-days of fly-fishing was the best time and place for a deep discussion on cause and effect—how we all naturally age and the attention and effort that is required if you want to age better than what you see—the status quo.
Instead, I went home and wrote The Ageless Angler: A Guide to Fly-Fish More as You Age. A brief but dense treatise about influencing your biological trajectory, including foundational practices that will keep you strong, flexible and resilient. I promise that it won’t put you to sleep and at the same time, it will inspire, give you strength, resilience and a heightened sense of purpose in your later decades.
Recognition Comes First
Life wears us down. Add the changes that come with aging, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed—or simply stuck with what appears to be an inevitable trajectory. Before we can change our direction, we must recognize what is going on.
Recognition is huge. We live distracted lives. How many ideas, conversations, and intentions are cut short by the next thing that pops up?
Passivity and inertia fester in the background. They creep along, and we surrender in millimeters. Small choices accumulate quietly until, one day, they have become the direction our lives are taking.
Recognition interrupts that process. It returns us to the gap between thoughts and action. The place where choice is possible.
Start by Recognizing Two Things: Signal and Story
The signal is information. You’re tired. You’re slower. Recovery takes longer. Your knee hurts. Your doctor tells you something has changed.
Then comes the story:
I’m getting old.
I can’t do what I used to do.
I’m too old for that.
That’s just part of aging.
The signal may be real. The story is our made-up interpretation of what the signal means for our future.
Pause Long Enough to Ask: What do I know? What have I concluded?
This isn’t about denying aging or replacing what feels uncomfortable with platitudes. It’s about responding to what is actually happening without automatically surrendering to what our mind decided it means.
That small separation creates room for a different response. Instead of ok, here we go, this is what aging is, another question appears.
What is Still Possible?
And in that space, you have a choice. The next move is yours, try something!
That’s agency—your capacity to recognize, choose, and act in alignment with your biology and what matters to you.
For example, if you recognize, “I’m having more difficulty getting up off the floor, getting in and out of my waders, or the drift boat,” recognize.
Instead of turning that signal into “I’m getting too old for this.”
Pause and ask, what capacities would allow me to continue? Leg strength? Balance? Mobility?
Choose one and train it. Three months later, you will find your activity has become easier.
You discover, “Wait. I influenced that!” Your body has supplied evidence.
Going Forward
You learn about agency as an idea. You can use it as a tool. But you come to trust it through experience—and the body provides the evidence.
Recognize → Choose → Act → Body responds → Notice → “I influenced that.” → Repeat
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Categorized in: Art of Aging, Fly Fisher Fitness