Thursday, October 1, 2026
Long Island is getting older. Over the past decade, Nassau and Suffolk counties have added more residents over age 65 than anywhere else in the state. More than a half-million older adults call this place home, and they’re not all flocking to Florida.
Long Island retirees aren’t uniformly downsizing or decelerating. They’re rejecting the outmoded idea that chronological age determines how we should live. In a world of 30-year retirements and second and third acts, a single number can no longer capture a person’s capacity, purpose or potential.
We propose a different framework: your “feels-like” age.
Your chronological age tells you how long you have lived. Your feels-like age reflects how you are living — the combined influence of your psychological outlook, social connections, physical health and environment. It is fluid, and offers a far more accurate picture of where you are in your aging journey.
To understand feels-like age, consider Carmen Herrera. Born in 1915, Herrera painted in relative obscurity for over a half-century. She worked in a small New York City loft, lived modestly and sold almost nothing. Things finally changed in 2004, when, at age 89, she was connected with a gallery owner who needed to fill a slot for a show. That show was her breakthrough: Critics embraced her, and she earned exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art. And even after achieving this recognition, she continued to paint daily, well past 100.
Though Herrera’s chronological age was “late life,” her feels-like age aligned with what we call the Settled-In stage. Psychologically, she was ambitious; socially, she was networking; physically, she was continuing to create. The number 89 was, well, just a number, describing little else than how long she had lived.
Feels-like aging acknowledges physical realities, but recognizes that vitality is multi-dimensional. A person’s lived stage is defined by more than just biology — it is a product of mindset, relationships and purpose.
Our aging journey is nonlinear. It is about movement across different flexible stages of aging that do not need to occur in sequence. We call that movement the “flicker.” People can move forward and backward across stages, depending on a range of factors and interventions.
To understand this, consider Howard. In his early 80s, Howard lived in Florida, and had once embraced an active outdoor lifestyle. Over time, chronic knee pain narrowed his world. He felt older than his 82 years, and was drifting toward what we would describe as the Supported Living stage — because of only one factor, his knees, which were off balance.
At his wife’s urging, Howard underwent knee-replacement surgery. Recovery restored his mobility and confidence, and he returned to the activities he had shared with his wife. “I feel like I’m 70 again,” he told us. Howard “flickered” because intervention and intention changed his trajectory.
Taken together, feels-like age and flicker give us a framework for taking full advantage of lifespans. The shift can be transformative. When people see themselves as capable of movement — of entering a new stage, of regaining capacity, of redefining purpose — they plan differently. They invest in prevention, as Howard did. They pursue lifelong work and creativity, as Herrera did. Retirement becomes redesign, not retreat, and aging becomes a process to navigate, not dread.
When we think about Herrera’s late-life artistic ascent, or Howard’s return to mobility, we see that the calendar cannot fully define a human being. Our passions, potential and choices are what truly shape us.
Stuart C. Kaplan is chief executive officer of Selfhelp Community Services Inc. Marcus Riley is the founder of the Booming Ageing Agency. They are the co-authors of “Your Aging Advantage.”
