New York native Mildred Kirschenbaum has accomplished what few can. She will be 101 years old in August. In fact, her age is so unusual that it is currently causing her problems booking flights. In the booking system, she was automatically displayed as an “accompanied minor,” Kirschenbaum tells “Business Insider.”
It took a while for her travel agency to figure out that the system considered the birth year 1923 to be an input error. I automatically turned it into 2023 every time.
She still wants to travel so much, says Kirschenbaum. Many people think that after a certain age you have to stay at home and twiddle your thumbs. But she just straps on “adult diapers” and goes.
“I am [vor Kurzem] flown to the Himalayas!” says Kirschenbaum, not without enthusiasm. Last year she also traveled to the United Kingdom and will soon be embarking on a cruise to Mexico.
Kirschenbaum advises not to take yourself or the world too seriously
After 100 years in this world, she was no more impressed by extraordinary fellow human beings than by her own extraordinary nature, says Kirschenbaum. They have been ignoring expert opinions on longevity for a long time.
She regularly goes to “meatball night” at a local restaurant, where she makes extensive use of the minced meat happy hour. “To those who wish me all the best!” she says while toasting with friends. “And those who don’t can go to hell!”
In general, she has a dark and self-deprecating sense of humor that has often paved her way through life. So when she was recently asked by her social media followers what the secret to her 100-year-old fitness was, she answered truthfully: “I train my mouth!”
Kirschenbaum “doesn’t want to go to the grave with regrets”
There is one thing, however, that her long life has taught her, says Kirschenbaum to nextavenue.org. Life is too short to hate people you actually love for too long. Her now deceased husband Gerald was also her “best friend” – even though they argued “every day of the week”.
To do this, they always adhered to a simple rule: they settled the argument unconditionally before going to bed. After all, they actually loved each other and couldn’t imagine life without each other.
“We were arguing about something and next thing we said, ‘Would you like to eat salad later?’ We closed the door on the argument.” You should keep bad people out of your life. But when you argue with good people, you shouldn’t hold grudges.
Otherwise it could happen at some point that you drive the wrong people out of your life. “If you’re angry the first night, you might be thinking about divorce the second night,” says Kirschenbaum. People are impulsive, but life is simply too short for such mistakes.