full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jane Fonda: Life's third act

Unscramble the Blue Letters


I've spent the last year researching and writing about this subject. And I have come to find that a more appropriate metaphor for aging is a ssatracie — the upawrd ascension of the human sipirt, bringing us into wisdom, welnohess, and authenticity. Age not at all as pathology. Age as potential. And guess what? This potential is not for the lucky few. It turns out, most people over 50 feel better, are less stressed, less hostile, less anxious. We tend to see commonalities more than differences. Some of the sieutds even say we're happier.

(Laughter)

This is not what I ecxtpeed, trust me. I come from a long line of depressives. As I was aorhnicppag my late 40s, when I would wake up in the morning, my first six thoughts would all be navigtee. And I got sarced. I thought, "Oh my gosh. I'm going to become a crotchety old lady." But now that I am actually smack-dab in the middle of my own third act, I realize I've never been happier. I have such a powerful feeling of well-being. And I've discovered that when you're inside odesnls, as opposed to looking at it from the outside, fear subsides. You realize you're still yourself — maybe even more so. Picasso once said, "It takes a long time to become young."

Open Cloze


I've spent the last year researching and writing about this subject. And I have come to find that a more appropriate metaphor for aging is a _________ — the ______ ascension of the human ______, bringing us into wisdom, _________, and authenticity. Age not at all as pathology. Age as potential. And guess what? This potential is not for the lucky few. It turns out, most people over 50 feel better, are less stressed, less hostile, less anxious. We tend to see commonalities more than differences. Some of the _______ even say we're happier.

(Laughter)

This is not what I ________, trust me. I come from a long line of depressives. As I was ___________ my late 40s, when I would wake up in the morning, my first six thoughts would all be ________. And I got ______. I thought, "Oh my gosh. I'm going to become a crotchety old lady." But now that I am actually smack-dab in the middle of my own third act, I realize I've never been happier. I have such a powerful feeling of well-being. And I've discovered that when you're inside _______, as opposed to looking at it from the outside, fear subsides. You realize you're still yourself — maybe even more so. Picasso once said, "It takes a long time to become young."

Solution


  1. wholeness
  2. negative
  3. spirit
  4. oldness
  5. staircase
  6. approaching
  7. expected
  8. upward
  9. scared
  10. studies

Original Text


I've spent the last year researching and writing about this subject. And I have come to find that a more appropriate metaphor for aging is a staircase — the upward ascension of the human spirit, bringing us into wisdom, wholeness, and authenticity. Age not at all as pathology. Age as potential. And guess what? This potential is not for the lucky few. It turns out, most people over 50 feel better, are less stressed, less hostile, less anxious. We tend to see commonalities more than differences. Some of the studies even say we're happier.

(Laughter)

This is not what I expected, trust me. I come from a long line of depressives. As I was approaching my late 40s, when I would wake up in the morning, my first six thoughts would all be negative. And I got scared. I thought, "Oh my gosh. I'm going to become a crotchety old lady." But now that I am actually smack-dab in the middle of my own third act, I realize I've never been happier. I have such a powerful feeling of well-being. And I've discovered that when you're inside oldness, as opposed to looking at it from the outside, fear subsides. You realize you're still yourself — maybe even more so. Picasso once said, "It takes a long time to become young."

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
neural pathways 4
upward ascension 2
viktor frankl 2


Important Words


  1. act
  2. age
  3. aging
  4. anxious
  5. approaching
  6. ascension
  7. authenticity
  8. bringing
  9. commonalities
  10. crotchety
  11. depressives
  12. differences
  13. discovered
  14. expected
  15. fear
  16. feel
  17. feeling
  18. find
  19. gosh
  20. guess
  21. happier
  22. hostile
  23. human
  24. lady
  25. late
  26. laughter
  27. line
  28. long
  29. lucky
  30. metaphor
  31. middle
  32. morning
  33. negative
  34. oldness
  35. opposed
  36. pathology
  37. people
  38. picasso
  39. potential
  40. powerful
  41. realize
  42. researching
  43. scared
  44. spent
  45. spirit
  46. staircase
  47. stressed
  48. studies
  49. subject
  50. subsides
  51. takes
  52. tend
  53. thought
  54. thoughts
  55. time
  56. trust
  57. turns
  58. upward
  59. wake
  60. wholeness
  61. wisdom
  62. writing
  63. year
  64. young