Kudos to another inspiring Michigan senior citizen who has been filling her golden years with fruitful activity. 83-year old Ruth Stoeffler will be the oldest graduate this year from Western Michigan University, bringing to a close 13 years of study and walking away with a degree in social science studies, magna cum laude. Mrs. Stoeffler said she decided to pursue the degree once her husband passed away. Read the story here.
Staying active and continuing to learn in one’s later years is an excellent way to ward off loneliness and mental decline, and Mrs. Stoeffler provides us with a wonderful example of both the importance and the feasibility of remaining vital. When the French philosopher Descartes pondered so many hundreds of years ago about his own existence and concluded that he knew he must be alive, must exist, because he was thinking, he may not have had in mind octogenarians in cap and gown. But his conclusion does perhaps point to the fact that mental vitality does indeed help a person to know that she is very much alive.
Brava, Mrs. Stoeffler!
