--- title: "Introducing \"The Countdown\" | Dr. Harley Rotbart Blog" url: https://harleyrotbart.com/blog/introducing-the-countdown description: "Introducing “The Countdown” A lighthearted look at the universal experience of AGING Harley A. Rotbart, M.D. “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t…" lang: en --- Back to Blog (https://harleyrotbart.com/blog)aging # Introducing "The Countdown" October 27, 2026 2 min read # **Introducing “The Countdown”** ### A lighthearted look at the universal experience of AGING **Harley A. Rotbart, M.D.**: https://substack.com/@harleyrotbart _“Age is an issue of mind over matter._ _If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”_ — Mark Twain If “old” is a frame of mind, my picture belongs in that frame. I didn’t feel old when I turned 50 or when I turned 60. Even my cardiac bypass surgery didn’t make me feel particularly old, just genetically handicapped – must be bad genes, but surgery will fix it. I did take pause at 65, my “Medicare Birthday,” if for no other reason than I had been managing my mother’s Medicare plan for years before she passed away and Medicare clearly meant “old.” But it was when I turned 70 that it really hit me. It sounded so old when I said it! And then every delay in a supermarket line or at the post office, the 60 seconds waiting for the microwave, each time it took me too long to open one of those childproof containers, and whenever my attempts at efficiency were thwarted in any way, I slipped into the “this is not how I want to be spending my waning time on earth” mode. And it happens a lot. It’s not that there’s more wasted time in my older years, on the contrary – so much time is wasted when we’re young! It’s just that now I rue the lost moments more than I did when I was younger and wasn’t “counting down” to the end. Sounds morbid, I know, but, now more than ever, I long for carpe diem – enjoying every moment. Usually that requires a couple arthritis pills. And on that note, welcome to “The Countdown,” my series of blog posts derived from my new book, “The Countdown - Cursive is Dead and Other Realities of Aging.” Follow me here, on my webpage, and also on my Substack page (http://harleyrotbart.substack.com/) for an ongoing discourse (sometimes involving a bit of “kvetching”) about something we all experience in our lives, getting older. I hope my reflections, on everything from Artificial Intelligence and artificial joints to Zoom and Zen, will resonate with many of my fellow septuagenarians and beyond because, in the end, we’re all in the same creaky old boat. And if you’re too young and too busy to think about such matters, you probably have aging parents or grandparents who are feeling the stresses of getting older and I think it’s a good thing for you to appreciate our mindset. Why? So you’ll be more patient and understanding of the weird things we do and say when we’re around you. More soon… Share this post: Share on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fharleyrotbart.com%2Fblog%2Fintroducing-the-countdown Share on Twitter: https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fharleyrotbart.com%2Fblog%2Fintroducing-the-countdown&text=Introducing%20%22The%20Countdown%22 Share on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fharleyrotbart.com%2Fblog%2Fintroducing-the-countdown&title=Introducing%20%22The%20Countdown%22 HR ### Dr. Harley Rotbart, M.D. Nationally-renowned pediatrician, parenting expert, and bestselling author helping families thrive for over 38 years. Learn More About Dr. Rotbart (https://harleyrotbart.com/#about) ## Structured data ```json "{\n \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n \"@type\": \"BlogPosting\",\n \"headline\": \"Introducing \\\"The Countdown\\\"\",\n \"description\": \"Introducing “The Countdown” A lighthearted look at the universal experience of AGING Harley A. Rotbart, M.D. “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t…\",\n \"articleBody\": \"

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