Secrets To Living Your Best Life At 93, In Cicely Tyson's Own Words

Cicely Tyson has accomplished some remarkable things over the span of her life and career. She’s been nominated for an Academy Award. She’s won Emmys and a Tony. She’s been a natural hair icon. She’s received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She’s even had a school renamed in her honor. But as of today, Tyson’s biggest accomplishment is making it to 93 and getting there with the ability to walk, act circles around younger folks, strut her stuff in the fiercest fashions and share life lessons with the rest of us. She is literally everything, and someone who has blazed trails while keeping her dignity and keeping her values a priority.

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We may or may not all get the chance to see 93 in the grand fashion that Tyson has, but we can all learn something from the honorable way she’s lived her life. Check out some tips to living your best life at any age, particularly your 90s, from the Broadway and film icon.

The Importance of Taking Care of Your Vessel

“Age is a number, okay? We have the greatest gift that we could possibly ever have… And it’s this temple, okay?” Tyson told CBS. “And if you take care of it, it will serve you well. I’ve never been a person who drank, who smoke, who did drugs. Never. Because I love life.”

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The Importance of Making Health and Fitness a Continuous Priority

As she told Queen Latifah, or better yet, her former Trip to Bountiful co-stars Vanessa Williams and Blair Underwood told Latifah on her old talk show, Tyson does 60 push-ups every morning and enjoys a vegan diet.

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The Importance in Standing Up for Your Values

Tyson told Elle in her recent cover story that even in older age, she’s had to deal with people who’ve asked her to do things for TV and film that she hasn’t wanted to. But she has no time for it. “It became quite an incident—though not boisterous in any way,” she said about a recent situation. “I said, ‘There isn’t anything that I find important in what you’re asking me to do.’ Finally, it was worked out, but they weren’t happy about it. I did the show, and I was nominated for an Emmy. [Laughs] So you never know. I can’t go against my grain.”

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The Importance in Not Being Afraid to Be a Trailblazer

While on the TV show East Side/West Side, Tyson told the Washington Post that she was given a hard time for embracing her natural afro on national television.

“Being on that show with that natural hairdo for the first time in the history of television is what started the natural trend,” she said. “I tell you, I got bags and bags of mail, from all over, telling me how I was disgracing the black woman. And the hairdressers all complained about the fact that they were losing business.”

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The Importance in Fighting for Equality in Relationships

“One of the things I have always said about the man-woman relationship is that I don’t want anybody to walk ahead of me and I don’t want anybody to walk behind me,” she said. “I want a man who will walk along beside me. And that’s how I feel about equal rights.”

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The Importance in Knowing the Difference Between Being Rich and Being Wealthy

“I am extremely wealthy. I have life, I have health, I have a warm, wonderful family. I have an incredibly wonderful relationship,” she told Ebony in 1981. “Shall I go on? I don’t think you can measure wealth in dollars and cents. I really don’t believe that all because there are some things that money cannot buy. One of them is health. And the other is security in your relationships and friends.”

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The Importance in Knowing Your Worth

“The moment anyone tries to demean or degrade you in any way, you have to know how great you are,” she said. “Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat.”

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The Importance in Finding People Who Bring Positivity into Your Life

“All I have to do is find someone who has something to say that will enrich my life and they can’t get rid of me.”

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The Importance in Knowing There is a Positive Even in the Negatives