You can
share thoughts on aging, but there is nothing you can do to slow it down or
reverse it. You can stop it, but the consequences leave matters out of your
hands. Since it is happening to me and everyone I know, here are some of my
personal reflections.
The book of
Ecclesiastes has some beautiful phrases on aging though not always optimistic.
(Ecclesiastes 12) The Apostle Paul says those who have survived the years
should use their experience to assist those who are younger through their
example. (I Timothy 5:1; Titus 2:2) We can only hope the years have brought
some added wisdom.
My recent 63rd
birthday has prompted this blog, that milestone and the fact that two of the
members of my Monday morning Bible study also had recent birthdays. The elder
reached 99 and the younger moved into the decade of the 90s. Both are very
active, in reasonable health, and enjoy listening to my scriptural exposition
as well as laughing at my semi-humorous comments. They have learned through the
years how to laugh at poorly told jokes.
That is the
positive side of aging. The not so positive side becomes visible when the mind
begins to depart while the body remains strong. The beauty of aging disappears
in the face of Alzheimer’s disease or some other form of dementia. Our prayers
change from “Lord, help me age gracefully” to “Lord, spare me from aging like
that.” Our medical science has provided us more years for the body than it has
years for the mind. Aging can be a fearful thing.
Optimism can
have its day as we remember that aging is automatic, but how we age need not be
out of our control. Exercises for the body help both it and the mind maintain a
healthier condition. Good nutrition is a basic need for both mind and body. An
extra ingredient in this recipe for an improved aging process is attitude. What
you think about what you are has a high level of influence over what you can
become.
Are you just
talking yourself into a different viewpoint? Perhaps, but there is certainly
nothing wrong with that. Are you realigning your priorities and what are
matters of importance? Of course you are, but that is something you should be
doing all your life. Are you deciding that
maybe the future can in some measure be controlled by how we approach it? You
have arrived at a fundamental understanding of your life and its future.
As I have
been told multiple times, the one thing every individual always has under
personal control is attitude. No one makes you happy. You decide that something
makes you happy. No one can force you to become angry. You decide that what has
happened justifies a response of anger.
The same is
true of our attitude toward aging. We can decide if we will fight aging
(although I don’t think that’s a battle anyone can win). We can decide if we
will gracefully and peacefully drift into the years of physical and mental
decline. We can be frustrated we are not thirty with the capabilities of that
age. We could decide that every change in life can be met with an attitude of
finding the opportunities the new context presents. We may discover we are
growing as individuals even while the physical world says we should be dying.
Our cells have been
dying since the day we were born. As we progressed through life, we DECIDED to
do what each stage of life said we were capable of doing. I suggest, and intend
to live as such, there is no such thing as a forced surrender to dying. I am alive and one day I will
be dead. Until the day I am dead, there will be something in each stage of life
I can do. If I can only pat the hand that pats mine, I will do it with an
attitude of gratitude. And if I cannot do even that, then I will depend upon my
God to know what my desires would be if I could fulfill them.
