With Age Comes ....

Thoughtfully turn the pages of your life. And then go out and live!

I’ve reached a rung on the age ladder where I want to reach a hand down. So, a little musing about my own adventure in aging and some mild advice to those who are entering this incredible new country.

When I was younger, I valued tenacity.  I thought I knew the right way to do things and often overreacted, possibly defeating my own genuine desire to be helpful.  With age, came new insights.  Looking back over one’s life is like reading a journal of good counsel.  I see many faults.  Hopefully, more of passion, than of cowardice or coldness.  Dante rightly claimed that the sins of the cold hearted were at the depths of Hell.  I see the value of forgiveness, to myself and to others, and a need to experience the forgiveness of others.

With age, comes a recognition that patience is a virtue and that one must wait, watch and learn while others work through the problems we all face together.  You don’t get very far preaching.  We can only share our own experiences and help others explore theirs. 

With age, comes a habit of gentle skepticism.  It is not that we shouldn’t challenge convention. There are always “better choices.” It is that they are seldom clear-cut and obvious. I wholeheartedly endorsed the “doctrine” of fallibilism.  Absolute conviction is above my paygrade.  It is above all our paygrades as creatures of passion, habit, fantasy and fear, that is as humans of every tribe and creed. Recognizing fallibility is our escape hatch from fanaticism. The simple statement: “I’m not sure.” The follow-up, “what do you think.”

One caveat to this, however. Skepticism does not mean the closing of the mind. The idea that the old are less generative of new ideas has been culturally imposed, and historically disproved. Popular culture makes fun of the inability of the old (dogs and humans), to learn new “tricks.” See the cartoon above.

Yes, I agree, I don’t want to learn any more “tricks.” Good skepticism should exclude fads. But new ideas are the joy of aging. Absent some of the pressures of middle-life, a person can indulge his or her imagination. If it is harder to grasp a new idea, it may be because with age comes a desire to grasp deeper, to comprehend more fully, to link the new idea with past experience and thought.

I hope you will all face the future with excitement and hope. Resist the idea that you are old of mind. Your present mind is larger. More points of entry? More appreciative of discoveries? More adventurous, let’s say.

So, yes, read the book of your past. See it as another gift of growth. And then leave it aside and take your renewed understanding with you on the journeys you still can make.  Your best of life is yet to come, for you may not only live it better, but more fully.