- Image by davelocity via Flickr
Age is an attitude and not a physical condition
The face I see in the mirror when I shave is not how I feel. I don’t really accept the wrinkles and the white hair as me. I do my business and get on with life just like always. As I go through the day, I’m no different from the 30 year old I once was that hated being carded at the liquor store. My face doesn’t define me now anymore than then. More important, I don’t see my face most of the time and so I can be whatever I think I am. I plan on staying young.
Once you decide you are old – whatever that might mean to you – you limit your thinking. You stop doing young people things and do old people things. I resist that. I can’t imagine living in a retirement community with other ‘old’ people even if they are ‘active old’ people who are obsessed with golf. I like seeing neighbors of all ages walking their dogs and playing with their kids. I like being a part of life rather than isolating myself with others my age. I like being fully engaged in the real world and not a protected cocoon. If I stay immersed in the real world I hope I can stay young in my thinking.
You are only as old as you let yourself feel
I won’t deny that the body doesn’t work the same way it did at 30. Some activities are painful these days and I no longer have the grace of a gazelle but things still work. I can do pretty much everything I ever did. They may take longer and require more effort but I keep doing them. I can’t say that I feel as good as I did at 30 but I refuse to accept pain as a reason to stop doing what I always have done. I have decided that what I do is more important than how I feel. Doing what I did at 30 even with some pain convinces me that I am not yet old enough to act like an old person and cut back or give up.
I push myself?
I push myself both physically and mentally to learn new things and attempt new things. Adopting an entrepreneurial mindset after a career as an employee is a constant challenge. Pushing my body to work better to hold back the inevitable deterioration from aging is another push. It is an uneasy situation struggling to keep active and alive when the body is wearing down but I will accept the struggle rather than give up. I expect 20 more good years and I don’t plan to live them as an old person.
But what about you?
But that is my philosophy about facing the aging process. If you are retirement age, you will face the same strange image in the mirror and the pain in normal activities. What is your way of coping with the aging process? Share your experience of feelings. Do you feel old?
