- Image by Sarah G… via Flickr
You can’t stop the aging process for your body. You can control the age of your mind.
It is natural to notice the aging process, particularly when you get to my age. Joints aren’t dependable and in addition they creak and ache. You don’t have the balance you remember and some of the muscle strength is just gone and catches you by surprise at awkward moments. Whatever you do to stop aging, your best efforts only slow the process, My plan is to resist the inevitable with downright pigheaded refusal to accept my desline. When I succumb – and succumb I must to the relentless forces of nature – it will be because it is all over. So I plan and attempt a 12 mile hike at 7,000 feet. People tell me that I am crazy to believe I can do this but in my mind I believed. Even managing only half the hike, I still believe I can do it next time. Just a bit more conditioning and an earlier start and I can go all the way. There will be a next time.
So what makes me so crazy? What compels me to fight the aging process? I can hear some of the answers questioning my sanity, intelligence and judgment. Go ahead. Tear me down. I am not buying any of it. My secret is that I know that my body and my mind are distinctly separate. My body may age but my mind will be whatever age I want it to be. I can completely control my thinking, my attitude and my actions. My mind is better than it ever was. I have a better understanding of myself and what I want than I did at twenty. And I fully understand the power of my mind to make the world that I want and to make my body perform beyond its limits.
I am not buying into old thinking. I am not accepting limits – even the ones my body tries to impose because I know the secret that society tries to hide from us about aging. We accept the lie that aging is physical; that people get old because their bodies get old and that when you get chronologically old you will then think old as well. You don’t have to age mentally. It is a decision. Just look around and observe how many people act old that aren’t old. They have no physical reason to think old and yet they are closed and negative about life and their future. You aren’t catching me in that mode. People may look at me and see an aging physical wreck, but this aging physical wreck will be living life full out, foolish as I may appear. Go on. Tell me I’m crazy. I dare you.
I think you or anyone would be crazy to not realize that they are the masters of their life. To survive the physical limitations means to find a functional active mental attitude.
Our capabilities for creating a signature lifestyle, which is unique and original resides in each of us.
We personally customize our life with meaning. Your original content is allowing you and those that read it a way to capture the essence of some independent thinking.
You can’t always delay aging as much as you would like, but you can retain the ability to balance it with a certain component of yourself that never ages, but improves.
Blanche,
I agree but apparently there are some crazy people out there willing to limit themselves.
I Am Old
Aging and death is a law of physics that has affected all living beings since the beginning of time. Humanity has no influence over the inevitability of this law, but we do have some impact over how we cope with this natural process. For many people, the feelings associated with aging and impending death are un-inspiring. We spend our last years surrounded by feelings of anger, sorrow, fear and regret. Too few people realize that we do not have to be the victim of these feelings; and in fact, can change these feelings by changing our actions.
Anyone at any time can create a meaningful life that is inspiring and fulfilling. We merely need to do things that have meaning. Even as we near death, it is possible to change fear into confidence, anger into contentment, sorrow into happiness and regret into satisfaction. Old age can be a celebration of life.
Self-examination of our core values, trueness to these values, and the establishment of a legacy of which we can be proud, are our means toward inspiring feelings. This path, that chooses to create a meaningful life by living a life that has meaning, can begin at any age. This path can transform us from victims of our past life to creators of our current and future lives.
Aging and death is inevitable – how we feel about aging and death is not. We have the ability to make our final years our best and most meaningful years. It is a matter of choice – a matter of common sense.
For more on this subject, go to:
http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/IAmOld.html
Yes…you are crazy, but that is a good thing. Hell, I wear my personal insanity on my sleeve and am better off for doing so.
When I was a kid my parents told me I was capable of doing anything I wanted. I believed them then, and I believe them now.
Can’t is still pulling on his pants every morning while Can is gettin’ things done.
Hi Ralph
It wasn’t until I read the comments that I realised you had reposted an older post. I thought you had just taken up hiking.
Pity you couldn’t manage the full circuit but at least you tried, which is commendable.
I have noticed that I don’t have the muscle strength or stamina I once had plus the knees aren’t what they were. I have just walked the 96 miles West Highland Way in Scotland over 8 days which was harder than the last time I did it in 2003.
We are now talking of doing shorter and flatter walks in the years to come, so it comes to us all eventually.
Bill
Bill,
That was over a year ago. At the time I planned to revisit with the intent to go all the way. It never happened. I think something inside me is saying that I can’t handle it.