Aging Well
“When I
use the word aging, I mean becoming more of a person...Your very
purpose is to age, to become what you are; essentially, to unfold and
let your inborn nature be revealed.”
Thomas
Moore (Ageless Soul)
Last evening, I had
dinner at a trendy little restaurant on the cobbled street, Morris
Avenue, in mid-town. Birmingham has become quite the “foodie”
destination and downtown is a bustling community of young
professionals who live in lofts above funky-yet-tony bistros and
shops. My friend and I were at least thirty years older than most of
the other dinners, which I've come to enjoy. I love to just sit and
observe and listen to their happy talk. How they laugh, thinking that
life is their oyster and always will be. Their bodies are like
beautiful works of art, moving with such ease, and their hair, a
rainbow of unlikely colors. Just a pleasure for the eyes, like
watching an exotic movie.
If you want to age well,
you have to start early. You don't have to torture you body in
attempts to forestall the aging process. You just have to stop
fighting it and find what is precious about it. It helps to swim with
the current instead of against it. But aging well is not easy or
fast. What it requires is self-examination. If you look within and
find negative emotions like bitterness, resentment, jealousy,
vindictiveness, root them out. They will contort your face, and if
entertained long enough, the contortions become permanent. Remember
when you grandmother told you to stop frowning because your face
would “stick” that way? It's true. While you're examining, do
what the 12-step folks call a “moral inventory” of all the things
you, personally, have done wrong in you life; what are the ways your
words and behavior have hurt others. This will help you to be less
judgmental. And finally, if you find within a controlling nature,
arrogance, neurotic insecurity, or neediness, get rid of those too.
They will drive people away and you're going to need a cadre of truly
good friends later on. By the time you do all this, you will be at
least middle-aged, if not older. Unfolding takes a while. But you
will also be gentler, kinder and wiser. Your inner child will have
learned how to play nicely with others, and will even enjoy playing
nicely.
Thomas Moore writes in
Ageless Soul, “You let your ageless self, your soul, peek out
from behind the more anxious, active self.” I can tell you from
personal experience, that this is not a 100 percent cure. If it is in
your nature to be anxious, you will always have to work on that. Your
worst traits do not have to deepen, but they will continue to be there,
hovering in the background like bad angels. You may make friends with
them—they are family after all—but you do not let them have their
way with you.
Your soul lives partly in
time, and partly in eternity so it can see the way forward even when
you cannot. If you allow soul to be your guide, you will have quite
an illustrious journey full of surprises, not all of them
pleasurable. You will enter into old age filled with your authentic
self, and without all the barriers to love and joy that your youth
may have erected. It's a good place to be. I recommend it.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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