I have decided never to get old.
I think the mere act of making that decision means the battle is half won. I think if you’re not aware and committed to this goal, “oldness” can creep up on you, and one day you wake up and say, “Hey! I’m old! When did this happen? How did this happen?”
You know what? Before I go any further, perhaps I ought to offer up my definition of “old,” because it might not necessarily be the standard definition, and I wouldn’t want anybody to misunderstand me before I even get started.
To me, “old” has nothing to do with chronological age, and first and foremost everything to do with ATTITUDE. Old is having a “stale” attitude, a lack of enthusiasm. Old is when you are stuck in a rut for such a long time that you no longer even *know* you’re in a rut! And even if you did know, you wouldn’t care.
Old is also a lack of health and vibrancy. I’m talking about physical health, but I’m also talking about so much more. Of course I know that as our bodies age, deterioration is inevitable. That’s not what I’m trying to avoid. This is not about Botox and mega-vitamin treatments. Though of course part of staying young is treating your body kindly so that you do everything you can *within reason* to stave off that deterioration.
So I believe that a little exercise, fresh veggies, whole grains, no smoking/drinking/drugs/etc. can do as much for keeping your mind young as it does for keeping your body young. And visa versa. Because body and mind work together, they are two sides of the same coin. The longer I’m alive, the more aware I become of this fact.
And it’s because I am aware of this fact that I feel I have the ability to consciously keep myself from getting old. I stay young by delighting myself in the things I choose to fill my life with—lively music, funny TV shows, cats, books, conversations with my cerebral husband about the origin of words, proper uses of grammar, and the literary devices in the TV shows we’re watching. Yeah, nerdy, I know. But I love language and literature. I love music. I love nature. I love life. And I think that as long as I go on loving life and all there is in it for me, I will not get “old.”
“Old” happens when you sleepwalk through your days. Every day that you coast by, not bothering to be aware of all the positive forces around you is a day when the enthusiasm and vibrancy of youth slips away, bringing you one step closer to “old.” So, with this in mind, I have made a decision not to “sleepwalk” through my days. I’m making a commitment right now to do the following:
Each day, I will look for the opportunity to do at least one thing that I have never done before. It doesn’t have to be momentous, but it does have to be NEW. I thought this up yesterday, when I was on the bus. For some reason, I went to the back of the bus and sat in one of the “backwards” seats. I realized I had never sat there before. It gave me a whole new perspective on the bus ride. And that was when I realized that doing something new and different keeps us awake and alive and keeps us from getting “old.”
Maybe you could say it was an epiphany. It didn’t feel QUITE that momentous to me, but it was definitely some kind of turning point. It was a point when I realized anew that I can actively be involved in keeping myself (my mind, my body, my spirit) awake and fresh.
Never stop learning. That’s what it’s all about. Last summer I read Bram Stoker’s Dracula. At the time, I ran across so many new words I had never known before, and I wrote them down, meaning to look them up later. Well, here it is, a year later, and I have just now run across that vocabulary list. But you know what? Better late than never! Today, I’m going to look up those words, and learn something new. That will be my “new thing” for today.
And then I may REALLY have something to talk about with my cerebral husband when next we start up our conversation about language, semantics, myth and literature.
I look forward to it!
