Aging is a funny thing. We all have to come to peace with the fact that our existence as mortals is temporary, one day we will die. We have to accept that as the central truth of our lives. But, what is even harder to come to grips with is getting older or, I should say, getting old. When you’re young you never really ‘get’ that you will get older, it only seems to happen to other people. Then one day you wake up and twenty or thirty years have past and you’re not quite sure where they went?
Coming to peace with the fact that we will get older, that our bodies will, one day, fail us is even harder than coming to peace with death. Death is an event…one day it just happens. Getting older, that’s gradual. It takes no effort. It happens while we’re thinking of other things! It can seem unfair I suppose, especially to those who haven’t made peace with it.
It seems unfair that we are expected to make most of the big decisions in our lives while we are in our teens and twenties. Most of us will choose our mates, our educations and our careers in that time. When we’re older we realize how little experience those grand decisions in our lives were based on. I know, at my advanced age, that I would hesitate to trust most twenty-something’s to make the big decisions for themselves. They just don’t have the experience or the wisdom to do so. Maybe that’s why arranged marriages are so popular in older cultures? In many older cultures it’s quite common for parents to choose the careers of their children too. I can see wisdom in that.
Those ideas rub against the grain of our American culture. Ours is a culture of youth. We believe in allowing every individual to make their own decisions and mistakes. There is a wisdom in our way too. We just have to be prepared to make quite a few mistakes. (When I hear some people seem surprised that they made a mistake in their life my response is usually: “Welcome to Earth!”)
Though, it’s clear it doesn’t happen to everyone, hopefully most of us grow up as we grow older. In growing up some of even become wiser. It seems the only way to do that is to pay attention to the mistakes and the successes in our lives and connect the dots that got us there. When we’re older we are not as driven by our hormones and other bodily chemicals so we can think more clearly…at least for a while. That must lend itself to wisdom too.
I think growing older is somewhat like climbing a mountain. At the base it doesn’t look as high as it does from the top. As we get higher, we can see farther. At forty you can understand 20…but at 20 you don’t get 40 at all! I guess that means some part of wisdom is in perspective too.
As we grow older, and hopefully somewhat wiser, we also have the opportunity to grow in character. We can put that wisdom to use in our own lives by becoming better people. It doesn’t matter how old we become, we can still grow. With character we can be good examples for those farther back on the path.
It just seems that, right about the time you really start understanding a few things, you’re too old to be able to do anything about them! Our desire then moves to wanting to share the things we’ve learned with younger people. The problem with that, in our culture of youth anyway, is that not many are inclined to listen. The young too often ignore the advice of the mature and then set about to make all the same mistakes in their own lives. Clearly, something is wrong somewhere!!!
Life is about growth. In growing we're going to make mistakes. In fact, if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough! Hopefully we live long enough to find some redemption and some inner peace. Life is not just some ‘thing’ we can hold on to…it's a process we participate in. It’s like a song or a book, it will end, but it can cause ripples that last for generations. Most of us are so wrapped up in our own lives that we sometimes forget that.
As we get older, we often forget many things…I can’t even remember how I wanted to end this just now?!?!
Oh well…Welcome to earth everyone!
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