Ramblings of an Old Guy! PT.5

I remember once reading a story about a sniper in Vietnam. On one occasion he was operating at night with a star-light scope. The jungle was so dark that not even starlight shone through. Through his scope he watched as a line of North Vietnamese slowly made their way across his field of vision. Each of them kept one hand on the man in front of him as they traveled, single file, through the dense jungle.

The sniper, using a silencer, shot the man in the rear first. The others kept moving forward, unable to see anything in the darkness. Because of the silenced shot, they were unaware of the man in  the rear being shot. The sniper then shot the next man in the rear. The column kept moving. He went through the entire column until he reached the man in the lead. As the sniper watched, the man in the lead got on his hands and knees to feel his way along the, now dead, column of men that had been following. He felt each of the bodies in the column. He knew that a sniper had dispatched the other men without a sound. The lead man then just stood up and waited for the next round and his fate.

In a way that is something of what it is like to grow older. You grow up and older with the people of your own generation until you all reach the age where some illness or accident begins to take out the people you have journeyed through life with.

As you grow older your bodies systems begin to feel the strain. They begin to malfunction and shut down. You lose the abilities you once had. Your eyesight. Your strength. Your hearing. It can be different for different people but, in general, you begin to share common ailments. You begin to use more and more pharmaceuticals for various pains and other complaints. One by one you watch your fellow travelers through time succumb to illness and die. At some point a fatalism takes hold of you and you simply stand up and wait for your own fate.

It is true that there is a sadness that comes with growing older. We lose the abilities that we once had. We lose friends and family that we once had. As we find what we really love, we have fewer and fewer people to share it with. That tempers the experience of having attained our dreams. There are loved ones I've lost that I would love to share some things I've accomplished with.

Death is inevitable for us all. We will all experience pain but, like the old saying goes, suffering is optional. It is here where we can exercise our freedom of choice. Each of us can decide how we will face the inevitable. The character that we've spent our lives developing reaches it's zenith here. We can simply stand up and wait for our fate or we can start living!

It seems to me that those older folks I've observed as being the happiest have a few traits in common. One such trait is that they never lose their sense of awe. Life always holds some new things to learn. There are wonders all around us. Losing our sense of wonder can cause us to lose our motivation to get up in the mornings. That's what depression does. There is no question that growing older can make one depressed. I've been there myself.

What helped me get beyond my depression is the same thing that is helping me cope with growing older...gratitude. I found, in the midst of my depression, that giving thanks to God for the gift of this life on a daily basis began to completely change the way I saw life. I stopped seeing it as a burden and began seeing it as a blessing. That same attitude has helped me deal with the inevitable end of life. Like a good Buddhist will tell you...life is not a thing to be held, it's a process to be participated in. I think of it as something like a song or a book. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. We can cease to participate in it...but we won't stop time...it will still end. So why not be engaged in the process?!

It is with these insights that I choose to participate in life. I choose to live and experience the wonder of it all. I choose awe and gratitude as ways of life. They give me a reason to get up in the mornings.

Something else I've noticed about happy older folks is that they have learned to love. They love their families, their friends, their lives, they love God...whatever. I have come to believe that the essence of love is extending our sense of ourselves. This is the 'sine qua non', the essential ingredient, to a happy life. We extend our sense of self to include our families, our friends, our pets...even our sports teams. We begin to see others as a part of us so what happens to them...happens to us. We mourn with those who mourn, we rejoice with those who rejoice.

I have come to realize that the universe is vast...so there is an unlimited source of things to come to love. I can extend my sense of myself for...an eternity! In my own limited way I think that attitude is teaching me something about God. My love for Him comes first...always. God is all about love. He gave us His law out of His love for us. He gave us His only begotten son out of His love for us! He is the source of all love, of all good things, and I want to be connected with the source of all love. Now that makes life worth living!

Something else about God...He is always there...unchanging.  No matter what changes I go through, He is my anchor. He gives me a purpose for life...a big part of that is learning to love. I'm not sure how people that don't believe in Him even get by day to day. I can't imagine my life without my walk with God. I know that whatever I go through, He'll be there beside me. Knowing that, I think I can face almost anything...even growing older!!