“No longer forward nor behind I look in hope and fear;
But grateful take the good I find,
The best of now and here.” – John G. Whittier.
I don’t know if Mr. Whittier directed those wonderful lines to elderly people like me. At 63 yrs of age, I certainly feel alluded to. Don’t you think so?
If there’s a time in a man’s life that he takes “happiness” as a state of being rather than of having, it is when he is old and gray.
At this age our lights can go off anytime, our breaths, our last. So while we feel the warmth of sunshine against our face and hear the birds sing, why not make a sunshine within ourselves so others can hear our souls sing like a lark attracting a mate?
I know it’s a tall order for most. It’s like asking one to dance the bogey on a pair of arthritic legs. I feel it sometimes, as a matter of fact. But to give in is to surrender and surrender I won’t, till I drop.
So here are a few things I urge guys of my age do to be happy even when gray:
Never even think that you are old:
To do so would be to put yourself in a box – a box of old toys, used clothing and other relics of the past which are too precious for the thrash can but worthless for a garage sale.
Think of yourself as a person who’s seen and done much and whose data base is full of wisdom so timeless and precious to enrich the lives of those around you – assuming, of course, that you lived a full life.
Learn to live with diversity:
I am blessed with two kids, a girl and a boy. They grew up with the same love and caring and the discipline of boot camp. Yet they grew up to be entirely different in a lot of things in life.
Being a widower I have to be both father and mother to two adult people who love me so much, I think, that they still refuse to marry.
I have learned to accept not to create a fuss when my daughter will just announce that she is going to Singapore to visit a friend or my son to sleep over at his fiancée’s house.
Uuugggghhhh! The things young people do these days.
Be alone, but not lonely:
Of the inescapable facts of being an elderly, I find this the most difficult to cope with.
Both my children are out of the house most of the time, leaving me alone. The look in my wife’s face a few seconds before she died has remained a default in my brain; of how I dragged her to the car hoping that she will be revived when we get there.
These and many other crazy things I did can easily creep into my mind, making me feel melancholic and suicidally lonely
I keep them at bay by switching my mental channels and think, instead, of healthy, productive, happy and life-giving thoughts.
Take up a hobby or pastime:
As a freelance writer, a blogger and online business entrepreneur, I am well-covered.
On the side, I donate something to an orphanage to give hope to young kids.
We are all gifted with something. Find out what is yours and exploit it to the fullest. Never, ever, be glued in front of a TV set munching on something that gives you nothing but a stronger desire to do nothing.
Keep fit:
There’s nothing like a healthy body to make a healthy mind. Compromise one and you compromise the other.
At my age, I still play tennis, visit the gym and do tai chi.
Oh yes, my knees and hips are complaining. But it’s nothing that Tylenol couldn’t take care of.
Be sexually active:
There’s no doubt that sex is one of the determinants of being happy and fit. Let not the tolls of age worry you. Science can take car of that.
But nothing can take care of a mind that has given up on the spice that gives life a wonderful flavor.
Our needs diminish as our age increase. It means we are no longer burdened with having to make a choice among a lot of alternatives.
Which means that if given the choice between making an endless string of visits to my doctor or sit in a coffee shop and watch an endless flow of beautiful girls pass by, I would take the second choice anytime? Wouldn’t you?
Donate $ 1.00 and give an orphan a life
