As you grow older, which do you want to hold on to most: (a) Youthful body? (b) Youthful mind? (c) Youthful heart? What do you imagine you'll be like at age 100? (Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 942).
What
age is a youthful age – 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30? And when
considering whether or not to desire “going back,” I also must
consider what I would have to give up by going back. I would love to
have the spontaneity that I had as a five-year-old; I would love to
have the sense of exhilaration and growth when a 15-year-old; I
sometimes yearn for the sense of invincibility I had a 25, and the
sense of raw commitment I had a 30. But what I have now is a
profound sense of assurance and peace. These I did not have before
and I frankly would not want to give them up to acquire youthfulness.
Of
course, I would love to have the ease of movement of the 25-year-old.
The joints simply don't have the elasticity at age 68 that they had
at 25. I would love to be able to climb five flights of stairs and
think nothing of it, and to eat pizza every night and not wake with
indigestion or gain weight.
The
thing I fear most about old age I guess is the progression I have
sometimes seen evident into a realm of what can only be called
judgmental meanness and ideological ossification—a journey into an
early kind of mental death evidenced by a severe lack benevolence and
generosity. At its worst manifestation one is reduced to a
belligerent old man railing at everything that passes by. I can only
pray to God that I would die gracefully before such a fate should be
realized. Not,
I hasten to add, that this affliction cannot occur at most any age.
At
100 (if I should live so long), I will of course be diminished in
many ways. For example, I will have long since lost the skill to
drive a car. Yet I yearn for a continued measure of good health and,
I can only say, youthful mind. I think the test can be summed up in
this question: Will I yet have a sense of humor? Will I be able to
laugh at myself and with others? If I can, then life will be good no
matter what.
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