Bette Davis said that getting old isn’t for sissies. She’s right.
I spent my youth thinking that once I got older, I’d have all this shit figured out, and life would get easier. I’d just have to slog through life and try my hardest and do my best, and then once I turned, IDK, 40 or something, I’d be able to sit back and collect royalties and opine on how well I’d managed to craft my life into something wonderful.
Welp, that didn’t happen. 40’s didn’t get me there. 50’s didn’t get me there. 60 hasn’t gotten me there either. But I have learned a few important lessons:
- Struggles to rise above and understand why things happen and why we self-sabotage while striving to do better IS the human condition for most of us. If it isn’t, it could mean we’ve made it, or more likely, that we’ve given up on ourselves and humanity in general.
- People who claim to have all their shit in one sock are NOT to be trusted—they’re either lying or delusional. Don’t sign up for their class, don’t give them your money, don’t vote them into positions of power. Anyone who claims to know everything knows nothing.
- Wisdom comes with age only if we’re willing to keep our minds and hearts open and continue to uncover and accept the often-uncomfortable things we learn about ourselves and others.
- Getting old means that our bones and joints may begin to calcify and stiffen into immobility. But it’s much worse when we allow our minds and opinions to calcify and stiffen into immobility. Yes, it’s bad when you can’t bend over far enough touch your toes. But it’s even worse when you can’t bend your opinion far enough to consider a different viewpoint.
- No matter how old we are, our time is running out. Our clocks started ticking at birth, and every year, they seem to be running faster. The books I wrote decades ago but never published are starting to worry that I’ll never get around to giving them the attention they deserve. I’m starting to worry too. I thought I’d have all that done by now, but I haven’t. It’s more important than ever that I be mindful and strategic in where I direct my focus and effort going forward.
- It’s NOT all downhill from here. If you’re doing it right, it’s all uphill, all the way.
Whether you’re young or old, you’ve still got a ways to go in this lifetime, and sometimes life is a hard row to hoe. What’s important is that you’re still engaged and interested in understanding and directing your own life path. It’s important to realize that there is no end-point destination, no mountaintop you can conquer before going “wheee!” down the other side. The downhill slide you’ve been hoping for isn’t going to happen until your brain, body, and spirit give up, and when that happens, you won’t be aware that you’ve let go of the reins.
Bette Davis was right; growing old isn’t for sissies. The timeline to achieve your goals grows shorter by the day, but now you’re doing the work with achy joints, decades of accumulated mental and emotional trauma, and an ever-more-delicate digestive system. Meanwhile, if you’re lucky, heaps of good ideas about the things you still want to do keep coming.
Getting old is just a continuation of life, not an end point, not even a turning point. It’s all just steps along a journey that doesn’t end until we die… and maybe not even then.
So buckle up and get busy. You ain’t done living yet. Not even close.
