.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

 

Thoughts on getting older

I recently turned 60 which came as a bit of a shock to me as I still like to think I act more like a 30 year old. I remember back in the sixties there was a slogan: Never trust anyone over 30. This sounded pretty good to me until one day Bob Dylan turned 30. He is much older than I am but at the time I thought, 'Well if we can't trust Dylan, who can we trust?' Of course the whole thing had to go right out the window once I turned 30 myself.

I thought I'd accepted the Buddha's teaching that all that exists is impermanent and subject to change. Yeah, I've been changing all these sixty years but there is a part of me that still wants to be thirty. Am I attached to that? Perhaps.

Eventually I came to terms with the possibility that some time in the next 20 years or so this being known as 'John Shield' whom I identify as my self will cease to exist. Obviously I don't know when this will happen but the one certainty is that it will. And there is nothing I can do about it!

Well, there is nothing I can do about dying. But I can do something about living until that day comes. I can choose to live life to the full. Why waste a day? Hopefully I can regularly remind myself to never miss an opportunity and to make the most of those that are offered to me. I'm not sure this will make any huge differences to my life. Simply I look forward to continuing to live, ie really live, as long as I can, to continue to experience life and to not seeing these years as ones when I slow down in wait for the imminent arrival of death.

Comments:
Nice thoughts.
As Dylan says, "Keep on keepin' on!"
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?