16.
“Don’t soil your now with your thoughts of what the future might bring…”
“The truth is, we never quite know what the future will be like. When you are 3, and you think of being 10, it seems so mature. When you are 10, and you imagine being 16 and what it will be like, it is never how it actually turns out.
What did you imagine 63 would be like when you were 20?
You don’t actually know how you will age or when you will die. This might be your last day on earth! Thinking does change as you age. When you are young, you can always imagine a future when all of your problems are solved. Of course, there never is a day when all of your problems are solved. They just change into different problems.
I try my best to really notice all the good of today rather than focusing on potential problems that may or may not arise in a possible future that I may never live to see. Instead of thinking about my arthritic knees, I notice that I don’t need to use hearing aids.
I’ve noticed so many benefits from aging. I no longer have to work. I’m happier in my own skin. I worry much less about many different things. I’ve experienced living through things I worried about, and often, they worked out fine in the end.
I do try to make sure that I have a range of interests and friends, things I could enjoy without so much physical fitness so that as I’m no longer able to enjoy my physical hobbies, I will still have a rich and full life.
I find the very old people that I know very interesting, especially if I clearly remember them being my own age. I’ve seen them age. I’ve seen how happy they have been at different times in their life. Their happiness doesn’t correlate very strongly to how able they have been at any one time.”
