Getting older...thoughts on aging

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can
happen to us.------------------------------------Leon Trotsky

Sri Easwaran succinctly puts some of my current thoughts about getting older into a very well worded context:


 "When the first grey hair appears on our head, it is a
critical juncture in life. We go to the mirror with a
sinking feeling of dread and try to pluck out the evidence
– one here, two there. But the more we pull out, the
more seem to come in. 
I tease my friends by asking which of them would like to
relive their adolescence. It always brings a groan. Youth
has a lot to offer, but so does the experience of age. In
India we have a joke about a man going to a barber and
asking, “Do you have anything for grey hair?”
“Yes,” the barber says, “respect.”
Just because we don’t have wrinkles or a grey hair, we
are not necessarily alive in the fullest sense of the word.
Real living comes from making a contribution to life. 
This is the paradox of life: when we cling to the body, it
loses its beauty. But when we do not cling to the body
– and use it as an instrument given us to serve others
– it glows with a special beauty, as we can see from
the lives of many great saints and mystics. When our
consciousness becomes pure, even the body begins to reflect
its light."

Note from April 2022...interesting to recharge around this reflection from 9 years ago...

    As I approach the age of 60 (in September) I have a desire to continue to live fully, intentionally, as a reflector of light and life, as long as The Creator gives me breath. 

    My newly found freedom to explore life from an independent perspective gives me even more impetus to live abundantly.  I am now living in my passion, as a home care evangelist and business development leader, mentor and coach, and traveling extensively, something I have always desired.
 Truly life is more abundant and free now as I enter this new phase.

2022--Lots of twists and turns have happened, but now I have added the experience of living in Chicago, becoming a provider in the home care industry...two EMR's later, still doing what passions I had identified in 2013...gratitude !

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