Stay Young
I did say earlier that if you were worrying about getting older,
you should stop because there wasn’t anything you could do
about it. It’s inevitable. So why a Rule saying Stay young?
Well, growing older physically (and temporally) is something
we all have to do, and putting it off by endless surgery and the
like is pointless. Better to stay young. And by this I mean men-
tally and emotionally. Billy Connolly made a wry observation
in one of his shows when he bent down to pick something up
and made a noise, a sort of bending grunt that oldies make.
And he said he didn’t know when he had started to make that
noise, but it had crept up on him and he made it now. That’s
what I’m talking about—all those noises and actions we make
to indicate we’re old. All that wrapping up well when we go
out in case we catch a cold. All that making sure we take our
coat off when we come in, even if we’re going straight out
again, or we won’t feel the benefit. All that, “I’d rather just
have a cup of coffee if it’s all right with you” stuff. All that
“We’re going to the same place we always go on vacation—
you know what you’re getting.”
I was reading yesterday about a man who had just taken his
father backpacking in the Greek islands. His dad is aged 78
and he said he had trouble keeping up with him. Now that’s
staying young. I know a woman in her sixties who describes
how she feels the same inside now as she did when she was
- And it shows outside. That’s staying young.
Staying young is trying new things, not grumbling or saying
all the things you know people say as they get older. It’s not