Getting better all the time

What are the advantages of getting older?

As I once again struggled to remember a fact or name, and thought about the downside of this aging process, I got to wondering about the advantages of getting older (maturing or whatever the politically correct term/jargon is today) and thought that for my own satisfaction I’d sit down and list what I could think of and then I decided that I would research what anybody else has thought of this time of life.

All in all, this getting older is not all roses, but there are some pretty neat aspects of enjoying the Silver Life. To list just a few, I came up with the following:

Generally we tend to get happier and more contented with life and with ourselves. Sure there are challenges here: Financial shortfalls, loss of loved ones and friends, etc. But to more than balance that, we are no longer concerned about building a career; finding the love of our lives; or providing an education for our children.

We are stable and mature, and can view things from a much less stressed and more stable point at this stage of our lives.

A direct result of this contentment is that we deal with conflict more efficiently and successfully. In short, we know who we are and, if we let ourselves, can be pretty content with who we are and what we have accomplished, warts and all.

We become thankful for what we have. Of course, just being alive is cause for thankfulness, in spite of all the aches and pains that accompany our hard-earned wear and tear.

We can enjoy our children almost as friends, and we can spoil our grandchildren.

We have learned that we can wear our wrinkles with pride because we know that they are truly hard won “character lines”. And we have learned that it is fruitless to tell anyone what to do or how to live.

We are thankful for being set free of these and countless other self-inflicted obligations and expectations we made for ourselves on the way up.

There are some physical advantages of getting older. Our skin tends to clear up, and we lose the acne problems that plagued many of us. Migraines and other headaches seem to lessen in degree and frequency as we get older, as do allergies.

Some of the lighter side effects of aging:

• We get senior discounts almost everywhere form stores to movies, to motels.
• In a hostage situation, we are likely to be released first.
• The pharmacist has become our new best friend.

Here are some thoughts from folks who say it much better than I:

You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.

George Burns

I actually think there’s an incredible amount of self-knowledge that comes with getting older.

Jamie Lee Curtis

Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

So, enough of this moaning about living the Silver Life. We have earned our way to this point and there are more than enough advantages to make this the most satisfying time of our lives.

To quote Robert Browning “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be”.