I just finished the book, "Tuesdays with Morrie" today. It touched on so many subjects that are dear to my heart, such as family, love and what is most important in Life. For those who haven't read it, it is about a man, Mitch, in his mid 30's who discovers his old college professor, Morrie Schwartz, is dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, when he sees him on TV. He decides to visit this old professor, and makes it a weekly trek, and in the process learns a lot about life. When Mitch asks Morrie (who is 78 years old at the time) about aging, and our culture's fear of it, Morrie has a fantastic reply.
I told Morrie I was already feeling over the hill, as much as I was trying to stay on top of it. I worked out constantly. Watched what I ate. Checked my hairline in the mirror. I had gone from being proud to say my age- because of all I had done so young- to not bringing it up, for fear that I was getting too close to forty and, therefore, professional oblivion.
Morrie had aging in better perspective.
"All this emphasis on youth- I don't buy it," he said. "Listen, I know what a misery being young can be, so don't tell me its so great. All these kids who came to me with their struggles, their strife, their feelings of inadequacy, their sense that life was so miserable, so bad they wanted to kill themselves...
"And in addition to all the miseries, the young are not wise. They have very little understanding about life. Who wants to live everyday when you don't know what's going on? When people are manipulating you, telling you to buy this perfume and you'll be beautiful, or that pair of jeans and you'll be sexy- and you believe them! It's such nonsense."
"Weren't you ever afraid of growing old?" I asked.
"Mitch, I embrace aging."
"Embrace it?"
"Its very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed twenty-two, you'd always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it."
"Yes, I said, but if aging were so valuable, why do people always say, 'Oh if I were young again.' You never hear people say, 'I wish I were sixty-five.'"
He smiled. "You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven't found meaning. Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can't wait until sixty-five.
"Listen. You should know something. All younger people should know something. If you're always battling against getting older, you're always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow."
"Okay," I said, "I'm wondering how you don't envy younger, healthy people."
"Mitch, it is impossible for the old not to envy the young. But the issue is to accept who you are and revel in that. This is your time to be in your thirties. I had my time to be in my thirties, and now is my time to be seventy-eight.
"You have to find what 's good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue."
"The truth is, part of me is every age. I'm a three-year-old, I'm a five-year-old, I'm a thirty-seven-year-old, I'm a fifty-year-old. I've been through all of them, and I know what it's like. I delight in being a child when it's appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it's appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own. Do you understand?"
I nodded.
"How can I be envious of where you are when I've been there myself?"
What a great way to treasure life. Thanks Mr. Schwartz. I only hope I can have that perspective some day. :o)
