I think Maurice Chevalier hit it on the head when he said that he preferred old age to the alternative.
Ageing is not an illness it is a natural process of maturing. How we approach those latter years depends entirely on how we ourselves see this process. There are many useful ways we can enjoy this period of our lives or we can just assume we are of no value to society anymore and disappear into our little shell to await the inevitable. We have a choice!
It is said we can all learn something new every day by keeping our minds and our bodies active. We can use the facilities available to us by the U3A or University of the third age. This concept is brilliant, as it caters for so many different tastes and activities. The simple learning programmes are delivered by volunteers in the community with the knowledge and experience to enable all seniors to continue learning and striving towards new, yet simple goals.
Charitable organisations in our community can always do with extra pairs of helping hands and generally it doesn’t matter if those hands might have wrinkles or tend to shake a bit.
When the kids, or grand kids, point out you are old because you have wrinkles and grey hair, your response should be that grey hair is great, ask anyone who is bald! Mark Twain had the answer for wrinkles. He said wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
We should never see ageing as a downward slope towards the end of life. Age is only a number and not important unless you are a bottle of Penfolds Grange or a cheese.
I’m Peter Mack and that’s life.