Something I've noticed about significantly older friends who continue to find delight in their lives - in spite of aging bodies & attendant infirmities, great & small - is they tend to see what they once considered rather ordinary in new & different ways, have a fresh appreciation for things & people around them.
Maybe that's due, at least in part, to their lives becoming more focused on what is nearby rather than constantly looking farther afield. Friends who are inching up there in years yet remain engaged with life & energized by what surrounds them are free to see the blessings that still touch fill expand their lives. Rather than dwelling on yesterdays or fretting about the future, they appreciate their present day.
It feels to me that the older folks who try to hold tight to the linear thinkng that served them well earlier in life have greater struggles than the ones who've stepped past linear into more spiral, even free form ways of experiencing life. That seems to be a key step in developing greater patience, more tenderness, deeper appreciation of the beauty around us, keener awareness of what "meaningful existence" means in their here & now.
So many - far too many - older people are distressed over why they are still with us, still here, but with declining bodies. People who've believed all their lives that the Divine has only our good in mind find themselves doubting that their elderly hanging on is some part of a Grand Plan. Whether you call them the hells or gremlins or whatever, negative thoughts & self-loathing feelings too easily creep in when defenses are down due to getting OLD.
I was raised believing in a God who turned all things - all - to a good end. That's an uplifting teachings, but it seems to put the responsibility to turn even horrific things to a good purpose up to the Divine. My personal belief is that everything that happens - EVERYTHING - is meant to be a source of fresh wisdom. That WE are meant to learn something from each thing that comes our way, not just turn it over to God.
The people who can't let go of backward looking perspective, who are blind to all the inspiring & uplifting things around them, who close themselves off to anything but what once was & is no more - they are lost. More than at any other time in their long lives, the aged & significantly older need to remain open to uplifting levels of inspiration, to look around & see all the people events experiences that are present in their lives.
We can see ordinary things with new eyes, with fresh appreciation when we remain open to what IS around us, rather than harping on what was, what is no more, what is behind us or dreading what lies ahead. The friends who take pleasure in their sometimes seriously limited older lives are able to because they accept the NOW with the same sense of gratitude for the present & wonder about what will be that they did as kids of 40 or sixty.
They might be elderly, but they're forever blessed with a fresh spirit & wondering eyes!
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