PHILIPPINES: You're Not Getting Younger Any More

DAVAO (Sun Star), December 5, 2005: You're not getting younger anymore, someone told me. Edgar A. Shoaff shares this information: "Old age is when you first realize other people's faults are no worse than your own." To which American icon Bob Hope adds, "You know you're getting older when the candles cost more than the cake." That's funny, huh? Here's another one from humorist Mark Twain: "When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old." Francis Joseph, Cardinal Spellman said, "You've heard of the three ages of man: youth, middle age, and 'you're looking wonderful!'" Moms Mabley is even more direct: "You just wake up one morning, and you got it!" Victor Hugo once claimed, "Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age." Henri Frederic Amiel retorted: "To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living." On the plus side of aging: "The best thing about getting old is that all those things you couldn't have when you were young you no longer want," L.S. McCandles. That's the problem with old age -- there's not much future in it. Who wants to be old? Not women! Lady Astor stormed: "I refuse to admit I'm more than fifty-two even if that does make my sons illegitimate." Elizabeth Arden declared: "I'm not interested in age. People who tell their age are silly. You're as old as you feel." Men, please don't ask women how old they are. They won't say anything. "If God had to give a woman wrinkles, He might at least have put them on the soles of her feet," Ninon de Lenlos points out. This reminds me of the story of a lady celebrating her 98th birthday. She was asked what she enjoyed most about her advanced age. "The lack of peer pressure," she replied. In the final analysis: "Whatever poet, orator or sage may say of it, old age is still old age." As a consolation, Stephen Leacock admitted, "About the only good thing you can say about old age is, it's better than being dead!" While browsing our library recently, I came across a book, "I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes," written by Glenn Clark. It's a very old book (published in 1937 yet!) but one story that came into my attention was the one written on pages 177-178. The title: "The Parable of the Man Who Found the Elixir of Youth." Interesting, isn't it? Allow me to share the story with you: A man came to another and said, "I am growing old. My limbs are not as supple as they used to be. My mind is becoming stiff and ideas no longer come easily to me as they used to. I dread old age. Why cannot we stay forever young?" "We can," said the other. "Tell me how," exclaimed the first one, "for if you have an elixir of eternal youth I would share it with you." "When you were young did you ever admire a teacher?" the other asked. "I did," the first one replied. "Did you ever admire a teacher so much that you tried to walk like he did, talk like he did, form your opinions like he did?" "Yes, many teachers I admired like that." "And after you walked, talked, and thought like him for many days, did you grow more like him or less like him?" "More like him." "And were all your teachers older than yourself?" "Yes, all." "So in becoming like the older people you admired and took for your models, you grew like those you admired. In the past, you admired age and took it for your guide. Now go and change your teachers awhile." "What do you mean?" the first man wondered. "Go and take a little child for a teacher, learn of him. Turn and become like a little child. Look out upon life as though you had never seen it before. Let every sunset be the first sunset you ever saw, and every sunrise be for you the beginning of a new day of marvels and miracles. "Look out upon life with eyes of wonder. Don't use over and over again old, worn-out opinions that thousands have used and discarded before you. Form a new spontaneous conception for every joy that comes to you. Don't define and catalogue each experience--live and enjoy every experience." And the first man went on his way, and he took children for his playmates, and his joints grew more supple and his mind more pliant and keen; but the greatest good fortune of all that came to him was the discovery that he could now see the little child in every man he met; in the most confirmed sinner he could see the innocent soul; through the deepest blackness he could catch the glimmer of Light. Thenceforth, he knew that never in this world, nor in the world to come would he ever know what old age was. For he had found the spring of eternal youth, and he would never again let it get away from him. Finally, here's a statement from Michael Hodgin: "Man is the only creature who spends two-thirds of his lifetime saving up for old age, and the last third denying that it has arrived." By Henrylito D. Tacio