Maybe a getter question is, how old is old? And if you are old (whatever that is) what would you be doing? Would you be waiting around to die or would you be a green and growing human?
The following is a story told by a gentlemen named Walt Jones at 110 years of age and it bears repeating on this Monday morning.
“How old would you be if you didn’t know the date you were born and there weren’t no durned calendar to semi-depress you once a year? Ever heard of people getting depressed because of a calendar date? Oh, Lordy, I hit my 30th birthday. I’m so depressed. I’m over the hill. Oh, no, I hit my 40th birthday. Everybody in my work team dressed in black and sent a hearse to pick me up. Oh, no I’m 50 years old. Half a century old. They sent me dead roses with cobwebs. . . .Who says you’re supposed to roll over and die when you’re 65? I have friends more prosperous since they were 75 than they were before. And as a result of a little condominium investment I made a few years ago, I’ve made more bucks since I was 105 than I did before. Can I give you my definition of depression? . . . Missing a birthday.”
Regardless of what date the calendar says or how the birthdate on your driver’s license reads, I encourage you today to focus not just on “being” but on “becoming.”