With Age Comes ...

“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.”

― Oscar Wilde

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With age come wrinkles!  With age come those little aches and pains.  Experts tell us that eyesight and hearing are the first of the senses to go.  In essence, with aging we experience a slow deterioration of bodily functions.  Deterioration doesn't seem like a very promising word.  According to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, “aging” is a “Gradual change in an organism that leads to increased risk of weakness, disease, and death.”   The definition goes on, but enough said about that!  

I’m one of those people that happen to believe that there is always some good in everything.  So what do you get from aging that might be considered good?   With aging comes wisdom, or at least it should!    Really!  All you get is wisdom!  Hardly seems like a fair trade for deteriorating bodily functions, weakness, disease, and ….   Seriously, who really wants to lose their hair, their teeth, their senses, and in some instances, their memory (did I already mention that!)?  But wait, wisdom has a way of enhancing us spiritually, emotionally and soulfully.  

Wilde said, “With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.”  Don’t be one of those people who grow older, but not wiser.  You have to be open to receive the gift of wisdom that comes from aging.  Wisdom comes from experience, and the thoughtful reflection and analysis of the experience. 

With age comes tolerance and with tolerance comes wisdom:  The longer you live, the more you’ll experience.  You’ll be exposed to a variety of different people, cultures, and lifestyles.   Take the opportunity to embrace all people from all walks-of-life and respect and appreciate the differences.   The more you know about the world and the people in it know the wiser you become! 

With age comes perseverance and with perseverance comes wisdom:  The longer you live, the more adversity you’ll encounter.  Adversity is full of lessons:  lessons about you, lessons about others, and lessons about the world.  It takes perseverance to survive in the face of adversity.  Think of the adversity that you have encountered in your life, be it big or small; you persevered, made it through, and learned a lesson or two.  The more you persevere the more lessons you learn and the more lessons you learn the wiser you become!  

With age comes self-acceptance and with self-acceptance comes wisdom:  The longer you live, the less you care about what others think about you.  The contrast and comparison of yourself with others becomes fleeting when you age.  Experience has taught you that what you think of yourself is far more important that what others think of you.  When you learn to accept and love yourself, despite your imperfections and shortcomings, you’re being you!  And, there is a lot to be gained from being true to you!   

With age comes a better understanding of what’s important in life and with that better understanding comes wisdom:  When we’re younger we tend to be guided by societal and cultural norms.  Society tells us what’s important.    Age we age, we become less concerned with the dictates of society and more concerned with what’s really important to us.   We learn through loss that nothing last forever and the only thing we really own is our souls.   We’re not as concerned with the past or the future.  We learn to live in the moment.  Living in the moment allows us to extract all of the love and the beauty from the moment.  We learn to focus on what we have and not what we don’t have.   We learn that the secret to having it all is the knowledge that you already do. Experience is the great teacher!  There’s true wisdom in knowing what are the important things in life.   

Remember, with age comes wisdom or at least it should!   By the grace of the Good Lord, thus far, I have lived 19,046 days on this wonderful planet.  Knowing what I know now – I’d rather be old and wise than young and foolish – any day!   

It’s your life: live it, love it & celebrate it!
MJD

Weathering the Storm

“Life’s roughest storms prove the strength of our anchors.”
-unknown

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Mother Nature put on a pretty spectacular night show last night.  Last night’s show definitely awakened the senses and me for that matter!  The sky lit up brilliantly with flashes of lighting and the booming thunder continued to echo into the early morning hours.  For some, storms can create a feeling of uneasiness.  For others, storms can be downright terrifying.  Some storms come through without creating any damage; others come wreaking havoc.   Storms come and go, eventually they give way to calm, peaceful weather.  It doesn’t matter if a storm is just a light rain shower or a storm is of tornadic intensity, all storms come and they go!  The main point is that they always go away.
  

Failure, disappointment, rejection, and hurt are the storms that we all face in life’s journey.  There are many different life storms.  Some are like a light rain that creates a minor inconvenience for us; some are like a supercell  storm that produces hail, torrential downpours, dangerously high winds and can spawn tornado, leaving us to clean up its aftermath; and other storms are anywhere in between.
    

The storms we all endure are a part of life.  Some storms come with advanced warning, while others   roll in upon us without much notice.   Some of life’s storms are beyond our control; others are within our control.  Unlike Mother Nature who has complete control over when she decides to unleash her fury, some of the storms in our journey, we are responsible for creating.   Our attitude about life and our circumstances, and the decision we make, are capable of producing a storm.  If we want to minimize the number of storms in our lives, we need to examine our lives and determine what might be causing our storms.   Is it our attitude?  Is it who we associate with?  Is it our self-image?  Is it a self-defeating behavior/habit?   A positive attitude, positive associations, a positive self-image, and positive habits will lead to calmer and sunnier days on life’s journey.   It all starts with the way you think.  If you want to minimize the number of storms you encounter, then you must change the way you think; negative thinking produces storms, positive thinking produces sunshine.
  

For those times when a storm rolls in and it doesn’t seem like it will ever pass, try calling on the man, whom the winds and sea obey his command.   The Good Book tells us that the Lord was asleep in a boat, accompanied by his disciples, when a violent storm came upon them.  Terrified, the disciples awakened the Lord.  He said to them, “Why are you so terrified, ye of little faith.”  Then, he rebuked the winds and the sea and there was great calm (Matthew  8:26).  Remember, the Good Lord is with you during each and every storm you encounter.  He will not abandon you.  Have faith in him, for soon you too will experience “great calm.”

It’s your life: live it, love it, & celebrate it!
MJD