Our bodies age. As members of the kingdom of animals, we inherit a biology that grows less efficient with time. Glitches and injuries accumulate. Our youthful form is lost, and our aged one is gained.
Itâs a natural process, but we dread it. Why? Well, itâs also natural to fear loss, and itâs obvious that younger bodies are more capable, not to mention more sexually attractive. On top of all that, there are huge marketing forces that use young bodies to attract us and fear of loss to motivate us. No wonder we feel embarrassed and deprived as our bodies slowly deteriorate.
Not all cultures view aging so negatively. So the bias could be overcome. But how?
For one thing, we could take aging less personally. Aging happens to everyone, from the beginning of life to its end. And like they say, Growing old beats the alternative! Granted, some people age more slowly than others, but every one of us looks and feels older, eventually. We need not feel alone as we age.
Plus, we can lean into how aging is natural. We live in an era when âorganic,â âall-natural,â ânon-GMO,â âcage-free,â and other eco-marketing catchphrases are used to sell products. Manyu of us want the growth and harvesting of foodstuffs to proceed in accordance with nature, or at least without destroying it. Well, aging is at least as aligned with nature as organic farming. We could embrace growing older the way we embrace responsibly grown foods.
Whatâs more, as we grow older, we grow wiser. This isnât folk mythology; itâs fact. We learn from experience. We find more acceptance in our hearts. We assess our strengths and weakness with more honesty, humility, and self-compassion. We begin to view circumstances in shades of gray rather than black-and-white. Youthful hungers wane until we find ourselves valuing what matters over the long run above what feels pleasant in the short run. We care less about personal goals and more about collective ones. The gain of gentleness, nuance, and altruism compensate for the lessening of passion and militance.
One of the wise gifts of aging is an ability to see our lives in context. For instance, if you listed the names of all 108 billion people who have ever lived, at the rate of one per second, it would take 3,400 years. And the entire human saga has unfolded over just the last 0.005% of the time since life began on this planet. Armed with facts like these, we can begin to feel less affronted by the bodyâs aging. We can recognize common cause with all human (and non-human) beings who have endured the same fate. We can feel humbled knowing how the span of even the longest human life barely measures as a single tick on the cosmic clock. Each of us is a unique product of history, and with aging we are invited to celebrate this. We no longer believe our own small lives more important than those of all the others. We feel interwoven with a larger world, a larger sense of Self, and the great, beautiful mystery of Living.
This sounds ponderous, perhaps. So it also helps to take aging less seriously. Early in 2014 I underwent major surgery. Postoperatively, I was horrified to see how the abdominal muscles Iâd been strengthening for years now looked scarred and distorted. It helped lessen the sense of grief when I joked about losing my âlast bastion of sexiness.â The use of humor has a long history of helping the aged feel less burdened by wrinkles, sags, dribbles, creaks, and farts. We can poke fun at our own embarrassment!
Aging is inevitable, but it doesnât need to be miserable. We can find common cause with everyone who is aging, which is to sayâŠeveryone! We are all going through the same natural process. We can celebrate the gifts of aging: the wisdom, the perspective, the generous spirt. Freed of youthful anxieties, we can begin to enjoy life without worry, without so much fretting and planning, and without so much gravitas. Especially for those of us who found earlier periods of life stressful and frustrating, we can embrace our later years as our happiest.
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