Graceful Aging
Sustainable Graceful Aging
This hub was written by my sister Alma Caoagdan more than a decade ago. I just did the editing part. This hub presents her insights on aging gracefully.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
“There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to harvest”
Aging for some people is a dreaded disease that brings sorrow, loneliness, stress pressures and fear. There are so many thoughts embedded in the word “aging”. Aging involves physical, mental, emotional, financial and spiritual maturity. Does the fear of aging dwell in the mind alone or is it a real experience that one should joyfully welcome its presence in life.
Let us take aging in a physical perspective. Aging is the process of changing our bodies from normal to abnormal activities, from ordinary to extra ordinary functions of our body cells and organ systems. There are factors affecting the speeding up of aging process like genetic and environmental factors. When I say genetics, basically it tackles the composition of our natural physical bodies as well as the hereditary genes from our parents or from our nearest kin that interacts with our environment. The pollution that we breathe every day, the water that we drink, and the society that we live in. Another important factor of aging is our healthy lifestyle. When I say healthy lifestyle, it involves so many things. To describe a healthy lifestyle, these are the habits of non-smoking, drinking alcohol in moderation, exercising, getting adequate rest, eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, coping with stress and having a positive outlook.
Articles have been written a hundred times about aging, youth and beauty. But the reality exists that nobody can escape the aging process. All of us will experience this very crucial episode of life. The bible says, “there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven." God is too wise to be mistaken that He made everything temporal under His dominion. Life is not just about money, power and fame. Life is not even for the purpose of surviving our basic needs and meeting successfully our goals and dreams. There are more in life and aging is just a part of it.
Aging is a gift of God. It is where the faithfulness of God has been displayed mysteriously and wonderfully. Through the years, wisdom and knowledge has been added to life, evaluated experience and enlargement of territorial connections have all become life's wealth and abundance by which young people have not acquired in their younger years.
Across the miles, many are experiencing the same, only differs from the way they handle and anticipate it. There are those who welcome aging naturally and joyfully and cherish the moment. Others may be bitter and sorrow. There are people who worry too much and failed to plan ahead. But there those who are wise, smart, realistic, excited, prepared, hopeful and joyful. Who are these people? Are you one of them?
I guess, there is no greater thing in this world than to be at peace and serene no matter what are the circumstances that we are going through. It is not the stress, nor pressure of life nor fear, the things that should speed up our aging but only the natural phenomenon that one has to go through as his life progresses. It begins in our mind, that one should be totally free from the bondage of greediness, worldliness, selfishness, unforgiveness and unhappiness. These are negative feelings and emotions that tear down anybody uncontrollably. We should not dwell on these things. They will steal the joy in our hearts and will advance our aging process. If you haven’t tried surrendering your life to Almighty God, you can try in the moment of your solicitude. Our inner peace and joy will naturally speak for us. It will create us a fountain of youth that enriches anyone who comes near us.
Having a healthy lifestyle, a complete serenity and peace in our hearts, trusting God that He is able to take care of what we have entrusted Him for the day, would definitely bring us back to the graceful aging of our spirits, body and soul.
Ecclesiastes 8:1 “ How wonderful to be wise, to be able to analyze and interpret things. Wisdom lights up a person’s face, softening its hardness.”
