‘Old is gold’ goes the saying. Let me modify this quote to “The years of old age are the golden years of one’s life.” We equate ‘old age’ to sagging, wrinkled skin, faltering steps, illnesses galore, infinite number of medicinal pills etc. In fact, we are so scared of getting old that in the threshold years from youth to middle age itself, we start taking steps to ward off this eventuality. A silver hair here, a wrinkle there and people are horrified that they are ‘getting old’.
Birth-childhood-youth-old age is the order of life and try as we may, that cannot change. When a toddler grows , the parents rejoice; when childhood blossoms into youth, they are thrilled. But we want the cycle to stop at this stage without going any further. We want to keep the suppleness of skin and freshness of youth intact. To achieve this we are ready to take any amount of trouble. From anti-wrinkle creams to skin tightening surgery, we are willing to try anything. Never mind that these may cause even more problems than they solve.
Why not just let our bodies age gracefully instead of pretending to be what we are not? When we wouldn’t want an adult to have a body of a child, what sense does it make to crave for a youthful body in one’s old age? What we need to instead is to try to maintain our health. Moderate exercise, suitable yoga to keep ouselves fit is what we should be doing, not rushing off to dermatologists.
Old age is the time we should prepare for the inevitable – the discarding of the physical body. Indian tradition sets a period of life for ‘vanaprastha’ where a person retires to the forest leaving his home, family business, wealth, lives a simple life and spends his time in contemplation and prayer before moving to the next stage ‘sanyas’. Going and living in the forest is not practical today, but we can mentally forego attachment and live a peaceful life.
Recent studies have shown that people in their fifties worry less and concentrate more on the positive. Their worries and stress decline and happiness increases. This feeling of well-being keeps on increasing till the eighties. Though this period is the time when chronic illnesses set in, it is amazing to know that older people concentrate on the positives in life and are happy. These studies however, were conducted in USA and I doubt if the result would have been the same, here in India.
I have noticed that many old people here are disgruntled. Why are they different from their peers in America, I wondered. A little thinking made me realize that while in the US, parents let go of their children once they grow up, in India that is not the case. Till one’s death one is attached to family.
Interaction with the family is good and quite necessary for emotional well-being, but when you try to micro-manage the lives of your grown-up children and their families, there is bound to be rebellion. This in turn will create disharmony in the house, and negativism will spread among all its members. The older generation begins to feel left out, lonely and unwanted.
As old age sets in one should neither worry about its physical effects nor fret over family issues. One has lived one’s youth, done what’s best for the family. Now just let things be. Enjoy the sunset years keeping in mind Henry David Thoreau’s words –“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.”
Author: Pratibha Shenoy (Bangaore)
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