Are you prepared to grow older?

We live in a world that is obsessed with looking young and beautiful. Faced with loss of youth, many of us feel profound fear, loneliness, and regret.

Often our preoccupation with the loss of our youth prevents us from welcoming the changes and the journey ahead. But you can make a shift toward embracing the gifts of aging. Here are some ways to create a positive and wonderful aging process.

Cultivate Your Relationships
The older we get, the more crucial it is that we matter to someone and feel a sense of connection. Whether they are family or friends, if you stay in regular contact with those you are close with, they will relate not to how you look, but what you are deep inside. This will affirm that you have value.

 Connect With Your Spirituality
We need to be in touch with more than just our day-to-day routines and reality.  Whether it is through meditation or prayer. We can all find that sense of meaning in life that goes beyond ourselves and gives us an inner refuge and home.

 Protect Your Health

We all know that eating a healthy diet from all the food groups strengthens our body and helps prevent disease.  Appropriate, natural exercise renews us both mentally and physically. But try not to be obsessed with perfect health or fear of sickness. 

Exercise Your Intellect

As we read widely and listen well, we will continue to relate widely to diverse peoples and opinions. Our inner life will be richer as we better understand our past and, with curiosity and discipline, learn, accept, and build on new things.

 Rejoice in Nature
As you walk, hike, or relax at the seashore, take the time to breathe deeply and take the beauty of forests, mountains, and lakes into your heart. As the years pass, such connection with nature will give us all a sense of being grounded and connected to something greater than yourself.

Build Your Legacy
When you think of how best to spend your time, you give greatest value to what will be there when you’re gone. That’s why with parents, spend maximum time with your kids and give, give, and give more. That way, the good in you will take root in them and live on. Try to channel your actions into what will outlast you and build your legacy. It may be the trees you plant; or the art you paint, sculpt, write, or build, or the minds you enrich. Age matters less when we pour ourselves into people and things that will in their own way continue us. It is our job to search this out and put our efforts there. If we do this, we may not even realize we are growing old.