Being over eighty is a moment of TRUTH. HERE ARE SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS:

Hey baby, YOU ARE OLD, period!

You are unlikely to charm anyone at a party with your smile and you’re preoccupied with wondering about hearing aids and walking sticks.

But anytime after 65 you can run into moments of TRUTH, because of aging.

So, you want to survive the elements of old age. You’ve survived up to now, for some there is a breaking point and for others there is not.

Through life you have hardships, things that are difficult and there is NO sign that anything will get better, that’s the point where people quit. But some don’t, they KEEP GOING ON!

Aging is a physical and emotional trial.

The physical part gets our attention first, many aches and pains and breakdowns even as we try to keep going, exercising and eating healthy foods.

But it’s the emotional part of aging that determines how “graceful” we age.

How we respond to aging determines whether we are content or slip into depression.

Your ATTITUDE is everything!

The last act of the Play of Life takes everything we have to keep on moving forward into the UNKNOWN.

So, lets say “YES” to the life we have. Sure we are scared and unsure but we are still here and we can still do our part.

I don’t run any marathons now. But I never did!

We don’t expect our small ailments to go away—just to be semi-treatable.

Pills are our daily diet.

What do we want and need?

A reason to get up in the morning—hobbies and socializing.

We need people.

We are INVISIBLE to young people. They just see the grey hair, NOT the person inside.

Society seems to write off old people—The Lost Generation!

If you’re lucky you have a wife, you need companionship.

Over 80? By this time you’re more tolerant and understanding.

I could go on another 5-10 years, or just another day.

So it’s not really worth worrying about anything.

Young people can be patronizing to old people—they think we haven’t lived, but we have, we’ve seen and experienced many things.

When I look back on my life, I wonder what I’ve done with it.

I took up writing in my retirement and it keeps me busy.

I’m happy!

I never think about the future, NOT much left anyway, I just live every day and enjoy it.

At this stage, health is more important than money.

On a good day I feel 21 but on a bad day I feel 100!

The worst thing about being old is the aches and pains and the frustration that you can’t do as much as you would like.

Everybody changes along with their circumstances. Some mellow and others become cantankerous!

Since I am an atheist, I find it hard to come to terms with my own mortality—that someday I will cease to exist and life comes to NAUGHT!

Technically speaking, I, as an atheist, should be better off and able to deal with death much easier as opposed to worrying about whether or not I’m getting the Holiday Inn or the Sahara Desert to spend eternity in.

Everything living eventually dies.

People are perhaps the only species aware of this in advance.

Knowing this can be depressing or it can empower you to make every day count.

The only time you have is NOW. You have a choice, spend your only time in existence with a good outlook or spend it in anxiety.

Don’t worry about not existing, for the most part of the past 14 billion years of the lifetime of our world, you did NOT exist.

And after you die, you will return to that state of nonexistence.

You must realize our NATURAL state is nonexistence!

Mother Natures handbag has three items in it:

Matter—Energy—Time.

The definition of aging is the effect of energy on matter over time.

Aging from the Outside—wear and tear on the body from outside sources—sunlight causes skin wrinkling ext.

Aging from the Inside—there is the chemistry of metabolism.

Metabolism allows life by assembling billions of chemical reactions that drive life.

Aging is the flaw, the price we pay for being alive.

The chemical reactions generate TRASH, which accumulates over time to yield what we call aging. Cells die, some get renewed, but NOT all.

So, aging is WEAR AND TEAR, from external and internal energy sources.

Luckily we can self-repair. But the repair mechanism reverses only a part of aging.

So, the EQUATION FOR AGING is:

WEAR AND TEAR MINUS PART REPAIR EQUALS AGING

In conclusion, remember this statement I said on my 80^thbirthday:

“As I look back on my life, which has been full of tragic moments—I see it as more of a COMEDY than a TRAGEDY.

One of those comedies in which, while you are laughing your guts out—you feel your heart breaking.

The man that takes life too seriously is doomed.”

ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE!