Overcoming the Concern of Growing older

By Leo Babauta

Final yr, I turned 50 years previous … and I discovered myself enthusiastic about getting older greater than I ever had earlier than. To be clear, 50 years previous remains to be fairly younger, however there’s one thing concerning the quantity that had me realizing that my 60s and 70s aren’t very far-off, and it was a bit confronting to me.

In any case, I’d spent most of my life considering that rising previous was one thing to concern. It’s a cultural assumption that goes deep into our society — beliefs that being previous means you’re feeble, weak, helpless, irrelevant. I do know that that isn’t actually true — however we’re consistently given cultural messages that it’s true.

So after I turned 50, I spent a while sitting with this. What does it imply to me to get older? What are my fears? What are my prejudices? How do I would like my older years to be?

As an train, I extremely suggest that you simply begin to discover your individual biases about getting older and being previous, and see how usually individuals round you (and within the media you eat) discuss getting older as if it’s a foul factor. The phrase “previous” is used as an insult. For those who say you’re previous, different individuals will inform you, “Oh, you’re not previous but” as should you had been insulting your self. Or, “It’s OK, you don’t look previous.” Or, “You look younger to your age!” These are supposed to be reassuring, as a result of being previous is assumed to be unhealthy.

It’s throughout us. And when everybody and all the things we encounter treats being previous, and getting older, as one thing unhealthy, then in fact we’re going to concern it. It’s just like previous cultural messages about being chubby, being homosexual, or having a psychological incapacity. These are all become insults, which suggests if we’re any of these items, we are supposed to really feel ashamed.

Let’s insurgent in opposition to all of that! Reclaim being previous, reclaim getting older. If we will change these messages, at the least to ourselves, then the concern and disgrace lose their energy over us.

So listed below are some issues I’ve completed previously 18 months to remodel my relationship to getting older:

1. I began noticing my very own biases in opposition to getting older and previous age. And began noticing it in the way in which others discuss getting older and being previous.
2. I began pointing this hidden agism out to others, lovingly. And altering my language round all of it.
3. I began seeing people who find themselves empowered of their previous age — athletes, Nobel prize winners, unbelievable artists, people who find themselves pillars of their communities, monks and sages, gardeners and home builders. I began seeing them as my fashions.
4. I began envisioning how I wish to be in my older years. Empowered, compassionate, inventive, adventurous, studying, increasing. Light, variety, and curious.
5. I started to sit down with my fears of being powerless. That is the hidden beast beneath our fears about getting older — none of us wish to really feel powerless, and but we’re all descending into helplessness ultimately. So I discovered locations the place I already really feel powerless, and commenced to convey compassion to myself each time I really feel it.
6. I see each problem that may come to me in previous age — bodily, psychological, emotional, relational, profession, religious — as precisely the sting for me to observe with, once they come. My energy and knowledge will solely deepen as I encounter these challenges, as they’ve with all of my challenges thus far.

And with this, I now really feel so in love with rising older!

It’s a magical factor, residing into this new chapter of my life. I really feel extra affected person, extra compassionate, extra related to others, than ever earlier than. And I sit up for the journey that awaits me as my physique and thoughts and spirit proceed to evolve.

I want you all love as you progress in your journeys as nicely.