WHEN WE NEED AN EIGHTY-YEAR-OLD YOUNG-ONE TO REMIND US
Pic.: Chandrashekar Varir
”Abundance is not something we acquire…
It
is something we tune into.”
When we are young, we are less cautious… We take more
risks, and do it often. Being optimistic and zestful is easy when we are young.
But, as we age, we become more cautious… We take less number of risks. To
remain optimistic and zestful is not as easy as it used be, once.
“Age is only in the mind,” I have said it so
often, and I still do. “How old is really old?” Yes, I, too, have asked, and I
still do.
But, then, thoughts of aging do pop up in
mind, now and then, and I find myself playing safe, taking less number of risks…
becoming more and more cautious.
Is it not natural? I think, it is.
Is it not acceptance… being mature and
graceful? I think, it is.
Yesterday, there was a small function after our Tai Chi
class. Our teacher, who had completed ten years of Tai Chi teaching, had invited
many of his ex-students and us, the present students, to attend the get-to-gather.
Next to me was sitting a very ‘young’ couple – the husband was only 80 and the wife
was, perhaps, slightly younger! They told me,
that they were actively involved with Dignity Foundation, where they still
continued to practice Tai Chi. They lived alone as their only son had settled abroad.
Both, the husband and wife, were full of life, full of interesting stories… They
mingled with everyone in the gathering, cracked jokes, poked fun with each
other, and, yes, they were reminding me of what I knew, but was forgetting: “Age
is only in the mind”.
“There is life still left,” the ‘young lady’
reminded me, “so much to live and laugh still.” During the brief course of our discussion,
I had mentioned about the thoughts of future concern playing somewhere ‘at the
back of my mind’. The lady pressed my hand hard and said, “Let go those
thoughts from the back of your mind… Think and act young!”
In the evening, we had a Dawn Club meeting.
I got to hear it from a friend of mind, a self-made businessman, who was in his
early forties. He asked me, “Did you watch the IPL match - Rajasthan Royals playing
against Delhi Dare Devils, last night?”
I hadn't.
“Rajasthan Royals played like real ‘dare
devils’ – fearlessly, straight from the gut,” he pointed, “They played their
natural game and they seemed to enjoy it.”
Inside me, there are two worlds… the world of abundance
and the world of lack… The world of faith and the world of fear. Whenever, I
operate from the world of abundance, I operate in my full flow; I play my
natural game… fearlessly, straight from my gut. On the other hand, whenever I
operate from the world of lack, I operate with constraints; I play defensive,
safe… Fear holds me back.
So, though age has to mellow all of us down,
make us more mature, as the ‘young lady’ told me last morning, we should think
and act young… because, there is so much life still left, so much still to live
and laugh…
Yes, we need some ‘80-year-old young-one’ to remind
us that…
GERALD D’CUNHA
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