Time keeps moving forward constantly. Time tends to carry us along no matter what. A friend said to me the other day:

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could STOP time or at least SLOW it down.”

I replied: “I’m sorry, but we can’t stop or slow time down. Look at that clock on the wall, notice the second hand move through one minute, that pace continues and does NOT STOP!”

My friend is 60 years old, he couldn’t believe that age was here already, and before he knows it, 60 will become 70!

***

Our days go by swiftly, they come and go, never again to see even one of those past days again.

***

My friend spoke again:

“I wish time would let somethings REMAIN!”

I thought: NOTHING REMAINS!

***

To me, later years are a time of losses. We lose our contemporaries, we lose our physical appearance, we lose our health, we lose our time, and our enthusiasm wanes. So, we live in resignation, accepting our age, with reluctance, and what we no longer have.

***

But there is light in the tunnel, we realize at least we are still ALIVE! Having good humour is the answer. I laugh to myself when I look at the liver spots on the backs of my hands. We create euphemisms, older instead of old, senior citizen is the one I use.

I feel young in my head, but then I look into the mirror. Who is that!

***

The thing that keeps me going is my writing, in which I enjoy researching different subjects for my blog and novels. This tends to overcome the restrictions imposed on my body by old age. The sage, Seneca, called old age an incurable disease. Come on, let’s get a cure! Ha, ha.

***

Is there a bright side to all of this?

Well, I love to reminisce about when I was a young man. I know I’m taking refuge in the past but it is good escapism. There is research that old people who reminisce a lot tend to live longer than those who don’t.

***

But, I try to live in the present as much as possible. It has been said, that hope for the future affects a person’s quality of life in the present. Older people tend to lose hope and that diminishes their present. But most senior citizens can readjust and make their existence worthwhile by resigning themselves to what is lost and making the most of what remains.

***

So, the overall picture is NOT as bleak as it seems. A lot of older people retain enough hope to consider life worthwhile well into their eighties. If you’ve got fairly good health and are financially secure, and have a passionate interest, you can look forward to quite a few good years

***

Old age happiness can be achieved with a combination of resignation and a commitment to living in the present and a perception that life is still good.

I will end with a joke that is true:

The only thing worse than growing old is BEING OLD!

Also published on Medium.