“They shall still bring forth fruit
in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing.”
Psalm 71:9
On the 9th of
this month as I sat in a taxi in Kuala Lumpur, the driver had lots to share
with me. It was the Election Day there and the man was angry with his
government and the corruption his country had been going through for years and
yet was hopefully happy that the polls held that day would bring a clean change
with the new Prime Minister. He proudly showed me his coloured finger to state
that he had voted for transformation.
Mahathir Mohamad, who had
once ruled Malaysia with an iron fist from 1981 to 2003 had now got a comeback
by a commanding majority to the opposition. His second innings today, is no
ordinary success story because he is the oldest elected leader in the world at
the age of 92.
This just proves that age
is only a number, which we need not keep concentrating on. In fact as we grow
older we must be happier that we have the capability to give up silly
distractions which would otherwise eat up a lot of our precious time in all
their immaturity. We must be proud that our grey streaks can help us to focus
on things valuable to us and others.
I happen to be acquainted
with an octogenarian who is battling his way through cancer with a smile.
Unlike an otherwise youthful man he does not spend time worrying about his
future though he is all by himself. He is a ripe bachelor and has no family to
love him back or miss him. But that does not deter him from being happy. He
believes in dealing with what has happened rather than being stressed about it.
He is an educator in real life, who has taught me that I can choose to adapt to
any situation; seen or unforeseen. He has taught me that I have a choice to be
knocked down by things happening to me or to stand strong and face them boldly.
This is a lesson in adulthood; it’s not about what I can achieve when I grow
old but what I can accomplish because I choose to reach it in spite of my age.
It’s a different vision of the whole dilemma which makes it into a possibility
of overcoming the hurdle and collecting pleasant cookies of a new understanding.
Mr. Maathir Mohamad’s
success today teaches us that we need not bury our passions as we age; but
instead, we can reinvent ourselves in a better light of newness. He has taught
us that our life is a product of what we make of it and that we can add pages
of new brands into it.
Ageing therefore, can be
made beautiful with new moments of opportunity and vigour and less of dwelling
in regrets. It’s good to remember your birthday but as Satchel Paige would ask,
“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” In 1959, this baseball player’s mother
announced to a reporter that her son was 55 rather than 53, and that she was
certain about it because she had written it down in her Bible. Paige wrote in
his autobiography, "Seems like Mom's Bible would know, but she ain't ever
shown me the Bible. Anyway, she was in her nineties when she told the reporter
that, and sometimes she tended to forget things."
Wouldn’t you call that the
spirit of youthfulness?
Picture Credits: Google
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