“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
—George Bernard Shaw
Playing is not just for children. Everyone needs to play, part of the time, throughout life. The type of play we engage in may change as we grow older, and we may choose to call it something else, such as engaging in recreation or amusing ourselves, but we all need to allocate some of our time to having fun, no matter what our age.
We all experience physical aging if we live long enough. At age 80, we have less energy and strength than we had at age 40 or even at 60, and we might not be able to do some of the physical things that we did when we were younger. However, just because we age physically, we don’t have to age mentally and spiritually.
Some of us tend to be workaholics, and there is a danger that we will become so focused on our work that we will neglect the need to play. In order to avoid this, we need to budget our time and make sure we have allocated adequate playtime. Pursuing hobbies, spending time with friends and reading are among the most common ways that people spend their play time, but possibilities for using our leisure time are almost limitless.
Attitude toward life is one of the most important ingredients in any strategy to minimize mental and spiritual aging. And living one day at a time, without spending much time looking back at the past or worrying about the future, can help us to maintain a positive attitude. No matter what our age, today is the first day of the rest of our lives. If we can focus on getting the most out of today, regardless of what has happened in the past, we will have a better day.
Dale Carnegie, author of the excellent book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, advised us to live in day-tight compartments. He said we “are standing this very second at the meeting place of two eternities: the vast past that has endured forever, and the future that is plunging on to the last syllable of recorded time. We can’t possibly live in either of those eternities–no not even for one split second. But by trying to do so we can wreck both our bodies and our minds. So let’s be content to live the only time we can possibly live: from now until bedtime.”
We should all spend some time working and some time playing each and every day. We should also try to focus on living just one day at a time. The past is over and done with. No matter how many regrets we may have about the past, we cannot relive even a single day of it. We can’t live in the future until it becomes the present, so there is no point in focusing on it very much. Today is what is important, and we should live it to the fullest.
Think about it.
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Copyright 2025
Allen W. Smith
