“Take care that old age does not wrinkle your spirit even more than your face.”
—Michel de Montaigne
Growing old is not something that most people look forward to, but when we consider the alternative, it doesn’t seem all that bad. The only alternative to growing old is dying young. Our physical bodies begin to age the moment we are born, and the process continues until the day we die. There are, of course, things we can do in an effort to alter the physical effects of aging. They range from healthy living habits to major cosmetic surgery, and a staggering amount of money is spent each year on trying to slow down the aging process, but, for the most part, physical aging is inevitable.
Unlike our physical body, our spirit does not have to deteriorate as we grow older. On the contrary, some people manage to keep their spirit high to the very end of their life. It is mostly a matter of attitude. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most people are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” I think Lincoln hit the nail right on the head. Some people go through life with a big chip on their shoulder. If everything goes their way, they can be happy, but whenever the road of life becomes a little bumpy, they behave as if their world were about to come to an end. Other people make the choice to try to be happy no matter what the circumstances of life. Such people are not always successful, because nobody can be happy all the time, but at least they are not looking for an excuse to be unhappy.
Personally, I see little correlation between age and happiness. There are reasons to be happy, and other reasons to be unhappy, at every stage in life. It is true that when we are young we have our whole life ahead of us, but that can be scary as well as exciting. As we reach the later stages of life, we can take some comfort in what we have accomplished, and we have more time to focus on our relationships with the people who have become so important to us. If we have had the good fortune of having children and grandchildren, our lives can be so much richer than when we were young and single.
One of the greatest assets that we have in the later years of our lives is the accumulated experience and the wisdom that has resulted from that experience. If we have learned from life, as we should have, it will be easier to make sound decisions and to view life philosophically. When I was a child, my mother was a great help to me in absorbing the little bumps of life. Whenever I became upset over some little incident that seemed so important at the time, Mom would always say, “Twenty years from now you will have forgotten all about this.” She was so right. Most of the things that we get so upset about today will seem insignificant a little farther down the road of life. If we realize this, it will be a lot easier to cope with the little problems that come along so often.
Think about it.
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Copyright 2026
Allen W. Smith
