A client put the frighteners right up me the other day, when they said—with real conviction—that they were terrified of growing old.
I think it was the certainty with which they delivered this clear pronouncement (in addition to them being roughy the same age as me, with a similar focus on the outdoors, and on fitness) that had me sit up, literally, in my chair, as my mind panicked briefly:
📦🗣️ “Oh my god, yes!!! Why am I not more bothered by growing old?! How could I have missed that?! Am I just in denial, or what?!?!”
😂
It was such a shock to the system, to hear it delivered so matter-of-factly, that I screeched the brakes on our conversation immediately.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on, slow down… what?!?! Why'd you say that?! What on earth is ‘terrifying’ about growing old??”
They obliged, and the argument for this feeling of terror was pretty cogent, to be fair: decrepitude, loss of independence (loss of your marbles, potentially), falls, illnesses, pain, loss, death…
👴🏻 🛌 🩼 🫥 💥 😩 💊 🏥 🦠 ☠️ ⚰️ 🪦
LOL. It's easy to see how we get sucked into this stuff, isn't it?!
So then I had to stop talking, stop debating, and ask permission for us to be a bit quiet for a moment, so I could reflect on the feeling that was underpinning me not being bothered about the idea of growing old.
Because that's what I didn't get, really. In the face of such overwhelming evidence for how sh*t getting old is, why did I not see it as a problem?
🤔
Well, let me ask you a question.
Go back in time 20 years, or even just 10, and put yourself in your younger self's shoes.
Then, imagine the age you are now.
I bet you weren't really looking forward to it, were you? Because it's older. It will have had a story attached to it – a prediction from the mind (based on the past).
Now, shake that image off, take a deep breath and look around you. Check in with yourself.
You're that age. Here it is. How does it feel? What are you experiencing?
🙂
I'm guessing it feels pretty much how life always feels – there's this sensation of being alive, there's whatever information your senses are delivering right now… and then, there's the mind, too, talking about it all; providing its commentary about how it thinks things are going.
It's probably not that much different—identical, even—from what you were experiencing 20 years ago.
Will you be doing different things? Sure. (Different from what you imagined, when you actually were 20 years younger, I'm willing to bet.)
Will you have slowed down a bit? Probably (not necessarily).
Will you feel more tired (almost certainly)!! 😆 … but then again, not necessarily.
But you're still just having this felt experience of being human. It's exactly the same. It's all you get!
Sensations ✚ Commentary.
And when (if) you experience 80, it'll be from the perspective of a 80-year old organism. (Not from however old you are now, thinking about it.)
I think this is why I don't see ageing as a problem, per se. Because:
And when the mind does that, it has a tendency to freak out, because (all together now) that's just what minds do.
Me, on the other hand… well, I'll be rocking up to each moment, age 53, 63, 73, 83 (maybe… to everything beyond that first one), and seeing what life has to offer, right there, in that moment.
😘
Giles
p.s. This is why you ask any ‘old’ person how old they feel, deep down, and they'll say they never really grew up – they still feel like a child.
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Giles P Croft
A mind experiences the relative. We experience what is.