Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.

Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.

DAVID BOWIE

We have all heard the phrase, “Youth is wasted on the young.”

This perspective, from the opposite end of the spectrum, arises from experience.

In our youthful exuberance, we are quick to make choices. Some prove to be great ones. Others, not so much. With each of these collected experiences, grows a foundation from which we are more centered, more stable, and (hopefully) wiser.

Wisdom usually comes at a very high price. It is paid for in many ways, not the least of which is time. Time enables us to gain perspective. To learn what works and what doesn’t. To improve that which we must improve and to stand upon the shoulders of our younger selves and see vistas we could not possibly have seen at a younger age.

Presumably, if you are a continuous work in progress, you are able to reflect and enjoy the previous chapters of your life and mourn the chapters that require such. In doing so, we are sculpted in countless ways through knowledge, emotion, physicality, spirituality and so much more.

So many of us are scared of aging. It comes at such a high price, and it leaves chapters, opportunities, experiences and possibilities in the rear view mirror, never to be visited again. In that journey, you tell yourself that there will always be one more opportunity to do whatever it is that you are leaving behind, but in many cases, those are all chapters that have come to a close. While we may wistfully hope that we will get that experience again, one day we are old enough to recognize that perhaps that is just never going to happen.

I think, to David Bowie’s point, we are wise to appreciate that while chapters are being left in the rear view mirror, we are growing in so many deeper and perhaps valuable ways. Our intuition is sharpened. Our opportunities, in many areas, broaden. Our relationships mature. Our shared memories with loved ones, family and friends expand. Our awareness of the most important qualities of life improves. Our understanding of spiritual concepts matures.

Collectively, each of these benefits add up to our becoming who we always “should have been,” but could not possibly have been, without our having lived the life we have lived that lead us to such a destination.

We are all finite. Like it or not. Given that reality, would it not be most wise to understand and embrace that reality and look to our life as the treasure trove of love, experiences, opportunities, challenges, disappointments, elations, celebrations and engagements that it truly is? With each new element, positive, negative or neutral, we may add yet another component of the overall whole that defines us, and appreciate that each of these qualities are the deepest treasures that life will ever bestow upon us. Our physical being will eventually disappear, so our potential resonance can only come from living our lives to our fullest and vibrating long after we have walked the planet.

Happy Friday!

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