The Best of Jack’s Winning Words 7/15/24 – Originally sent June 27, 2008.
“The world ages us too fast. We grow up too quickly; we stop dreaming too early, and we develop the ability to worry at far too young an age.” (Doug Wecker) I don’t know who Doug is, but I think he’s hit the nail on the head. If we would just dream more and worry less, we’d be in better shape. Sigmund Romberg wrote the song, When I Grow Too Old To Dream. Too old to dream? How sad. Dream on and stay young. 😉 Jack
I recently saved this graphic, which seems to be appropriate to today’s post…
As I get older, I seem to find more meaning in quotes like that from Jack’s Winning Words and from graphics like this one. Perhaps it is because I have recently had to confront and accept that I am now considered to be elderly.
Certainly, I could feel the changes in my body – the lack of stamina and strength that used to be there – but my mind had not changed and I did not feel old in my mind. I had not thought of myself as elderly. That was always someone else. Then, I experienced some health issues that put me in the hospital and left me weak and unable to walk around the block with my dogs without getting winded. Suddenly I was elderly. Yikes!
Episodes like the one that I went through serve to interrupt our “normal” lives and force the issue of setting new goals or having new dreams. New boundaries of what is physically possible must be set and the sustainability of the status quo must be examined. Dreams and goals for the future must be re-directed to take into account the new reality of the present. Often purpose in life gets lost in the changes and must also be reset or at least be re-thought and that’s a good thing.
So here I am – elderly Norm – working to reset my goals and dreams to more closely align with the reality of my age and health. Just as important, I have to factor in my wife’s health and current abilities. We choose not to let happenstance dictate our future. Our new goals and dreams are focused more on improving our quality of life going forward.
No one knows how much time they have left, but everyone can takes steps to make whatever that time is the best that it can be. At this stage in our lives that means simplifying, decluttering and downsizing. It also means letting go of some old goals or dreams and finding new ones. I’ll let you know how that works out.
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