KeithDeath or dying is not the opposite of living. It’s the opposite of birth, or being born. This is very important as there are two perspectives that seem to be in play here.
Living to die and dying to live. And NO, this is not an intentional play on words, this is a dark secret that lives within us all. I’m not talking about eternal life, I’m talking about creating a fulfilling life that means when you finally reach your sell-by date, you expire with a “Wow, that was some journey”
BOOM!, you achieved just about everything you wanted to do…
You Go Out With A Sonic Boom, Not An Arty Farty Whisper
I started to learn about the dark secrets of dying and aging by observing my very own mum. When she reached the age of 60, her mental state seemed to change almost overnight. It was as if 60 was an age that you should declare yourself as “old”.
It’s almost as if there is a meter in your head that clicks over at 60, just like a Taxi meter… 59, you’re OK, 60, hmm – not so.
Although we can’t entirely stop the aging process. We can slow it down.
In the UK back when my mum was 60, a woman could retire and start drawing her government pension. We used to call this the OAP, the old-age pension and I’m sure this very fact of declaring yourself a “pensioner” is one of the driving forces to aging itself.. people often live up to what is expected of them and if the government say you are an OAP.. well, you get my point.
My mum actually went on to live till 96 years of age. This is good, you might say. BUT, she was always prepared for the inevitable at 60. Even though she had a full 50% more of her life in front of her, she didn’t know that (of course) and spent 36 years not doing a great deal as she was living her label.
She wasn’t ill (not until she was 90, anyway), but people start “winding down” when expected too.
Living & Dying – Can It Be Fun?
Well, living certainly can, but dying, not so. This of course depends on your perspective. No one wants to die, but we never actually know that we are dead. So who cares whether it’s fun or not..
Dying to Live and dying laughing of course are much more fun. It comes down to how we live this one life which people tend to turn into two separate lives. The life they live before they reach 60 (or thereabouts) and the one they live between retiring and expiring.
In truth, how we view ourselves and our future is very important. Our prolonged thoughts on anything to do with our health and wellbeing can, and will alter our physical appearance. We literally think ourselves into being old or young.
Yes, our bodies age. This has a lot to do with how we treat them of course, but also our aging can have a lot to do with how we think.
Did you know the cheapest facelift is a smile?
Let me give you an example of mind over matter.
Castaway
Lets say you were in your mid 40’s, a strong healthy person who got shipwrecked on a desert island (see Tom Hanks in “Castaway”). If you spent 25 years on that island before being rescued, the chances are you would eventually lose track of time. You would eventually forget all about birthdays, you wouldn’t be eating processed food, in fact, your major thoughts would always be around being rescued.
And this is my point.
Instead of waiting to die when you reach 60, get dying to live. We only start aging mentally when we think we are aging physically, we believe our labels and we start to fit in with how we think we should act at a certain age. We are not taking into account that people are living longer, so when we hit that 60, we don’t know that we are even 60% done yet. We might even have more than 50% left..
Why wait to die, get dying to live.
Do all the stuff you told yourself you couldn’t do before you were 60. Do all the stuff you told yourself you didn’t have the time to do. Re-invent yourself and extend your sell-by date.
Note: it has been said by medical professionals that over 60% of people in hospitals are there because of lifestyle choices. People drink and smoke too much, sit down too much and generally know they have physical problems but cease to do anything about them until they collapse.
Maybe we can’t reverse our age, but we can certainly reverse our thinking. This is something no one can take away from you.
We Become What We Think About Most Of The Time – Earl Nightingale.
Have a good day.
Keith
P.S Please do leave a comment below if you got value from this post.
P.PS. People who liked this post, also liked these “How to Make Friends, Overcome Loneliness And Love Yourself” & “Can Positive Thinking Help Prevent Dementia“
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