Question: Does Aging Have to Be Bad?
Our collective attitude toward aging is overwhelmingly negative. We need to change how we think about aging and growing older. But it os still hard for many of us to figure out what can be good about aging.
Answer: Andrew Weil, in his book entitled Healthy Aging, talks about how we should focus on and embrace aging. He asks the reader to think about things that get better with age like wine or cheese. I like this line of thinking. It shows that aging doesn't have to be negative. We can get better as we age. Sure, there may be physical changes that we don like, but since when to our physical bodies define us? I think that if a person goes through life paying attention and growing, he or she cam only add to the quality of life as the years pass by.
So to answer the question, "Does aging have to be negative?", I say "No" as long as we all keep growing, developing and maturing every year. I think one of the goals to aging well is to make sure that, each and every year, we exceed the loses in our health due to aging with gains in other aspects of life like spirituality, relationships, intellect and wisdom.
Read more on Attitude and Aging
Back to Aging FAQs
