Fear of Growing Old

by Clistine

Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
~ Satchel Paige.

When I was about thirty years old, I knew a family doctor who said that he did not want to live longer than “the allotted threescore years and ten (70 years).” When I asked him why, he replied that he had seen too much in the way of misery and ill health past that age. I suspected, even then, that he was being too pessimistic, and now I’m quite sure that he was, for by his philosophy I should have been glad to have died nearly two years ago! I’ve experienced quite a number of fears in my life, but I have never been afraid of growing old. Perhaps it’s because, until a few years ago, I always felt the future held the source of fulfillment to my life. Tomorrow was a dream to be realized. This Polly-anna way of thinking made me rather impervious to the passing of the years as I felt they were all stepping stones to something better. I remember my grandmother saying to me on my sixth birthday, “This will probably be the best year of your life,” and my great disappointment at hearing this. “Can this be all there is?” I asked myself. And I didn’t believe it.

As life has gone on, I have been fairly oblivious to the milestone of each decade, and still imagined myself young and forward-looking, even as the wrinkles increased. Life has brought me marriage, children, a changing but interesting creative career, and many experiences of diverse kinds that have yielded the usual mixture of pain, joy, disappointment, failure, success, grief, and delight. And all this time, even in the darkest moments, I have been upheld by hope for some unnamed thing. Hope for what?

I think it has been a hope to come closer to God so that the essence of things would become more revealed to me. The outward show—the trappings of society, the customs, the institutions—have never meant much to me. They’ve made me feel like I’ve been taking part in a play, knowing that I am playing a role and observing the different backdrops to each scene. But despite this sense of being caught up in a side-show, true and lovely experiences have percolated through, such as the healing and rejuvenating sense of being part of the natural world—the wind, the ocean, the stars; the soul-stirring effects of certain music, art and poetry; the superbly alive feeling that comes through true relationship with a friend, a lover, a new-born child. And yet all this was not enough. So the years rolled by like a prelude to I knew not what.

At forty I caught severe pneumonia and nearly died then and there. In my fevered state I saw a vision of a burned-out house, and knew it to be myself. I took it as a warning that my life was not in order, and gradually released myself from a difficult marriage in which I was losing myself and my dreams. At fifty I re-married and started all over again in an alternative island community. But still my destiny seemed to elude me. I was quite surprised to find myself sixty years old. I think I was beginning to wind down a little, to encapsulate a bit. I had been blessed with good genetics, but wear-and-tear arthritis was beginning to undermine me, and I had this nasty habit of catching bronchitis. What is old age but a kind of crust growing around oneself through repetition of thought patterns and gradual reduction of physical motion? I began to fret a little, not at my age so much as being no nearer my hidden goal.

It was about a year later that I found Global Community Communications Alliance and began to have new experiences. An eleven-year immersion in an expanded belief system, a commitment to trying to lift this world, with others, out of the quicksand it is foundering in, and a way of life in which we continually try to change our lower tendencies and walk our talk, has been and continues to be a rigorous challenge. About a year ago I started to go through an “old age” crisis, which I feel I am now through. This crisis has certain things in common with the more familiar “middle age” crisis—namely, seeking for a deeper revelation of identity and purpose. The middle age crisis is like a road sign that reads, “Roadworks ahead,” but the old age crisis is like a traffic light that flashes, “Go,” “Slow down and get ready to stop,” or simply, “Stop!”

I believe many of the ills of older age are due to the belief that it should be a time of deliberately putting on the brakes and getting ready to stop. Because of this prevalent notion in our society, a type of repetitive mental patterning sets in as a prelude to inertia. This mental patterning seeks safety in the known; creates a temporary, safe comfort zone derived from the choice not to strive too hard any more; pulls down the shutters against the chill winds of winter; and settles by the slowly sinking fire with a good book about the past. Isn’t this what retirement usually offers?

Retirement is often anticipated with enthusiasm and is considered to be a reward for a life of hard work. But what really happens when there is no driving impetus to “go” or to get out and do? Some people, of course, rise above the temptation to idle along, but many sink into the static condition I have described, which becomes increasingly unrewarding as they start to go round and round like squirrels in ever shrinking cages.

Two very strong factors support this condition. One is that our culture at large does not believe in the value of the elders and so negates their rich experience and common wisdom. Most of the West is highly youth-oriented and merely tolerates the elderly who are seen as hangers-on around the edges of society. Another factor is the pharmaceutical one in which corporations make immense amounts of money from endless prescriptions for old people which have all kinds of undesirable side effects. (Compare this scene to the one in China where people over the age of sixty meet together in large gatherings early every morning to do tai chi and where a degree of robust energy is still evident.) On this side of the world, we, the oldies, are often duped into believing we aren’t very useful any more except as baby-sitters.

It isn’t necessary to theorize about all this, it’s only necessary to go to the nearest supermarket and observe for a few minutes. Who are these pale, lined people shuffling down the aisles, many not much past fifty years old? They are the products of our society, products of what we ingest both mentally and physically. Mentally, we are fed all kinds of extravagant lies by the media until we see a very distorted vision of our world. Unless we are strong we succumb to the suggestions promulgated through corporate greed. Physically, we are fed genetically altered food full of preservatives, chemicals, and hormones. (It takes more time and effort to buy the more wholesome, natural products and prepare them creatively.) Yes, we are what we think, and we are what we eat.

Fortunately there are exceptions who stay outside these societal traps. There are many fine, active old people who have independent wills and don’t fall for the image that our society would foist upon them. My parents were two of these exceptions. My mother always declared that playing bridge, “mental gymnastics” she called it, kept her mind lively as she grew old. Both my mother and my father were winning county bridge championships in England in their eighties. My father wrote a book about the horror and pity of war when he was eighty (he had been in the front line in the First World War where most of his battalion had been killed), and with his lively, activist rhetoric he became known as “a hawk for peace!” His book sold out and went into a paperback edition. Instead of watching television, my mother became an avid reader of classical literature in her seventies, and both my parents experienced an expansion of their views and a deepening appreciation of life until their dying day.

Like my mother, I believe that the ability to stay mentally flexible, to be open to change, and to desire to learn new things can actually retard the aging process. In addition, I think that our senior years can be the optimum time for developing the art of mental synthesis, putting together many experiences and ideas into patterns that create holistic insight. This “overview” cannot be easily obtained by youth, and it is this fountain of wisdom for which the elders in more enlightened societies have been honored.

Even so, aging is a burden for many. Numerous seniors are sick through no fault of their own and, of course, it’s natural that as we age we do start to slow down physically, and often reap the aches and pains that continued stress has created in our mind/body systems. Most people don’t have good family models to help them envisage old age in a positive light, and many don’t believe in individual survival after death. They therefore perceive the aging process as a narrowing, dark tunnel that is blocked at the far end, and fail to see it as a time in which they can expand their spiritual horizons. Is it surprising then that a sense of gloom and fear is often triggered by the thought of growing old?

We are, all of us, whether we believe in the afterlife or not, very much hoping that we won’t have to experience much pain and diminution before we make our exit. And yet I have marveled at a recent example of seeing a dear member of our community die of cancer over a period of months, with incredible fortitude, peace, grace, and humor. He was an inspiration to us all, and he was so thankful for the love that surrounded him, for the revelations that each day brought, and for the new life that awaited him. There is a kind of freedom that comes from not fearing death and knowing that it is merely a transition to another phase of ongoing life.

For myself, I have chosen the green, “Go,” traffic light. I am now living not for the future or the past, but trying to stay in the present, for my long-sought destiny is here in the eternal now. I have come to understand at Global Community Communications Alliance that many of us here are what are known as Destiny Reservists—men and women who, in every generation, are involved in special service at times of planetary emergency as human assistants to the unseen beings who help protect the destiny of Urantia (Earth). We try, with our various skills, artistic gifts, and outreaches, to be global change agents. When, at times I feel I am still running to catch up with this, my personal destiny, it’s because I’ve slipped away from the living moment that is a most precious gift to be used in some way for others. The only thing that matters to me now is that I try to fulfill the purpose that God created me for, rise to whatever potential I have, take each day that comes as a gift to do my best in, and learn better and better how to love and serve the rest of humankind.

Old age is not to be feared but revered. While it necessitates a degree of acceptance and yielding to the laws of nature, it can also be a new and fascinating experience. It can truly transcend the euphemism of its much used other name, “the golden age” as we strive to make that name a reality in the attempt to transmute and transform…as we dare to become alchemists for God!