DON’T GROW OLD, JUST GROW

I wish someone had told me this when I was in my 20s: Don’t grow old, just grow. But whatever age you currently are – there is still time to just grow.

SEEING INTO THE FUTUREAs you get older you won’t look the same. In fact, if you look at your parents and grandparents you will know in what direction your body and face will be heading. I had two grandmothers with totally different personalities and approaches to life: one was extremely fat, homely and totally a homemaker, while the other was slim, lively, energetic and dynamically modern, and worked until she was 84. Both grandmothers are my role models. The can-do spirit of one combined with the comforting nature of the other. And when you analyze what I am taking from and emulating from their lives – it is their mental approach. The can-do spirit combined with a comforting nature.

MENTAL APPROACH IS MORE IMPORTANTWhile some of the physical side effects of ageing may be inevitable, your mental approach to life really does not have to go the same way. Mental processes don’t age in the same way and do not have to age in the same way. Indeed, if you are approaching life from the growing more point of view, you become more. You become more knowledgeable, wiser and experienced. If we focus on just growing, then I think we will have a much better life.

GROWING MEANS LEARNING
Henry Ford is quoted as saying: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80.” To grasp this concept there are two parts to us. The outward physical manifestation and the inner thinking part of us. Of course, the two are interrelated, but also they have separate existences. Use the separateness to enhance your life, because really the body is just an outer coating. The interrelation comes because we use our body to carry out our daily functions, so to that extent we do need to keep it as healthy as possible, but whether it has baby-soft skin or looks like a wrinkled-up prune, that should not affect what we achieve in this life and should continue to achieve.

FROM LITTLE ACORNS TO GREAT OAKSI grew up in England, part of the United Kingdom. Throughout Britain mighty oak trees grow. When you roam the countryside in the summer months, you cannot but come across acorns. I used to pick them up and then look at the mighty oak and be amazed at the wonder of the adage: From little acorns great oaks grow. The adage has a number of meanings, but what works for me is the thought that our ideas can grow to be great things, that our mind can achieve great things when we let ourselves grow. So just as the oak keeps growing and, there are some oaks that are more than a 1,000 years old, we too can keep growing if we keep fueling our growth with great ideas.