We lose our way to the Soul within and think we must survive at all costs as time goes by. People hurt us, we are in unavoidably painful situations. This causes many to form protective callouses that surround our inner light. If these callouses grow too thick, age only forms a greater barrier to spiritual understanding as we pile them on through the years. Then we are amazed that a person has lived so long and is nothing but an old grouchy, self-righteous, bitter, and regretful person who envies the young and puts them down for their ideas while they are still growing.
But if we maintain our connection to the inner light that is a reflection of the Source of All, then age is definitely a plus. Older people have a chance to experience more and see how it all turns out. We see that things we worried about never happened. We know we are capable of handling whatever comes up. We see life as a huge adventure, with moments of joy, moments of pain and that they alll pass. We are emotionally mature and don’t have tantrums because the world doesn’t bend to our wishes.
We have enough experience to see that things clear up over time. Or we accept them. Or we walk away from them. It’s not a big emotional rollercoaster and drama production. We know that we don’t have that much time left in the body so striving to fix things that are beyond our control or trying to create a spectacular life that fulfills our fantasies is really pointless. We can relax and let life unfold and take delight in all the manifestations of physical reality.
Society, as usual, has it backwards. Being older is the best time of life—as long as we are fit and maintain contact with our inner light, or Soul. Otherwise, we are a mass of aches and pains, stiffness, insomnia, poor digestion, facing some horrible form of death. If we don’t know we are more than the body—that we have a body but are Eternal Soul watching the show—then age is no advantage at all. Thus the time-worn expression, “There’s no fool like an old fool.”