Aging Gracefully

What exactly does this mean: aging gracefully? Max Erhmann writes in his famous poem, Desiderata: Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

The definition of counsel in this quote means: “private, guarded thoughts or opinions.”

And take kindly, I believe, means: “be grateful for.” So we are to be grateful for -- our own private thoughts and opinions? And why should we? Well, the only reason can be because they are valuable. Our own thoughts and opinions are valuable. We hold in our own mind a literal gold mine in our cumulative life experience. We have banged around here enough to have learned a thing or two. And that is valuable. So much so that it can make the coming years not only easier to navigate, but richer and more fulfilling as well.

Gracefully means: “seemingly effortless beauty or charm.” (I like the sound of that!) Some of us go kicking and screaming into our later years. Trying beauty treatments and surgeries to appear more youthful. This strategy usually takes a ton of effort (and money) and still the result is the same: we age. We get older.

But when you make peace with your age, you begin to realize that every age has its benefits, its lessons, its gifts for you. And you are always the perfect age for what you need to learn right now. You don’t regret the past, because we learned from it. Even more importantly -- your past experiences have contributed to the wealth of “counsel” that you now have. Good or bad experiences - you learn from them both. And the culmination of all that you have lived and learned is yours to do with as you will. You can use it or you can waste it.

Using it means to continue to listen for that “call of Source.” That whispering in your ear of things you’d like to do. Ways you’d like to express yourself in the world. These inner promptings are the directions to your next destination. More efficient than a GPS system, these hunches are showing you the next step to take to express the desires of your heart.

Your job is to listen and follow. To ignore them is to waste your opportunity to contribute. We are happier when we are contributing. And the law goes: give first, then get.

Wait no longer. The time is now.

By: Christina Watson

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Christina Watson is a dynamic life and business coach who believes that all her clients have the power within them to transform their lives. Christina founded Breakthroughs Life Coaching in order to live her dream of supporting people to live theirs.