The Art of Growing Old Gracefully
By Dr. Madison C. Peters
Do not speak mournfully of old age. It is beautiful. Welcome the snow. It is the emblem of rest. It is but a temporal crown which shall fall at heaven’s gates, to be replaced by an eternal one. Most people have a dread of growing old. They regard old age as a dreary season, admitting of nothing that can be called pleasure. They look forward to it as in the autumn we anticipate the approach of winter, but winter terrifies us only as we think of it afar off. When it arrives, it brings with it different enjoyments which are none the less pleasant than those of other seasons. In like manner old age, frightful as it may seem to the young, has no terror to those who experience it, but they find it abounds with consolations and compensations never dreamed of as they viewed it from a distance. The illuminated faces and hoary heads resemble one of those pleasant days in winter in our boyhood days in the country, when a bright sun darted its beams on a pure field of snow. It has been beautifully said: “If one can grow old gracefully, can ripen like an apple which is ruddy with sunshine and dew, and at last drops into the basket of the fruit gatherer, then the sunset of life is more beautiful than its sunrise.” How to grow old gracefully! Observe these simple rules:— Accept the inevitable fact that you are growing older every year. To become old is not necessarily to grow “old.” There are young old people as well as old young people. Don’t brood over the past. It is gone. Let it go. The only proper use of the past is to get a future out of it. Take hopeful views. Have eyes only for the pleasant things. Think of all the blessings which have come into your life on so many bright days. Syndicate your sorrows. Organize a trust; control it yourself, and keep every one from getting any of your misery. Some people study their lives with a microscope, and then throw enlarged views of their misery on a screen, and lecture on them. Live a useful life. Do something for somebody. Do it now.— Dr. Madison C. Peters.