INSPIRING WISDOM

Midlife Is No Crisis

The stages of our life vary and are subject to different attitudes; the goals to which we have looked forward in youth are not those which we pursue in our maturer years. Growing older is not a process to be looked upon with dread. It is natural to grow older, and that which is natural is beautiful. Each stage has its own beauty, it speaks of its own accomplishments and its own experiences and its own wisdom... In middle age, the mind has its keenest grasp of things and situations; it is not deflected by storm or passion, and is therefore able to offer its finest treasures and expose them to the vision of man in the richest and most lucid vein. And just as the mind attains its greatest vigor and clearness in the middle years, so does the heart, too, attain its ripeness at that age; the emotions become mellow and tender. In maturity the vision becomes clearer, the mind becomes reflective and serious, it is less speculative, it likes to build solidly and purposefully.

Far too often man and women of maturity look back longingly upon youth, they strive to preserve and imitate it, both outwardly and inwardly. But it is an unnecessary attempt, for what they possess is as precious as what they think they have had to relinquish. It is not true that middle age marks the descending stage of life. It is not true that God created man to die at a certain age and that the arrival of middle age marks the beginning of that downward road. In his middle age, one must insist on the control of his appetites. So must the person of middle age control all his passions and desires; he must let his better judgement, his finer judgement, his spiritual judgement, guide him. One in middle age should also make strong efforts to control pessimistic thoughts. Pessimistic thoughts are monsters to which man must never give a haven, and particularly not at the period of maturity. Maturity is the age of wisdom.

The ideal season of life is the autumn. . Middle age is the autumn of life. As autumn is the period of supply and abundance...so in man's life, too, is this a period of abundance, of storing and depositing. In this period you may store away strength, you may store away many years of life. As we grow older, we must attach ourselves to the substantial things in life; we must forget the past if it has not been as we would have had it, and start life with clearer judgement and finer emotions; we must undergo a transformation for the better. As we grow older, we must also learn more and more how to gain full mastery over ourselves. As we grow older, we must grow stronger in wisdom and understanding. In our younger days there were many interferences with our vision, with earnest thoughts; we were too much absorbed and charmed by the appearances of things and we were unable therefore to penetrate into their depths and reach their core; but as we grow older we must not be satisfied with the surface of things, we must search into their depths and seek to learn their meaning. As we grow older, the more tolerant must we become, the more must we realize that other people in this world are also entitled to comfort and happiness. As one grows older, his emotions must grow more sympathetic, he must become kinder, broader-minded, more tolerant and understanding. In his maturer years, man's sympathies are deeper, they are more tender and altruistic; and as he develops further, he becomes capable of not only sympathizing with others in their distress, but also of making sacrifices to alleviate their suffering.

As we grow older, we must realize that our golden age is not behind us, but before us. Wisdom is not with youth but with maturity. As we grow older, the world becomes less of an illusion and more of a reality, less a dream and more of a substantial experience to be faced and grasped. An individual with may years of experiences, who has tasted the vicissitudes and the fortunes that life offers, must emerge from the crucible of his experiences more tender, more compassionate, more devoted... He must see life from a larger viewpoint than the narrow one of the self, he must see more keenly and feel more deeply the needs of his fellowmen, he must see life from the viewpoint of humanity. Now some minds refuse to face these fundamental questions for fear that they may lead to pessimism, or for fear they will not be able to find any answer. Do not shadow your mind with despondencies of the past, no matter how many trials and struggles and entanglements you have passed through.. Spiritual defeats must be forgotten. Look forward! Shake off the crushing weights of the past, and direct your vision into the future... Your golden age is before you, not behind you. One who is always thinking about what he should have done clearly shows that he is not thinking of what he should be doing today.

Our goal must always lie in the future, never in the past. In fact, the more we forget the past the more one becomes oblivious of his past struggles, of his past failures, of his past anxieties, and the more he becomes filled with hope and faith in the future, the more enjoyable will be his present. The zenith of his life was not reached in the past, it is still before him to be reached in the future. One is old when he begins to look backward instead of forward, when he begins to review instead of to plan, when he begins to recount what he has achieved instead of reaching out to new achievements. When an individual sees his greatest task already done, his best thoughts already thought, his deepest feelings already felt, his aspirations already realized, when he sees no further peaks to reach, he then declares himself an old man, no matter what his actual age.

As one grows older, as his powers grow deeper and more accurate, he is more prone to realize that this mysterious and wondrous world is the product of an Infinite Power, that it is the work of a kind and benevolent Creator, that there is design and wisdom in every manifestation of nature, that man himself is the creation of Divine love, that there is infinite goodness behind this palpable universe. Our hopes, therefore, must continue until the very last day of life, and in the last day of his life the greatest hope of all must inundate his soul – the hope of coming into the presence of God. In God man finds an answer to the problem of life; in God he finds the cause and the source of the great, vast phenomenon in this world. By traveling far enough in quest of a solution, one cannot fail to find God. And when one finds God with his own understanding, his hopes become so much more fortified and his joy so much greater, for he discovers not only the solution to all the great problems of existence, but he also finds the source of his own strength and his own life.