Youth is beauty, but there is a kind of beauty in ageing gracefully.
How you perceive your age dramatically affects how you approach it. So why not approach it with positivity?
A few months ago, I read a compelling quote that made a significant impression:
Do not regret growing older; it's a privilege denied to many.
THE CIRCLE OF LIFE
If our younger years are spent searching for love, then later years are about watching that love grow. Starting a family and watching your children grow up is one of life's most beautiful and enriching experiences. From baby's first steps to starting school, graduation and marriage, witnessing the circle of life repeat when you become a grandparent makes getting older especially magical.
DISCOVERING YOURSELF
Confidence can be seen and felt a mile away, and no confidence radiates more strongly than a self-assured woman who knows who she is and what she wants in life. We gain that confidence through life experience and getting older. That self-assurance will make you that much more attractive — and not just in a physical way.
FOCUS ON THE GOOD STUFF
Nothing is more ageing than a negative personality. Sometimes, lacking positive feelings is part of life, and we get stuck worrying about stuff. We understand what truly matters as we age and give up sweating the small stuff. When we give up our negative thoughts, we are free to be ourselves and more light-hearted. Becoming more relaxed and easy to be with is more attractive than constantly yearning for our youth.
LIFE'S RICH TAPESTRY
With plenty of memories and life experiences, who wouldn't look forward to getting a little older? Good and bad experience brings about learning, and the saying "Older and Wiser " rings true. Be joyful that you've lived through good and tough times but have grown from all your experiences.
SELF-LOVE IS NOT VANITY
As we age, we become more comfortable in our skin; the constant obsession with physical appearance lessens. It's essential to look after ourselves, body and mind rather than constantly looking in the mirror and agonising over every new wrinkle or grey hair. We become more attractive by caring for ourselves, loving where we are in life, genuinely appreciating what we have achieved, and not chasing after the ghost of our youth.
DON'T OBSESS OVER AGE
While Western society frowns on ageing, and we are led to believe it's undesirable to become older when you reach your senior years, there are opportunities to take on new challenges. With the wisdom you have gained throughout your younger years, you become better equipped to appreciate all life offers.
Why obsess with trying to look younger? We should embrace each decade and forgo the chemicals that remove wrinkles. Why buy into society's idea that having wrinkles or gaining a few pounds is not okay? We were younger, but now we are older, and ageing can teach us a few essential things about life.
Japanese conceptions of ageing are rooted in Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist philosophical traditions that characterise ageing as maturity. Old age is thus understood as a socially valuable part of life, even a time of "spring" or "rebirth" after a busy period of working and raising children" (Karasawa et al., 2011).
AGE IS JUST A NUMBER
You don't have to 'maintain' yourself - you are not a car.
You don't have to look twenty years younger.
Don't hold yourself back from things you love because you feel older.
Don't feel the pressure to age gracefully or anything else that society tells you to do. You have the freedom to age as you like!
Maybe your hair is losing its natural colour, but so what?
If you are feeling negative about ageing, then it's time to move on.
Take up hobbies and new challenges.
New opportunities will present themselves when you accept ageing as part of life.
Remember, you can achieve anything, but don't compare yourself to celebrities or their photoshopped images.
There is nothing you can't achieve, no matter your age, and we are all on our path.
Be true to yourself, wear what you want, and be what you want.
Be courageous and ignore criticisms and put-downs.
Don't be invisible just because you've turned 50, 60 or even 70 - love life and live it to the full.
"Ageing It doesn't frighten me as much as dying. ...if you consider the alternatives. It interests me, I've always been interested. I like all the phases of life, so I'm in it now, so it's not interesting for me to pretend not to be."
Tyne Daly, Actress. On Ageing
"Mrs Miniver suddenly understood why she was enjoying the forties so much better than she had enjoyed the thirties: it was the difference between August and October, between the heaviness of late summer and the sparkle of early autumn, between the ending of an old phase and the beginning of a fresh one."
Quote from the book Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther.
