If the mind holds the old age pattern, the old age conviction, it will be out-pictured in the body.
If the mind holds the youthful pattern it will be faithfully copied in the body.
One of the richest men in the United States says that he would give ten million dollars to prolong his life ten years. No doubt he would be willing to give a hundred millions.
How precious life is to all of us! It is a rare thing for even a criminal, the most dejected creature serving a life sentence, to wish to shorten his existence an hour if he could.
Whatever our ambition may be, nothing else can be quite so precious to most of us as life, and we want that life at its best. Every normal person dreads to see the marks of old age, the symptoms of decrepitude, and wants to remain fresh, buoyant, robust, as long as possible. Yet most people do not take sensible precautions to preserve their youth and vigor. They violate the health laws, longevity laws; sap their vitality in foolish, unnatural living, in deteriorating habits, and then wonder why their powers decline. Abused faculties and outraged nerves must pay the penalty. The long life is the controlled life.
If we took as much pains or made as great an effort to retain our youthfulness and our vigor as many of us do to make money, to amass a fortune, we could carry youth well-nigh to the century mark.
A man is like a fine clock, which, if properly cared for, will keep splendid time and run for a century, but which, if neglected or abused, will very soon get out of order, and wear out or give out long before it should.
It seems strange that although we all love life so dearly, cling to it with such desperate tenacity, we should sell it so cheaply, should deliberately throwaway so many precious years, by wrong living and bad thinking.
As long as we go on thinking old age thoughts, harboring old age convictions, picturing old age characteristics, we shall continue to grow old. Our thoughts and our convictions will work against our real desires, just as our very effort, however strenuous it may be, to accumulate a fortune will be counteracted by our doubts and fears of failure.
The mental ideal determines what shall be built into the life, whether it shall be youthful or aging conditions. Every person has the inherent capacity for prolonging his life, increasing his potential longevity; but he must first understand the mental principle.
Perfect health, vigor, and robustness are impossible to one whose mind is a slave to the conviction that he is on the decline, that he is going downhill physically, that his powers are gradually lessening through age.
The mind makes its own dead line. One’s conviction places the limits.
Most people do not realize that their mental attitude is a positive energy which is constantly creating results. Every time we focus the mind, we are producing, creating something. If we focus it upon beauty, we are creating beauty. If we focus it upon the conditions of declining powers, of decrepitude, we help to create these conditions in the life. Any mental attitude which is adverse to the spirit of youth tends to produce hardening old age conditions.
If we live in mental youth, if we picture the processes of rejuvenation, of self-renewal, which are always going on in every cell of the body, the old age pictures cannot be reproduced in it.
Many people assist rather than resist the old age processes by giving in to them and harboring the conviction that they are getting along in years. They are always looking for signs of old age, the footprints of decline. The point of diminishing returns is a very tender spot to them. If they tire a little sooner than they once did, if they cannot stand quite as much as when they were younger, they imagine that they have crossed the “dead line” placed by such men as Dr. Osier and others, and they begin to repeat that deadly saying, “I am not as young as I used to be.”
I have a friend who is always referring to his age in such expressions as this: “You know, when a man gets past sixty he can’t stand what he once could. I am beginning to feel pretty stiff, my bones are getting brittle, my muscles hard.” He is always saying that he is too old for this, and too old for that. “Leave those things to young people,” he will say, “they are not for men of my age.” He is constantly dwelling upon his declining years, and keeping the picture of decrepitude in his mind.
“If at thirty or thirty-five you expect to become an old man or woman,” said Prentice Mulford, “at fifty-five you will be one; because the mind makes the material correspondence of whatever it sets itself permanently upon. If you look forward to such decay of the body as a thing that must come, it will. People who keep young in their minds show it in the condition of their bodies. Three-fourths of our people look old at sixty, because they have always regarded it as an inevitable necessity that they must be on the downhill side of life at that age.”
One of the greatest delusions that ever crept into a mortal brain is that it is inevitable that a man at the age of forty or fifty should begin to lose his power and go down hill physically and mentally. Why should man, the grandest creation of God, begin to decline just as he is really beginning to get ready to live?
Man was made to come to his maximum of maturity, of power, of efficiency, and inward vision of wisdom relatively late in life. It is not a part of the Creator’s plan that we become decrepit at fifty, sixty, or seventy, when we do not even come to full maturity until thirty. There is no analogy in the animal or the vegetable kingdom, no analogy anywhere in nature, to show that anything that takes so long to come to its maturity should decline so quickly. In fact, animals generally live from four to six times the length of their maturing period, and certainly the Creator’s grandest work should not begin to reach decrepitude at only twice the years that it takes to mature. We should retain our vigor, our maximum of power, at least four times as long as it takes us to come to full maturity.
A man ought to be in the prime of his power and In the very zenith of his vigor at seventy-five.
Sir Herman Webber, the distinguished English physician, says that most people might easily live to be one hundred years of age.
The great accumulation of experience, of knowledge, of wisdom, gathered during the fruitful years of youth and middle age ought to enable a man who has lived normally to accomplish more in a single year in the seventies than in a half-dozen years in the twenties of life.
“I never could understand,” says the poet Stedman, “why men consider seventy years a proper term of life. Five hundred years of earth are none too many—could we retain vigor and health. Wouldn’t you like to be fifty years a traveler, fifty an inventor, fifty years a statesman—to practice painting, sculpture, and all the time a fisher, sailor, poet, author, a man of the world? I should; and then I might be willing to try some other sphere.”
No one is old until the interest in life is gone out of him, until his spirit becomes aged, until his heart becomes cold and unresponsive; as long as he touches life at many points he cannot grow old in spirit.
A man is old, no matter what his years, when he is out of touch with youth, with its ideals, its points of view, out of touch with the spirit of his times; when he has ceased to be progressive and up-to-date.
The idea that our energies and forces must begin to decline and the fires of ambition to die out after a certain age is reached has a most pernicious influence upon the mind. We do not realize how impossible it is for us to go beyond our self-placed “dead-line” limits, to do what we really believe we cannot do.
We think ourselves into old age. Our convictions force us into it, and we shall go in that direction until we change our thought, until we turn completely about, reverse our attitude by reversing our thought, and face towards youth.
The conviction that we must grow old is ingrained in our very being, and we cannot escape the ravages and marks of old age while we believe this condition is necessary and inevitable.
On the other hand, if we believe that the fundamental principle of life is founded in the God principle, and that that principle cannot age, that time has no effect upon it, we shall be able to carry youth into age.
I believe that the conviction of old age, which is so thoroughly ground into our very existence, cuts off a great many precious years.
If we dwell upon the eternal youth principle, and declare that the truth of our being, the divinity of us, cannot age, we shall not age prematurely in appearance. This habitual thought will out-picture itself on the body in harmony, in beauty and grace, instead of in wrinkles and other marks of old age.
We cannot get away from the fact that it is impossible for us to be very different from our convictions. It is hard for a physician to keep a patient alive who believes he is going to die and that nothing can save him. The bodily conditions follow his faith.
I have known of several people who believed that they would not live beyond their sixtieth or sixty-fifth year and who had that point so definitely and firmly fixed in their conviction that as a matter of fact they did not live much beyond it. For years before their death this fixed period seemed to be the focal point of all their plans, thoughts, and acts.
Such false notions of longevity are very apt to prevail among those whose lives are bound hand and foot by a monotonous routine of existence.
In spite of fresh air, fresh fruits, vegetables, and the quiet, restful condition of rustic life, country people especially women, often age much faster than city people. This is generally due to the monotony of their lives, their lack of growth, of interest, of change. People whose minds run in a groove and who live the same kind of a life year in and year out, age rapidly. Their thoughts become ossified.
Mental ossification produces physical ossification. The hardening of the tissues, so indicative of advancing years, is invariably preceded by the hardening thought. The shriveling-up process, the wrinkles, all appear in the mind first.
Monotony is a rapid ager. Variety is characteristic of youth. The mind grows stale very quickly under a monotonous life, a humdrum existence.
A more hopeful outlook, greater immunity from drudgery,—due to inventions and labor-saving devices—more prosperity, saner, more optimistic philosophy, better sanitary conditions and more scientific living have all combined to prolong the average length of life many years. Already the life insurance tables recognize this fact.
Achievement of some kind seems essential to a long life. We were made to do things. Nothing, except dissipation, is so destructive of the youthful in man as idleness, “A man is not old while he is doing things, and if he is not doing anything he is dead.”
Industry conduces to longevity. It is the ship at the wharf, not the ship at sea, that rots fastest;—the still pool, not the running brook, that stagnates. Honest, earnest endeavor tends to health of body and mind.
The unused faculties in our brain and other parts of the body age much more rapidly than those that are perpetually exercised. To retain our youth, we must keep alive all over.
To pile up insignificant years is not really living. When the years cease to count in growth, in enlargement, in usefulness, then we merely exist; we do not live. Some people walk about the earth a quarter of a century after they are practically dead, just as some trees stand for a long time after they have ceased to put forth leaves and the life has gone out of them.
It is not such a very difficult thing to freshen or rejuvenate the mind. It is just a question of holding the right thought vigorously, resolutely, perpetually. But it requires constant watching, perpetual endeavor, and invincible determination; just as it does to make a fortune or to achieve anything else worthwhile.
If you wish to appear young think of yourself as being constantly renewed, rejuvenated, for there is a perpetual renewal going on in the cells of your body. Think of youth as the everlasting fact and old age conditions as false, unnecessary, unnatural, caused largely by old age thought habits, race habits, old age convictions. Say to yourself, “I cannot grow old because I am perpetually being made new, and new cells cannot look old unless made so by old age thought and conviction.”
Think life, live it; think youth, live it; feel it, express it from every pore of your being!
Persistently shut the doors to all the enemies of youth, all aging thoughts. Forget unpleasant experiences, disagreeable incidents. By harmonious thinking you may retain your youthfulness and increase your longevity enormously.
A happy domestic life has a great deal to do with prolonging existence. Friction of any kind, especially domestic friction, grinds life away at a fearful rate. There is only one way to maintain physical harmony, and that is to maintain mental harmony.
An English clergyman who lived to be one hundred and five years old, and who was often asked the secret of his longevity, replied, “I have made it a rule of my life never to think of anything disagreeable after nine o’clock at night.”
Night worrying is not only painful and aging, but also dangerous. It keeps the blood in a state of chronic poisoning which impairs all of the mental processes and the physical functions as well.
The minds of many people have become unbalanced because they did not break the habit of night picturing, visualizing their troubles and trials, which are always so much exaggerated and appear in such fearful vividness during the night.
One of the great secrets of longevity is to learn how to retard the aging processes during sleep. Before falling into unconsciousness, we should fill the mind with bright, encouraging, inspiring thoughts. If our life vision has become dim or blackened during the trials of the day, we should clear it by erasing all the blackness and tearing down all the sable pictures, expelling all that is ugly and disagreeable, every thought which has made us unhappy or caused us to suffer.
We should never go to sleep until we have restored our lost balance, gained perfect mental poise, until we have put into operation the forces which would tend to harmonize and bring peace and joy into our lives.
Intelligence can do much to eliminate short life tendencies. Were man wise enough, he would be able to carry the freshness of youth into the teens of his second century.
One of the most hopeful signs of the times is the saner, more cheerful note in our religious life. There is not so much sadness in it. Many of the old, solemn, death-suggesting hymns have been dropped from our hymn books. When I was a boy people used to take a morbid delight in singing such dirges as, “Hark from the Tomb a Doleful Sound,” “Death and Decay All Around Us,” etc., which were once immensely popular, and which people then doubtless thought normal. We enjoy more, laugh more, play more than did our ancestors. We are not so solemn or sad-faced, we do not take life in such a terribly serious way.
Men with trained minds often eliminate a great many of the weaknesses which prematurely cut off the ignorant and the untrained. Astronomers and other men whose minds deal with vast spaces and infinite periods of time tend to defy the physical weaknesses which help to shorten the lives of those who are occupied with harassing, vexing, material things.
The vocation has a great deal to do with longevity. Some callings cut away life at a fearful rate,—especially those in which people are obliged to work in close, dark factories or shops. The sunlight is a powerful rejuvenator and force producer. Darkness and shadows are death dealing.
The simple life, plain living and high thinking—tends to increase longevity. There is no doubt that because of the very nature of his work, the clergyman’s life is conducive to longevity. His mind is employed on high themes; he contemplates sacred subjects. He is dealing with high ideals, and, for the most part, leads an unselfish life, largely devoted to the service of others.
A high ideal, a lofty purpose, a noble aim, whatever tends to make man look up and struggle up, tends to improve his health condition. The soul that aspires, other things being equal, has the longest life. Aspiration is a perpetual tonic; it stimulates all the faculties.
Our natures are framed upon principles of justice, honesty, truth, beauty; and, whenever we violate any of these principles in act or thought, there is discord within, and, of course, a corresponding waste of energy and vitality, and physical and mental deterioration.
We age rapidly because we do not keep our mental instruments in tune. Discord, grating and jarring whittle life away very quickly. We suffer when we are discordant because we have violated the fundamental law of divine harmony. Poise, mental serenity, is a friend of youth and tends to refresh, renew, and rejuvenate the body.
Many make the mistake of trying to keep young from without, by external application and manipulations, by covering up blemishes and defects and evidences of age.
I know a woman who for many years has had a horror of growing old. She is so afraid that people will see indications of her advancing years that she has become almost a monomaniac upon the subject. For some time she has worn a wig to conceal her white hair, and she is always in terror, especially when traveling, lest something will happen to reveal it. She uses all sorts of “make up” and devices for concealing her age.
If you would retain your youth, keep with the young as much as you can, because their exuberant spirits, their quick wits, bright minds, and youthful manners are infectious. Those who live much with the young are much more youthful than those who are much in the society of old people.
Look as though you were young. Dress as youthfully as is consistent with the dignity and good sense of your years. Do not stoop over, or shuffle your feet Throw your shoulders back; walk erect, and youthfully; do not drag your steps.
Do not let romance die out of your heart. It is a great youth preserver. Love, unselfishness, a spirit of kindness and helpfulness, keep the heart warm and young.
Whenever you think of yourself, always hold the image of yourself as you would like to be. Do not dwell upon your imperfections or weaknesses, because that will mar your image, but hold tenaciously to the ideal of yourself; think of yourself in your perfection, as the personality the Creator intended you to be. Many people dwell in their thoughts upon their imperfections, and so accentuate their weaknesses or peculiarities that they only see a distorted picture of themselves. They gradually lose their self-respect and their dignity. It is what we think of ourselves, the ideal of ourselves which we have in mind, that out-pictures itself in our manner, our appearance.
It is very important to cultivate everything which will tend to keep the spirit fresh and young, the mind youthful and bright. Do not take life too seriously. If you do, you will not accomplish nearly as much, you will age faster, and will not be half as interesting nor have half as much fun as you otherwise would.
Lots of play and innocent fun tend to erase the marks of age and to bring us back to youth. Fun is a twin of youth. To be normally healthy we require a great deal of amusement and recreation and all of the innocent fun we can get, for these are great stimulators, life promoters.
A hard, critical, cold, over-serious mental attitude sours the mind by generating mental poisons, which accumulate in the system and make perfect health and happiness impossible. We often notice that over-serious, selfish, greedy characters age prematurely. Their skin soon wrinkles up. They have a hard, repellent expression; they are not magnetic or efficient.
Humor is a care-killer, a worry destroyer. It tends to quicken the circulation, to promote digestion. Cheerful people sleep better, are better company, and have more friends, and people who have many friends are less likely to be morose and depressed. Sociability is a promoter of goodwill, kindly feelings, and harmony; and all these things induce health and prolong life.
Other things being equal, it is the merry heart that lives longest.
Growth is an enemy of old age. The man who is mentally expanding, who is constantly growing larger and becoming broader, fuller, completer, does not age nearly as rapidly as the man who has ceased to grow.
Age begins when growth stops. When the mind ceases to expand, to reach out and up, when the ideals begin to grow dim, when aspiration halts, then old age steps in.
Dry rot, inaction, are great enemies of youthful conditions. To be perpetually alive on all sides of one’s nature is the price of retaining one’s youth. If you are anxious to avoid growing old prematurely, keep your mind active, buttressed with new ideas. Be abreast of the times, interested in the world’s progress. While a person is fresh and interesting we do not count his years.
What is more delightful and inspiring than an old man full of hope, who is optimistic, cheerful, boyish in his humor, earnest in his purpose, enthusiastic in his work—a man who has grown kinder as he has grown older; who has not soured on life, has never lost his faith in his fellow men; who has a grace of personality which comes from a sweetness of temper and a fine and delicate nature?
The man who feels the spirit of youth surging through his body all the time, who holds the bright, cheerful, youthful, hopeful thought, retains his youthful appearance.
Swedenborg taught that the aged are constantly advancing toward the springtime of their youth, so that those who have lived longest are really the youngest.
The time will come when age will be marked only by a mightier momentum, and the more years a man has lived, the more he will be revered, admired, and sought after, not through a sense of pity, because he is weak and dependent, but because he is a mightier man.
Old age ought to be extremely attractive, powerful, and beautiful. The coming man—the possible man—will so grow old that every year will merely be so much addition in growth and development to what he was the year before. His whole life will be cumulative in wisdom and power.
“Age is not all decay,” says George McDonald, “it is the ripening and swelling of the fresh life within that withers and bursts the husks.”
There is a vast difference between ripening and blighting. A perfectly normal old age is beautiful, serene, and lovely; is an enriching, sweetening process, a process which brings out qualities far more luscious than are found in the green fruit of earlier life.
There are a multitude of reasons why the last of life should be the best of life.
When we learn the great truth that no power can separate us from the God principle, that our life and health and immortality are in the God (good) within us, we shall be able to resist the ravages of time and to realize that there is no dissolution of the reality of us in what we call death.
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