Just Look At Yourself!

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Did you ever look at yourself closely in the mirror? I mean really closely. If you haven't done so, do it now. I'll wait. No, really, go ahead. It's okay, I'll still be here when you come back.

Okay, now that you're back we can proceed. When you looked at your face, what did you see? Did you see the same familiar face that you have always seen your entire life? If you did, you're fooling yourself.

That face is not the same face you had yesterday, or last year, let alone ten of fifteen years ago. We are constantly changing. It isn't as simple as, one day we're young, then we're middle aged, then we're old. It's a gradual aging process and, like it or not, we all go through it.

The Harvard Medical School tells us that from the moment of conception, each of our cells - and hence, our tissues and organs - begins a process of aging. That's right, it begins at conception. From the very start of life we begin to age, or to be blunt about it, we begin to die.

Early in life, of course, we still are growing, and expanding the number of cells that we have. The cells are aging, but so slightly that we can't see it: we just see the body growing and developing.

Probably a good reason we don't notice ourselves changing so much is because if we did it would undoubtedly freak us out. Can you imagine waking up every day and looking in the mirror and thinking “OMG, who is that? That's not the person I went to bed with last night!”

(A phrase which some us have actually uttered in the morning, but in a different context. But that's another column altogether.)

Once upon a time aging was something that was highly valued and respected, probably due to the fact that not many people survived into old age at that time. So if you happened to be one of the lucky ones who did, you were highly prized. But now we live in the era of youth worship. Seems like most everyone wants to stay young, getting old is forbidden, something we don't want to have anything to do with. Which on the face of it is a silly idea, since getting older means we're still around and kicking, and don't we want that? As long as we're healthy and happy, of course.

The fact is, we do want to get older, we just don't want to look older. So some of us dye our hair, or have facelifts, or Botox injections, or hair transplants, or breast augmentation (otherwise known as boob jobs), or teeth whitening and straightening (why isn't that called teeth jobs?), or dozens of other procedures to alter our natural aging process. All of which can cost thousands of dollars, not to mention all the time and energy spent.

And here's the sad truth of it all, none of it lasts and none of it changes the basic reality that time marches on and we march along with it, changing as we go.

You can paint a new color on a hundred year-old house, it's still a hundred year-old house underneath that freshly painted exterior. But none of that matters because too many of us don't care what's going on inside of us, we only care what we look like to others. Many want to not only look young, but sound young as well, and that is another mistake. Have you ever been around an older person who uses juvenile words, phrases and expressions to communicate?

They think that by sounding like a kid, they're keeping up with the youthful generation. For those who engage in this silliness, I'm sorry to have to break this to you, but you aren't kidding anyone but yourself. You don't sound young, you sound foolish. And maybe a little sad and desperate.

The bottom line is, (and I hate that trivial expression, but I'll use it because it makes me sound young) don't try to be a teenager, just accept yourself for who you are, which is a person who was born to get older as time goes on. With any luck you will keep getting older.

Just remember the alternative.

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