As we truly advance in years,
certain attitudes and behavior take on understanding and clarity that we feel
will tide us over till we die. It is
quite easy to say that the accumulated years of experience have taught us the incalculable
lessons we feel we have been vested with.
But still if we scratch deeper we could also claim that there are other
things at play that may have triggered their genesis.
Anyway, through our mellowed
years many of us find that we have become more tolerant and accepting not only
of others’ faults but of the uncertainties and at times cruelties of life. We find ourselves not only less impatient,
but actually more understanding, as to how and why a lot of people we have put
trust in have fallen way short of our expectations, however realistic those
expectations may be.
We have learned to not expect
too much about the temporal desires of life from actually happening, unlike
before when our expectations were iron-clad and steadfast. Now we learn to take things in stride,
diminishing the gravity and passion of our desires, and expectations. We have learned to “make do” with whatever
results life may have dealt with us.
With the least of regrets, and more of contentment if not consignment.
And I do not believe that all
this is attributed to old age which has dulled or slowed down most things we do
or think. And needless to state, we
assume that practically everything we do or perceive has slowed to a walk or
worse, as we are in our twilight years, not just the physical pace, but
including the mental acuities we have acquired during the growing years.
So why are we as almost
default more tolerant, less impatient, and more accepting of the realities
which in our younger years, we used to resent with gusto when they do not go
our way?
I do believe that the real
reason for this world of change is because we ourselves have looked inward and
found that in the things we have been doing and planning we have constantly
failed not only ourselves, but also the people around. And this in spite of our darn honest to
goodness attempts to try to do better. And this frank realization is easily
arrived at if only we are quite honest with ourselves.
We find that failure is our
constant companion in this life, our sojourn buddy who has kept with us, unshakable and unwavering. Neither
could we shake it off or leave it behind. Failures not in the things of the
spirit, but failures in all the temporal or earthy things that we have hitched
our futures on.
Only our spiritual quests
will find fruition and realization. And
this we will ultimately realize not in this life, but after we have shaken off
our mortal coil.
How do we know? We simply will have to latch on to our Faith
and to what it promises.
And because old age typically
does not last long, the waiting may be sooner than we think.
