Happiness is Aging

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty. ~ Coco Chanel

So my friends tonight I want to talk about aging, there is a lot of happy aspects to getting older. As you get older you tend to get happier, something called the U-Bend which shows that we get happier as we age. There are obvious reasons for this, you’re typically at a better place in your career, making more money, your kids if you have them, are out of the house. You have more time for you and to figure out what matters most in your life, not just what society tells you is important. You likely no longer are so concerned with the shape of your body, or nearly as much what other people think about you. I also think one of the most important pieces of getting happier as you age is that when you finally truly realize you are going to die, you start to really clarify what is most important to you in life. You begin to understand how fleeting and precious are your days.

I’m coming up on my 50th birthday in a month so this realization is coming to me at this point. I’m getting there friends, starting to really see with clarity what is important to me and starting to move my life toward maximizing my time on those things. Part of what has me thinking about this, part of what is helping me realize all of this, is that there are things now in this life that will not happen for me, time has run out.

I’m not married and at 50 it is highly unlikely I’ll have children at this point. So no one is going to call me daddy, or grandpa, as a biologist I realize that from that perspective I’m what we call a biological failure. This term biological failure refers to the fact that I failed to pass on my genes to the next generation. I’ve come to terms with this idea, I love children and my genetic make-up is being passed on along through my nieces and nephews. Since I’m not a parent, but am lucky enough to be an uncle, I get to treat them as surrogate kids, mentor and guide them, enjoy them and spoil the hell out of them.

My advice to you friends is for you not to wait, start thinking about this now because you never know how much time you have left. Hopefully, you live to a veritable and old age and have many happy days. ~ Rev Kane

Rev Kane making friends in Nepal

At age 20, we worry about what others think of us. At age 40, we don’t care what they think of us. At age 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking of us at all.

~ Ann Landers