Não caia nem veja a minha idade, então o que?

don’t fell or look my age, so what?

(by Susan Scalone-Bonnici’s The new York times)

Everyone wants to be and stay beautiful/ handsome, clear-eyed and optimistic. Maybe this is an almost impossible task. For now can a person sustain things like raising children, with all those wrenching, heart breaking times; carrying the responsibilities of adulthood, losing jobs, losing parents, losing spouses, without incurring a weathered look? In nature there is change: seasons, cycles, evolution. So too there has to be change for the human person. To remain forever young (or forever anything frozen in time) would have a stagnant effect on the whole person.

Some things go with the territory. The stretch marks a woman gets after child birth would not be there if she didn't bring a new life into being. Whatever we are is part of the rich history of our lives, our own unique story. It's a shame that in our youth-oriented world too much emphasis is placed on externals. Stretch marks, gray hair a receding hairline, age freckles are sighs that we are getting older who cares? It's not all we are about.

Anything that lives on this earth must age. Otherwise we wouldn't have history! Look at a family and observe it's life cycle: infant, child, adolescent, young adult, mid-life, elderly; watch how each moves on to the next position, like game pieces advancing on a board. The game of life continues and before long, baby becomes grandpa.

What blurs perception may be a lack of compassion. Compassion allows each person at each stage of life to be, with no labels or preconceived notions of what he should be, and allows the person to stand on his or her own. Thus, the young should not look upon the old with contempt; the old may demean the young. No one can afford to make a blanket judgment of anyone else or risk being judged by the same narrow-sightedness.

Making people aware of the need for compassion is the first step in changing their attitudes. This would require a lot of effort, ed

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ucation and hard work. It is easier to fall back on labels (he’s too old, she’s just a kid; it’s that middle-age thing; what does he know, he’s so young; she’s too old). But dispelling labels has got to be done if we would dare to call ourselves a democracy of free people.

It is healthy to be concerned with one’s appearance, to want to look attractive, fit and pleasant to the eye. It is an expression of how a person feels about himself to care about his looks, but only as an expression and not a total outpouring of self. Self is what is arrived at through a life of caring, a spirit in which we can change and all things are possible, not by appearances only, but by how good it is to be alive and special, a vital and important part of this world in which we live at any age.