CHAPTER XV
HOW TO STAY YOUNG
We do not count a man"s years until he has nothing else to count.
R. W. EMERSON.
The ability to hold mentally the picture of youth in all its glory, vivacity and splendor has a powerful influence in restraining the old age processes.
Old age begins in the heart. When the heart grows cold the skin grows old, and the appearances of age impress themselves on the body. The mind becomes blighted, the ideals blurred, and the juices of life congealed.
Many people look forward to old age as a time when, as a recent writer puts it, you have "a feeling that no one wants you, that all those you have borne and brought up have long pa.s.sed out onto roads where you cannot follow, that even the thought-life of the world streams by so fast that you lie up in a backwater, feebly, blindly groping for the full of the water, and always pushed gently, hopelessly back."
There is such a thing as an old age of this kind, but not for those who face life in the right way. Such a pathetic, such a tragic ending is not for those who love and are loved, because they keep their hearts open to the joys and sorrows of life; who maintain a sympathetic interest in their fellow-beings and in the progress and uplift of the world; who keep their faculties sharpened by use, and whose minds are constantly reaching out, broadening and growing, in the love and service of humanity. A dismal, useless old age is only for those who have not learned how to live.
Growth in knowledge and wisdom should be the only indication of our added years. Professor Metchnikoff, the greatest authority on age, believes that it is possible to prolong life, with its maximum of vigor and freshness, until the end of its normal cycle, when the individual will gratefully welcome what will be a perfectly happy release. At this point he claims that the instinct of death will supplant the instinct of life, when the bodily mechanism approaches the natural end of normal exhaustion. He believes that men should live and maintain their usefulness for at least one hundred and twenty years.
The author of "Philosophy of Longevity" tells us that man can live to be two hundred years old. Jean Finot says: "Speaking physiologically, the human body possesses peerless solidity. Not one of the machines invented by man could resist for a single year the incessant taxes which we impose upon ours. Yet it continues to perform its functions notwithstanding."
What we have a horror of is the premature death of the faculties, the cutting off of power, opportunity, the decay of the body many years before the close of the life on earth. We shudder at the giving up of a large part of life that has potency of work, of action and of happiness.
This horror of senility increases, because life continually grows more interesting. There never was a time when it seemed so precious, so full of possibilities, when there was so much to live for, as in this glorious present. There never was a time when it seemed so hard to be forced out of the life race. We are on the eve of a new and marvelous era, and the whole race is on the tiptoe of expectancy. Never before was the thought of old age as represented by decay and enforced inactivity so repugnant to man.
But why should any one look forward to such a period? It is just this looking forward, the antic.i.p.ating and dreading the coming of old age, that makes us old, senile, useless.
The creative forces inside of us build on our suggestions, on our thought models, and if we constantly thrust into our consciousness old age thoughts and pictures of decrepitude, of declining faculties, these thoughts and pictures will be reproduced in the body.
A few years ago a young man "died of old age" in a New York hospital.
After an autopsy the surgeons said that while the man was in reality only twenty-three years old he was internally eighty! If you have arrived at an age which you accept as a starting point for physical deterioration, your body will sympathize with your conviction. Your walk, your gait, your expression, your general appearance, and even your acts will all fall into line with your mental att.i.tude.
A short time ago I was talking with a remarkable man of sixty about growing old. The thought of the inevitableness of the aging processes appalled him. No matter, he declared, what efforts he might make to avert or postpone the decrepitude of age there would come a period of diminishing returns, and though he might fight against it he would ever after be on the decline of life, going irrevocably toward the sunset, ever nearer and nearer to the time when he should be useless. "The conviction that every moment, every hour, every day takes me so much nearer to that hole in the ground from which no power in Heaven or earth can help us to escape is ever present in my mind," he said. "This progressive, ever-active retrogression is monstrous. This inevitably decrepit old age staring me in the face is robbing me of happiness, paralyzing my efforts and discouraging my ambition."
"But why do you dwell on those things that terrify you?" I asked.
"Why do you harbor such old age thoughts? Why are you visualizing decrepitude, the dulling and weakening of your mental faculties? If you have such a horror of the decrepitude, the loss of memory, the failing eyesight, the hesitating step, and the general deterioration which you believe accompany old age, why don"t you get away from these terrifying thoughts, put them out of your mind instead of dwelling on them? Don"t you know that what you concentrate on, what you fear, the pictures that so terrify you, are creating the very conditions which you would give anything to escape? If you really wish to stay the old age processes you must change your thoughts. Erase everything that has to do with age from your mind. Visualize youthful conditions. Say to yourself, "G.o.d is my life. I cannot grow old in spirit, and that is the only old age to fear.
As long as my spirit is youthful; as long as the boy in me lives, I cannot age."
The great trouble with those who are getting along in years is that they put themselves outside of the things that would keep them young. Most people after fifty begin to shun children and youth generally. They feel that it is not "becoming to their years" to act as they did when younger, and day by day they gradually fall more and more into old age ways and habits.
We build into our lives the picture patterns which we hold in our minds.
This is a mental law. When you have reached the time at which most people show traces of their age you imagine that you must do the same.
You begin to think you have probably done your best work, and that your powers must henceforth decline. You imagine your faculties are deteriorating, that they are not quite so sharp as they once were; that you cannot endure quite so much, and that you ought to begin to let up a little; to take less exercise, to do less work, to take life a little easier.
The moment you allow yourself to think your powers are beginning to decline they will do so, and your appearance and bodily conditions will follow your convictions. If you hold the thought that your ambition is sagging, that your faculties are deteriorating, you will be convinced that younger men have the advantage of you, and, voluntarily, at first, you will begin to take a back seat, figuratively speaking, behind the younger men. Once you do this you are doomed to be pushed farther and farther to the rear. You will be taken at your own valuation. Having made a confession of age, acknowledged in thought and act that, in so far as work and productive returns are concerned, you are no longer the equal of young men, they will naturally be preferred before you.
If people who have aged prematurely could only a.n.a.lyze the influences which have robbed them of their birthright of youth they would find that most of them were a false conviction that they must grow old at about such a time, needless worry,--all worry is needless,--silly anxiety, which often comes from vanity, jealousy and the indulgence of such pa.s.sions as excessive temper, revenge, and all sorts of unhealthy thinking. If they could only eliminate these influences from their lives, they would take a great leap back toward youthfulness. If it were possible to erase all of the scars and wrinkles, all the effects of our aging thoughts, aging emotions, moods and pa.s.sions, many of us would be so transformed, so rejuvenated that our friends would scarcely know us.
The aging thoughts and moods and pa.s.sions make old men and women of most of us in middle life.
The laws of renewal, of rejuvenation are always operating in us, and will be effective if we do not neutralize them by wrong thinking. The chemical changes caused in the blood and other secretions by worry, fear, the operation of the explosive pa.s.sions, or by any depressing mental disturbance, will put the aging processes in action.
Whatever we establish as a fixed conviction in our lives we transmit to our children, and this conviction gathers c.u.mulative force all the way down the centuries. Every child in Christian countries is born with the race belief that three score years or three score years and ten is a sort of measure of the limit to human life. This has crystallized into a race belief, and we begin to prepare for the end much in advance of the period fixed. As long as we hold this belief we cannot bar out of our minds the consequent suggestion that when we pa.s.s the half century limit our powers begin to decline. The very idea that we have reached our limit of growth, that any hope of further progress must be abandoned, tends to etch the old age picture and conviction deeper and deeper in our minds, and of course the creative processes can only reproduce the pattern given them.
Some men cross the zenith line, from which they believe they must henceforth go down-hill, a quarter of a century or more earlier than others, because we cross this line of demarcation mentally first, cross it when we are convinced that we have pa.s.sed the maximum of our producing power and have reached the period of diminishing returns.
Many people have what they are pleased to call a premonition that they will not live beyond a certain age, and that becomes a focus toward which the whole life points. They begin to prepare for the end. Their conviction that they are to die at a certain time largely determines the limitation of their years.
Not long since, at a banquet, I met a very intelligent, widely read man who told me that he felt perfectly sure he could not possibly live to be an old man. He cited as a reason for his belief the a.n.a.logy which runs through all nature, showing that plants, animals and all forms of life which mature early also die early, and because he was practically an adult at fifteen he was convinced that he must die comparatively young.
He said he was like a poplar tree in comparison with an oak; the one matured early and died early; the other matured late and was very long-lived.
So thoroughly is this man under the dominion of his belief that he must die early that he is making no fight for longevity. He does not take ordinary care of his health, or necessary precautions in time of danger.
"What is the use," he says, "of trying to fight against Nature"s laws? I might as well live while I live, and enjoy all I can, and try to make up for an early death."
Mult.i.tudes of people start out in youth handicapped by a belief that they have some hereditary taint, a predisposition to some disease that will probably shorten their lives. They go through life with this restricting, limiting thought so deeply embedded in the very marrow of their being that they never even try to develop themselves to their utmost capacity.
Our achievement depends very largely upon the expectancy plan, the life pattern we make for ourselves. If we make our plan to fit only one-half or one-third of the time we ought to live, naturally we will accomplish only a fraction of what we are really capable of doing. I have a friend who from boyhood has been convinced that he would not live much, if any, beyond forty years, because both his parents had died before that age.
Consequently he never planned for a long life of steady growth and increasing power, and the result is he has not brought anything like all of his latent possibilities into activity, or accomplished a fourth of what he is really capable.
It is infinitely better to believe that we are going to live much longer than there is any probability we shall than to cut off precious years by setting a fixed date for our death simply because one or both of our parents happened to die about such an age, or because we fear we have inherited some disease, such as cancer, which is likely to develop fatally at about a certain time.
Just think of the pernicious influence upon a child"s mind of the constant suggestion that it will probably die very young because its parents or some of its relatives did; that even if it is fortunate enough to survive the diseases and accidents of youth and early maturity, it is not possible to extend its limits of life much, if any, beyond a certain point! Yet we burn this and similar suggestions into the minds of our children until they become a part of their lives. We celebrate birthdays and mark off each recurring anniversary as a red-letter day and fix in our minds the thought that we are a year older. All through our mature life the picture of death is kept in view, the idea that we must expect it and prepare for it at about such a time.
The truth is the death suggestion has wrought more havoc and marred more lives than almost anything else in human history. It is responsible for most of the fear, which is the greatest curse of the race.
A noted physician says that if children, instead of hearing so much about death, were trained more in the principles of immortality, they would retain their youth very much longer, and would extend their lives to a much greater length than is now general.
I believe the time will come when the custom of celebrating birthdays, of emphasizing the fact that we are a year older, that we are getting so much nearer the end, will be done away with. Children will not then be reminded so forcibly once in three hundred and sixty-five days that each birthday is a milestone in age. We shall know that the spirit is not affected by years, that its very essence is youth and immortality. In our inmost souls we shall realize that there is a life principle within us that knows neither age nor death. We shall find that old age is largely a question of mental att.i.tude, and that we shall become what we are convinced we must become.
As a matter of fact the average length of life is steadily increasing, because science is teaching men how to live so as to conserve health and youth. Formerly men and women grew old very much earlier than they do now, and they died much younger. We do not think so much about dying as they used to in the early days of this country, when to prepare for the future life seemed to be the chief occupation of our Puritan ancestors.
They had very little use for this world and did not try to enjoy life here very much. They were always talking and praying and singing about "the life over there," while making the life here gloomy and forbidding.
They forgot that the religion Christ taught was one of joy.
There is no greater foe to the aging processes than joy, hope, good cheer, gladness. These are the incarnation of the youthful spirit. If you would keep young, cultivate this spirit; think youthful thoughts; live much with youth; enter into their lives, into their sports, their plays, their ambitions. Play the youthful part, not half heartedly, but with enthusiasm and zest. You cannot use any ability until you think, until you believe, you can. Your reserve power will stand in the background until your self-faith calls it into action. If you want to stay young you must act as if you felt young.
If you do not wish to grow old, quit thinking and acting as if you were aging. Instead of walking with drooped shoulders and with a slow, dragging gait, straighten up and put elasticity into your steps. Do not walk like an old man whose energies are waning, whose youthful fires are spent. Step with the springiness of a young man full of life, spirit and vigor. The body is not old until the mind gives its consent. Stop thinking of yourself as an old man or an old woman. Cease manifesting symptoms of decrepitude. Remember that the impression you make upon others will react on yourself. If other people get the idea that you are going down hill physically and mentally, you will have all the more to overcome in your effort to change their convictions.
When we are ambitious to obtain a certain thing, and our hearts are set on it, we strive for it, we contact with it mentally and through our thoughts we become vitally related to it. We establish a connection with the coveted object. In other words, we do everything in our power to obtain it; and the mental effort is a real force which tends to match our dream with its realization.
An up-to-date modern woman is a good example of what I mean. She does not act like an old lady, and does not put on an old lady"s garb after she has pa.s.sed the half-century milestone. We do not see the old lady"s cap, the old lady"s gown of the past any more. Women getting along in years nowadays dress more youthfully and appear younger than their grandmothers did at the same age. They do everything to make themselves appear young. Men are much more likely than women to grow careless in regard to personal appearance as they grow older. They wear their hair longer, they let their beard grow, they stoop their shoulders, drag their feet when they walk, and begin to neglect their dress. They are not as careful in any respect to retain their youthful appearance as women, who resort to all sorts of expedients to ward off signs of age and to retain their attractiveness.
The habit of growing old must be combated as we combat any other vicious habit, by reversing the processes by which it is formed. Instead of surrendering and giving up to old age convictions and fears, stoutly deny them and affirm the opposite. When the suggestion comes to you that your powers are waning, that you cannot do what you once did, prove its falsity by exercising the faculties which you think are weakening.
Giving up is only to surrender to age.
We tend to find what we look for in this world, and if, as we advance in years, we are always looking for signs of old age we will find them. If you are constantly on the alert for symptoms of failing faculties, you will discover plenty of them; and the great danger of this is that we are apt to take our unfortunate moods for permanent symptoms. That is, some day perhaps you cannot think as clearly, you cannot concentrate your mind as well, you do not remember as readily as you did the day before, and you immediately jump to the conclusion that a man of your age must begin to fail, cannot expect as much of himself as when he was younger. In other words, a person whose mind is concentrated upon his aging processes is inclined to draw a wrong conclusion from his temporary moods and feelings, mistaking them for permanent conditions.
The majority of people who are showing the signs of premature aging are suffering from chronic thought poison, that is, the chronic old age poison. From the cradle they have heard old age talk, the reiteration of the old age belief that when a person reached about such an age he would then naturally begin to let up, to prepare for the end. And so instead of fighting off age by holding the eternal youth thought and the vigor thought they have held the thoughts of weakness and declining powers.
When they happen to forget something, they say their memory is beginning to go back on them, their sight will soon begin to fail, and they go on antic.i.p.ating signs of decline and decrepitude until the old age visualization is built into the very structure of their bodies.
Instead of forming the habit of looking for signs of age form the habit of looking for signs of youth. Form the habit of thinking of your body as robust and supple and your brain as strong and active. Never allow yourself to think that you are on the decline, that your faculties are on the wane, that they are not as sharp as they used to be and that you cannot think as well, because your cells are becoming old and hard. He ages who thinks he ages. He keeps young who believes he is young.
We get a good hint of the power of mental influence in the marvelous way in which many of our actresses and grand-opera singers retain their youthfulness, because they feel that it is imperative that they should do so. Had Sara Bernhardt, Adelina Patti, Lily Lehmann, Madame Schumann-Heink, Lillian Russell, and scores of other actresses and singers pursued any other vocation they would undoubtedly have been at least ten, perhaps twenty years older in appearance than they are.
There are too many exceptions to the race belief that man"s powers begin to wane at fifty, sixty or seventy to allow oneself to be influenced by it. We really ought to do our best work after fifty. If the brain is kept active, fresh and young, and the brain cells are not ruined by a vicious life, worry, fear, selfishness, or by disease induced by wrong living or thinking, the mind will constantly increase in vigor and power. Men and women whose faculties are sharp and whose minds are keen and vigorous at ninety, and even at a hundred, prove this. I know a number of men in their seventies and eighties who are as st.u.r.dy and vigorous physically and mentally to-day as they were twenty years ago.