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David Bowie on Aging Being An Extraordinary Process

    “Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”

    David Bowie via Happiness is a Choice You Make

    Beyond the Quote (Day 7)

    It must have been around my mom’s 50th birthday when I asked her, like any good kid would on their parent’s birthday, how it felt to be so old.  Expecting an uproar of mixed emotions and frustration, I was surprised when she rebutted calmly that for her, each decade has gotten better than the last—and that she was… Excited!  Not quite your everyday answer.  She explained that while youth has its perks, age brings with it insight and wisdom that allows you to connect more deeply with who you are and what your purpose might be—which, for her, has been the most valued experience of life overall.

    Read More »David Bowie on Aging Being An Extraordinary Process

      “In Tibet people don’t seem to worry as much about aging.  When I hear my mother and her generation of Tibetans talk about getting old, the tone in their voice is proud.  They’re proud to have lived so long.  They’re cheerful.  They have young minds.  They’re continuously curious, always learning.  One of my favorite Tibetan saying is ‘Even if you’re going to die tomorrow, you can learn something tonight.’  With this attitude we don’t feel so old.” ~ Sakyong Mipham, Turning the Mind Into An Ally (Page 152)

        “Only the young think they aren’t dying, or that aging is something that affects other people.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 211)

          “This may be the one-sentence essence of what I learned in my year among the oldest old: to shut down the noise and fears and desires that buffet our days and think about how amazing, really amazing, life is.  Could I do this?  Before the year began, my answer would have been no, that the noise and fears and desires were life itself.  But as the year went along I found myself shifting my focus to the quiet beneath the noise—how unlikely the moment was, how each sliver contained a gift that might never return.  Maybe this was what it meant to think like an old person.  I couldn’t live wholly in the moment, because I had a future to think about, but if I had learned anything, it was to live as if this future were finite, and the present all the more wondrous as a result.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 210)

            “The challenge, then, is to find a purpose in life that will sustain you through the latter years.  Kickboxing might not be a great choice, but painting, political activity, time with family, or passing along your skills to the next generation can be a reason for living at any age.  Practice law, feed the hungry, teach piano, harass your congressman, tell your story.  It’s your purpose in life: make it a passion, not a hobby.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 206)

              “If you believe you are in control of your life, steering it in a course of your choosing, then old age is an affront, because it is a destination you didn’t choose.  But if you think of life instead as an improvisation in response to the stream of events coming at you—that is, a response to the world as it is—then old age is more another chapter in a long-running story.  The events are different, but they’re always different, and always some seem too much to bear.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 114)

                “Old age is the last thing we’ll ever do, and it might teach us about how to live now.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 23)

                  “No one wants to lose his partner of sixty years, or to give up walking because it hurts too much, but we have some choice in how we process the loss and the life left to us.  We can focus on what we’ve lost or on the life we have now.  Health factors, as shattering as they can be, are only part of the story.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 13)

                  Happiness Is a Choice You Make [Book]

                    Happiness Is a Choice You Make by John Leland

                    By: John Leland

                    From this Book: 43 Quotes

                    Book Overview:  In 2015, when the award-winning journalist John Leland set out on behalf of The New York Times to meet members of America’s fastest-growing age group, he anticipated learning of challenges, of loneliness, and of the deterioration of body, mind, and quality of life. But the elders he met took him in an entirely different direction. Despite disparate backgrounds and circumstances, they each lived with a surprising lightness and contentment. The reality Leland encountered upended contemporary notions of aging, revealing the late stages of life as unexpectedly rich and the elderly as incomparably wise.  Happiness Is a Choice You Make is an enduring collection of lessons that emphasizes, above all, the extraordinary influence we wield over the quality of our lives. With humility, heart, and wit, Leland has crafted a sophisticated and necessary reflection on how to “live better”―informed by those who have mastered the art.

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