I published the article below in December of 2007.  You will read about some people who accomplished some amazing things when they well into their “senior years.”  I hope the article inspires you to live every moment of your life to the fullest, regardless of how old you are.

Are You Too Old Now?
First published in December 2007

Birthday celebrations are interesting aren’t they?  When you’re a child, you look forward to them and they are so much fun.  But the older we get, the less we look forward to celebrating another birthday.  Why is that?

Have you been to a 30th birthday party recently?  “Oh no, I’m not young anymore!  I’m getting old!  I’ve hit 30!”  Those are some of the things you might expect to hear.

When was the last time you were at a birthday party for someone turning 40?  You know they have special balloons for that occasion.  They are black balloons.  When you hit 40, life is just about over, so they say.

And then there’s the big 50th birthday party.  Yes, you hit the big “Five-0.”  Welcome to old age.  So they say.

But on the other hand, there are people who don’t subscribe to that way of thinking. I don’t.  Why would I want to focus on and dwell on how “old” I am getting?

A lot of what most people associate being old with is pretty negative.  Why think that way?  Why not be excited to be alive?  Life has so many possibilities! You can live life to the fullest each day by enjoying every moment!

Look What They Did

Who is the oldest man to climb Mt Everest?  As of this article, it was Yuichiro Miura.  On May 22, 2003 Miura, a professional skier and a high school headmaster from Sapporo in Japan, became the oldest man to reach the summit of Mount Everest at the age of 70. He was among 31 people who reached the summit as part of the Miura Everest 2003 Expedition.

On October 29, 1998, John Glenn, at age 77, became the oldest person in space when he and six other astronauts orbited the Earth for nine days aboard shuttle Discovery. His mission was to test the effects of space on the elderly.

James Van Allen was the physicist who discovered the Van Allen belts.  He was asked and accepted to take part in the Galileo Mission to Jupiter, when he was 83 years old.

In July of 1999, Fred Whipple, the noted Harvard astronomer who fathered the phrase “dirty snowball” to describe comets, was named to serve on a NASA space mission team.  He became the oldest researcher ever to accept an active role in a NASA space science mission, at the age of 92.

Happy 100th!

In March of 2006, Arthur “Deke” Winston, at the age of 100, retired after 75 years of cleaning and then supervising the maintenance of both the Los Angeles trolleys, and then their buses. In 1997, President Bill Clinton gave him a congressional citation naming him the “Employee of the Century.”

The 100-year-old surprised nobody at his retirement party by announcing that during his retirement, he was planning on helping out old people.

Then there’s George Dawson who had his book published when he was 101.  The book is titled, “Life is So Good.”  Why did he wait so long to write a book?  George had never learned to read until he decided to take an adult literacy class when he was 98 years old!  He went on to get his GED at the age of 103.

So the next time you feel like you’re getting too old, don’t believe it.  Yes, of course we are a day older today than we were yesterday.  But, life is so good.  Life is full of so much to see, do and learn!

I do not like to think of myself as getting older.  I like to think of myself as getting wiser.  And with those few examples that I just gave you, compared to them, I am still a youngster!

Life is truly a gift from God, and He desires that we enjoy the life He has given us to live.  So enjoy your life, regardless of how old you are.

Michael A. Verdicchio
2007

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