Shakespeare, it has to be admitted, took a gloomy view of growing older. Here’s what he had to say in "As You Like It":
“Last scene of all,
that ends this strange eventful history,
is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
The inevitability of this decline into decrepitude is still widely shared today.
Indeed a card I received on my own fortieth birthday captures the way most people feel about the passage of time: "Life begins at forty," the message read," too bad everything else spreads out, wears out and falls out!"
No matter how willing the spirit few seem to doubt that after the age of forty all anyone can look forward to is a progressive loss of strength, stamina, sexual potency and intellectual capacity. Enthusiasm, it is popularly believed, will be replaced by passive acceptance, energy by apathy, enjoyment by regret and new skills or memories by entrenched habits and nostalgic recollections.
The truth is that nothing need be further from the truth!
With the right knowledge, skills and attitude the decades after forty can become a time of even greater fulfilment, intellectual growth and success.
Ageing need not be the unavoidable consequence of growing old – unless you want it to be.
I think I can safely assume that, by joining Funkyfogey and signing up for membership of the Brain Gym and your copy of Grey Matters you are among the growing numbers of folk around the world who have no intention of ‘going quietly into that good night’ as the poet Dylan Thomas so eloquently phrased it.
Ideally planning for peak performance past forty should, like planning your pension, start in your thirties or even earlier. But no matter what even if you are already forty or older, there is a tremendous amount which can be done to recapture, or retain, the stamina, vigour and youthful accomplishments of earlier years.
So dismiss the gloom mongers out of hand. Do not let the pessimistic views of the majority – Shakespeare included – lead you to fall prey to a self-fulfilling prophecy of unavoidable mental and physical decay. As the notable Belgian gerontologist Herman Le Compte put it: “Youth is a possession we can all keep, should we desire to do so.”
