Happy to be Old --- the Second Optional Article

Russell has once written in one of his essays to explain “Old”. In the article, he said that the young were afraid of growing old, for they were still in the most vigorous situation, desiring to make a big difference to the world. However the old shouldn’t be afraid of it, for they have lived so long and seen so many things. When I was reading the sentences, what came to me was that we needed to be happy to grow old. Happy, a thing of human’s choice during our life, is caused by the daily increasing knowledge with an “unhappy” process of growing old.

Why should we be happy to grow old? Russell, in his own opinion, gave the illusion that the process of living is one with gaining knowledge unendingly. During the long river of your life, you first vigorously flow down the mountain within the narrow banks; then the energy diminishes and the water became slow and peaceful; and at last you are absorbed by the whole human sea. Life, accompany by experiences, is a period of growing wisdom and losing vigor. Sometimes we might be confused by the process and are quite reluctant to accept the truth of being old. In contrast we are willingly receiving the knowledge we have gained through time. This “lost and found” game makes us tired, but happy at the same time.

Tiredness and happiness are always accompanied; you are gaining while you are losing. If you didn’t make any progress, you wouldn’t go through obstacles. What’s more, when you make effort, you are experiencing a hard period, during which you face an imperfect you and try to exercise yourself again and again by polishing off those shortcomings. But it is you who must choose an attitude to live. No matter what you are facing, whether it is a disease or a study problem, you gain all kinds of knowledge or experience when growing old.

So growing old is not something to be afraid of. What should attract our attention is that when growing old we need to be happy, for the knowledge we gain, and for which we will pass on to the later generations. Just be happy of growing old.