What makes you old? Just keep the answer for yourself and now read this poetry.
This poetry was a favorite of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
YOUTH
by Samuel Ullman
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter
of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a
quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness
of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the
appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a
man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a
number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to
dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure
of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy
of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is
a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope,
cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you
young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of
cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at
twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of
optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
by Samuel Ullman
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter
of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a
quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness
of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the
appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a
man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a
number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to
dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure
of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy
of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is
a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope,
cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you
young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of
cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at
twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of
optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
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