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 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old 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 60 or 16, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike 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 the snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.

I though of this while reading a Duggar thread, when @emmalyn made a good point about Michelle Duggar clinging to her fertility and hopes of another child as  part of her identity. (Some of this was from the post, some was from a PM with @emmalyn. I hope I get her point across accurately.) Just as some of us mourn the wrinkles, gray hair, or saggy bits we see as we age, Michelle seems to mourn her loss of fertility as an unacceptable loss of youth.  

Mr. Ullman's meditation doesn't seem to apply directly to the Duggars, though. They seem to need less enthusiasm, not more. Or maybe they just need more genuine enthusiasm, joy, and childlike appetite. Not just a veneer for observers.