206. You’re getting older… does it really pay to fight it trying to attract a mate?

It’s interesting to me that the way – the only way – we end up suffering emotionally is through belief in our thoughts. I know, that’s a radical-sounding statement. So stay with me for a few minutes and let’s see if I can show you what I mean. Then you can judge the validity of the statement yourself.

Last night I had a conversation with a long-time friend of mine, Anita, who was feeling sad about the fact that she’s getting older. The conversation clearly showed me she was creating her own pain just by her thoughts. None of us have to do that if we can simply see life a little more clearly.

“I’ve seen more doctors in the last few years than I ever have in my life,” she said. “It just makes me sad.” Anita is widowed and in her late 60’s, and she’d love to be in a relationship. So every time she thinks of getting older she also thinks no one will want her.

Where Anita is creating her own suffering, it’s so clear, is in an area I talk about a lot. She’s trying to fight reality, and in the process she not only loses but also makes herself miserable. What is reality, in this case? Well, it’s clear that in real life we all age and we all begin to lose some of our youthful physical abilities and we’re all eventually going to die. You can’t argue with that. Yet – and here’s the strange part – we try.

We think it shouldn’t be this way. We think it’s awful. We mourn the fact that we don’t have the energy we used to have, or that our knees hurt when we stand up, or that we have wrinkles and sagging skin we never had before. “Yes,” you might be saying, “but who wants to get old and wrinkly and have sagging skin? It’s hard enough to find a partner without having to also go out in the world without the youthful good looks I once had.”

But let’s look at the actuality of life for a moment. Whatever you look like when you look in the mirror, and whatever you feel like when you’re active physically, that’s just what life has dealt you isn’t it? You’re not being singled out as the only 50 or 60 or 70 or 80-something who’s getting older. That’s just the way life is.

Now, we can fight it and bemoan it and suffer it or we can just accept life as it is. We seem to have those two choices. Meantime, aging doesn’t stop. It doesn’t care what we think. It’s going to be what it is, just like life is what it is every day. Every spring the trees put on new leaves and every fall they lose them. Every minute or so the tide comes in. And every minute or so it goes out again. There’s summer, spring and fall. Nature has its ways and it acts through everything, including all animal forms, which includes humans.

Reality always wins. It always rules. But let’s look for a moment at what happens to us when we try to argue with it. How do you feel inside if you’re sad and miserable because you’re aging? You might actually take a moment to let yourself know what that really feels like inside your body. And how does that feeling affect your happiness, your joy, your spontaneity? Do you think what registers inside you might also register on the outside to the men or women you’d like to date or have a relationship with?

While we’re in the mood of being sad and disheartened about aging how do you think we come across to any potential partner or date? We’d have to reflect that wouldn’t we? So as far as I can see when we argue with what is we lose in at least two ways: We don’t feel happy, which is the biggest way, and we also lessen our chances of finding joy in our dating and of attracting someone to us. Who wants to be around a sour puss who’s inwardly miserable about getting old?

And the main point is this: For what? For what reason are we believing our thought that it’s terrible that we’re getting older? Is it terrible or is it just life? It’s only terrible if we say so. It’s all a myth. We’re creating a nightmare and living in it as though it were real – self-created misery. Seems to me it’s a lot easier to see life just as it is without throwing up arguments that change nothing and make us suffer. Without our made-up story life is just fine. No judgment, no suffering. You prove that to yourself every night when you sleep.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer