In my last post, I mentioned that Paul Tournier alluded to the value of acceptance in enjoying old age, especially with respect to the illnesses and chronic conditions that may accompany it. Psychologists, natural health gurus, and Bible teachers all agree: The person who is continually striving for a cure, who is always trying the latest medicine, diet, or alternative treatment, is really no better situated for mental health than the person who continually rails against God and man looking for someone to blame for his or her condition.
The only people who live well with chronic illness, which is a hallmark of old age for many, are those who have accepted that pain or disability or limitations or discomfort is their new normal.
This sounds like bleak advice, but it's really quite liberating. I myself know that when I stopped chasing a "cure" for my thyroid condition and started just working with it, and when I accepted my susceptibility to depression, I was able to enjoy the life I had, rather than continually wishing for someone else's life.
I think Christians struggle more with this kind of acceptance than those of some other faiths or of no faith, because we know that there is always a possibility of miraculous healing beyond what science can provide. If Jesus appeared to us and said, as He did to the man at the pool in Bethesda, "Do you want to be made well?" of course we would answer yes. But if He instead appeared to us and said, "My strength is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness," as He did to Paul, could we accept that answer as well?
Paul Tournier, so many years ago, also advocated for acceptance in the context of old age. We must accept the limitations imposed on us by the 24-hour-day and by mortality-- only God, Tournier points out-- can say "It is finished" and sit down forever! We must accept our lives, our circumstances, our bodies and our age. Acceptance is different from resignation, and is more like consent-- we agree that what we are experiencing is acceptable. We live authentically in the reality we are experiencing rather than pretending that something different is happening-- that we are not ill or we are not old. Ideally, we will be able to focus on what we have rather than what we have lost.
Tournier believes that these habits of mind must be developed early in life. He believes that those who do not accept old age also did not accept adolescence, or young adulthood, or middle age. He believes that those who have spent their whole lives complaining about the responsibilities and limitations of their current situation and either nostalgically longing for a previous stage or looking forward to some supposedly more free future stage all their lives will be singularly ill-equipped to cope with old age-- even if, maybe especially if, it is the stage to which they were looking forward! Surely it is bound to disappoint, after all.
What a compelling point for me, surrounded as I am by high school students who constantly complain about how busy and stressed out they are, while what could be some of the most wonderful moments and opportunities of their lives pass them by.
Young mothers look forward to their children getting older... mothers of older kids look back with fondness to the simplicity of the preschool years, or look forward to their kids leaving. In middle age, perhaps we are still caregiving, or maybe the expectations of our jobs and community activities have become pressing, so we look to retirement for a relief of our pressures.
But why would these habits of discontent change when we turn 66? If we hope to enjoy our retirement, we must accept first that every age has its challenges and its rewards, and then seek to develop habits of contentment now, wherever we are, engaging with the world and with our lives as they are. Such habits of mind will empower us to live well during every age and stage.
