#ageing

I bargained with Life for a penny, And Life would pay no more, However I begged at evening When I counted my scanty store; For Life is just an employer, He gives you what you ask, But once you have set the wages, Why, you must bear the task. I worked for a menial's hire, Only to learn, dismayed, That any wage I had asked of Life, Life would have paid. ↗

— Jessie B. Rittenhouse

#hire #learning #life #philosophy #poem

This is in the natural order of things--the time of life we've now entered. The afternoon, as Jung called it. Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life. Are we unprepared simply because preparation is not possible? ... We learn--if we are lucky we learn--as we go. ... we are in the center of the stream. Much has already happened, and has formed the shape of our lives as surely as water shapes rock. Much lies ahead of us. We can't see what's coming. We can't know it. All we have is our hope that all will be well, and our knowledge that it won't always be so. We live in the space between this hope and this knowledge. ... Life keeps coming at us. Fleeing it is pointless, as is fighting. What I have begun to learn is that there is value in simply standing there--this too--whether the sun is shining, or the wind whipping all around. [pp.239-240] ↗

— Dani Shapiro

#age

Behold yon rough and flinty road Where youth, now youth no more, Gropes whining, seeking crumbs of loaves He cast away of yore. ↗

— Emma Ghent Curtis

#experience #poem #poetry #poets #youth

I used to look at Jinks and marvel at her smooth complexion, but over the years I have come to realise that she has been spared wrinkles by virtue of never having succumbed to heavy thought. ↗

— Sandi Toksvig

#humor #thinking #age

Old age...is a powerful disguise (Stella the elephant) ↗

— Katherine Applegate

#age

Ageing means a loss of a number of skills over time. ↗

— Julie Bishop

#loss #means #number #over #skills

The strongest initiative that government can take to ensure Australia is prepared for population ageing, is to maintain a strong economy, and a secure nation. ↗

— Julie Bishop

#australia #economy #ensure #government #initiative

We know that so many of the conditions and diseases that we associate with ageing can often be prevented or in fact their onset delayed if we just took preventative steps earlier in our lives. ↗

— Julie Bishop

#associate #conditions #delayed #diseases #earlier

When the Australian Government looked at how to meet the challenges, and the opportunities, presented by our ageing population, it saw that an all-encompassing approach was a prerequisite. ↗

— Julie Bishop

#approach #australian #challenges #government #how

Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.' 'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit. 'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.' 'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?' 'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. ↗

— Margery Williams

#ageing #authenticity #becoming #being-loved #being-real