Admiring wrinkles | The Manila Bulletin Newspaper Online

MANILA, Philippines — I’ll never forget the advice of a friend, a white-haired 83-year-old widow who said: “let’s forget our age and admire our wrinkles.” She lived her life with zest. Active, energetic and friendly up to the end; she enjoyed interacting with people; giving comforting words to her friends and relatives.

The widow’s positive mental attitude is enviable indeed. She sees the bright sunshine in every situation… and not the negative circumstances around. No wonder, she aged gracefully.

There are great and famous people who accomplished their greatest not when they were young but when they were older and with visible wrinkles in their faces. Let me share some of famous people who were at their best performance in their old age:-

• Noah Webster wrote his dictionary at age seventy (70);

• Alfred Tennyson published his famous poem “Crossing the Bar” at eighty-three (83);

• Guiseppe Verdi composed his Te Deum at eighty-five (85);

• Goethe wrote the second poet of Faust after the age of eighty (80);

• Gladstone served as Prime Minister of England at age eighty-five (83);

• Golda Meir was seventy-one (71) when she became the Prime Minister of Israel;

• Titian painted his memorable, the Battle of Lepanto at age ninety-five (95) and his Last Supper at age ninety-nine (99);

• George Bernard Shaw was ninety-four (94) when one of his plays was produced;

• Thomas Edison was still busy at his laboratory at age eighty-three (83);

• Arturo Toscanini conducted an orchestra at age eighty-seven (87);

• The Earl of Halsburg was already ninety (90) when he started preparing a twenty volume revision of English law;

• Benjamin Franklin was one of the famous framers of the US Constitution when he was eighty-one (81);

• Galileo made his greatest discovery when he was seventy-three (73);

• Winston Churchill returned to the House of Commons as a member of Parliament at age eighty (80). Earlier, at age sixty-five (65) when he was Prime Minister, he initiated his protest against Hitler;

• Adolf Zukor was the Chairperson of Paramount Pictures in Hollywood at age ninety-one (91);

• In the 1989 New York Marathon, more than 10,000 of the runners who finished were over forty (40); fifty-six of the finishers were over seventy (70); and the oldest came in at ninety-one (91);

• Mark Twain wrote “Eve’s Diary” and “The $30,000 Bequest” at seventy-one (71);

• Michelangelo was still busy producing his masterpiece at eighty-nine (89);

• John Wesley, the great Christian evangelist was still preaching the gospel more than twice a day at age eighty-six (86).

Remember Konrad Adenauer of Germany? Here’s a story about him: “When Konrad Adenauer, still chancellor, was approaching the age of ninety, he succumbed to a heavy cold. His personal physician, unable to be of very much help, had to put up with Adenauer’s impatience. “I’m not a magician,” protested the harassed doctor. “I can’t make you young again.”

“I haven’t asked you to,” retorted the chancellor. “All I want is to go on getting older.” – The Little Brown Anecdote Book (From the Speaker’s Quote Book by Zuck)

What would the world be without the old? Everyone wants to live long, isn’t it? And the only way to live a long life is by aging. Let’s keep on admiring wrinkles. Wrinkles are dignified and mute testimonies of experiences in life.

Have a joyful day!

Source: http://www.mb.com.ph