WHAT THE OLD CAN TEACH
Old and young are on the same high seas of life. We sail in leaky boats. Youth is no guarantee of long life. Old men may live longer than the young. Therefore, the young should respect the old and the old should guide the youth to sail over dangerous waters of life.
Old age is a friend who comes to meet us. “After the sun is down and the west faded, says Stevenson, the heaven begin to fill with shining stars”.
So we grow old. It is an equable jog-trot of life. The violence ups and down of youth are behind us. If the pleasures are small, troubles are also smaller. Old age in its own right is the richest, the easiest and the happiest period of life, if we keep good health and manages ourselves well, cutting our coat according to the cloth.
“Nay, by managing its own work and following its own happy inspiration, youth is doing the best it can to endow the leisure of age.”
If youth is not quite right, old age is also not quite right. If youth is wrong, old age is also wrong. In order to be right in the end, you must be right at every step of your life. Undying hope is the ruler of the human bosom in youth as well as old age.
One can shake the world out doze in youth as well as old age. Gandhi and Nehru never grew old. Moraji Desai was young even past eighty. So lead life lightly and love to live it. One is as young as one feels. Many youth feel old. Many oldsters still feel young indeed.
So the youth and age must agree to differ and differ to agree.