Why not?
July 25, 2012 (Wednesday)
After reaching my 80th birthday, and not feeling like it, I decided to do some serious research to find my true age. I followed this line of logic:
1. I like the Disney Channel.
2. The Disney Channel’s target audience is mostly young children, pre-teens and teenagers ages 9-14 and sometimes kids ages 2-5.
3. Therefore, my true age is somewhere between 2 and 14.
4. However, in recent years the audience has included young adults and young families, so I may be a bit older.
For the benefit of new readers, I am 80, but not all the time.
In 1979, psychologist Ellen Langer brought men in their 70s and 80s to a week-long retreat where everything looked and felt like 1959. One group of men was told to reminisce about the era. The other group was told to let themselves be who they were 20 years earlier. The Chicago Tribune reported on the retreat: “By the end of experiment, both groups of men were functioning independently, actively completing chores, and showed significant improvements in hearing, memory, strength and intelligence tests. The group told to behave like they were 20 years younger also showed better dexterity, flexibility and looked younger, according to outside observers who judged photos of the participants taken before and after the retreat.”
Here’s a double entendre with a purpose by B. Olatunji: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.”
A wonderful Bible verse to repeat immediately upon awakening every morning: “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24 NIV).