Leaving Well Enough Alone
If you could
live to be 100, but could retain either the body or the mind of a
30-year-old, which would you choose?
Why? (Serendipity Bible 10th
Anniversary Edition, p.1685.
When
I look back to when I was thirty, I see much anxiety and not a little
unhappiness. This came from deep-seated fears that
I would not be able to measure up in my career or in my personal life. The world offered many challenges, and I was
filled with self-doubt. Now that I’m
sixty-eight, these dark fears have cleared and as I inexorably approach death ironically
I see sunny skies. The anxieties, the “nervousness”
of being young and restless has greatly diminished. I find my current level of contentment, self-confidence,
and self-acceptance producing a much preferable state of mind. Thus at 100, I would far prefer having my
current mind within the body of a 30-year-old.
An interesting question is even if doable, would this be wise; to what
extent was my “nervousness” a product of the hormones and neural circuits of a
30-year-old? In short, would retaining
the body of necessity entail retaining an unsettled mental state? If I had the body of 30, would I simply
discount what I have attained and up the ante with new ambitions and mountains
to climb that in my present configuration I do not contemplate or even conceive? Would my former anxieties and unhappiness thus
return with a vengeance? Sometimes when I
get up in the morning feeling arthritis in my bones, I think I would be willing
to chance it anyway.
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