Inspiration – Keeping Young

 

Inspiration – Keeping Young

By Nikki Viljoen of Viljoen Consulting (Pty) Ltd

The quote today comes from Henry Ford, who says:

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.   The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” 

One of my greatest challenges, at the moment, is to remember that I am now in my 60s!  When I think of myself it’s not as an “old” person (not that I am saying that the 60s is old!), but I can still remember very clearly as a teenager, working out how old I would be at the turn of the century and thinking I would be ancient!  

Many of my friends think that is time that I ‘grew up’ and started acting ‘age-appropriate’ and my standard response to that one is “what for?”

I am very young at heart and am proud to say that I can still party and out party many much younger than I am, (I suspect that being an insomniac has something to do with that though).  For me, life is for the living and I intend to live it to the full.

Too often, I see people who are bent and buckled by the responsibilities and weight of issues that they carry around with them.  They sag under a heavy load of self-inflicted issues or even other people’s responsibilities and be-moan their lot at every opportunity and to everybody who will listen.  They become ‘old’ before their time and simply exist from day to day as they wait for their time to end.  For them, life is about paying their dues.  I could no more live like this than I could chew off my own arm!

I’m not saying that life is a joke or one continuous party!  What I am saying though is that we have all been given an incredible opportunity to live an average of fourscore and ten years, and once lived we can not go back and change it.  

Each day is a brand new opportunity and we can either take up the challenge or lose that opportunity.

So why not make this the greatest opportunity that we will ever have and live life to the fullest?  Take up the challenge!  Make a difference in the world! 

Go on – I dare you!

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or www.viljoenconsulting.co.za