YOUR FAVOURITE AGE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 157, 19 June 1935, Page 10

YOUR FAVOURITE AGE

The Case lor Middle Age

PHILOSOPHY OF FIFTY

Still more answers have arrived to the question asked recently in these columns as to what was the happiest age, and opinions again vary considerably. Here are the readers’ answers. Like the last opinions, these are given by both men and women

Dear Penelope,—l consider between C 5 und 60 to bo the most interesting age, because at that time we become more philosophical. Our vision is widened, it is easier to see life as a comedy at which we are content to bo an onlooker. Wo are less egotistic, more concerned with the spectacle of life. Our earlier passions and predilections fade away and in retrospect appear extraordinarily insignificant.. We have acquired perspective and a sense of value. We realise that the tragedy that attracted us in our youth was not real tragedy after all. but merely its shadow.

Dear Penelope,—Most people arc apt to regard middle age as a losing battle against grey hair and the middle-aged spread, and fail to see its advantages. This attitude is largely duo to the fact that wo over-estimate the joys of being young. Youth is supposed to be the happiest and gayest period of our lives, when wo set forth to conquer the world, with a schoolgirl complexion and a handful of drcams as our stock-in-trade.

But wo soon find that they are not enough. Our dreams are apt to vanish into disillusionment, and youthful bloom is a poor substitute for experience and balance in meeting all the troubles that we have to face. Indeed, the charm and poise of maturity far outweigh the freshness of youth. A man may bo attracted by a rosebud complexion and a sylph-like figure, but finding a lack ot experience and understanding of life, he turns away disappointed. He may meet the same woman ten years later and be attracted not by her youthful charm, but by the range of her knowledge and the sense of depth and balance revealed in her conversation.

But the gifts of middle age are not offered to the woman who spends all her energy in the effort to maintain the outward forms of youth. Even if she succeeds she atill does not retain

“that first fine careless rapture” which is tho essential charm of youth. It is more likely that sho fails to achieve the outward show and merely makes herself look ridiculous.

But the woman who accepts the fact that youth does not last for ever, and looks forward instead to the next stage of life, with its new possibilities and new interests, will have a rich reward. She will have the happiness that comes only with increasing experience and knowledge of life .and perhaps for the first time she will begin to feel the power which is exercised by a mature und well-balanced personality.

Dear Penelope,— You ask what is tho happiest age. Well! I am nearer 50 than any other age, and this 1 consider to be the happiest ago that I have known. The rush of life is over, and I have more time for everything: mayo time to “stand and etaro” and more time to sit and think; and I. enjoy both. When lam playing bridge Ino longer wonder whether my children are all right without mo or whether 1 am neglecting them for my own pleasure. My days are peaceful and my night’s rest unbroken. I no longer wako suddenly and wonder whether I heard a baby cry; nor do 1 leap out of bed at what sounds like a little croupy cough, only to find that it is the young rooster next door learning to crow. When I sit in the sun at 10 o’clock in the morning reading an interesting book, 1 do not feel as though I am stealing the time that I should be spending in multitudinous duties inside. 1 feel that at last I can do what 1 like with my time and not bo answerable to my children for the way that 1 spend it.

Yes, I am having heaps of fun and am enjoying being nearly fifty immensely. I have learned to uso each day as it comes, and am not waiting for tho grand and wonderful event which must happen to-morrow—or next week or some time.

I find that I no longer want to criticise my fellow creatures. I realise how bravely they go through life with all its trials and troubles, and I admire them.

Yes, 50 is indeed a happy age. Only one thing troubles me, and that is that when I am 60 I may nave changed my mind about what is the happiest age.

Dear Penelope,—l think 60 years to be the best age when our brain is, or should be, at its best, because it is then that we can look backwards and see our mistakes —what young fools we were at times —and also look ahead and visualise what silly old fools we may become unless wo are careful. “NAT.”

Dear Penelope,—l think that the best age was when 1 was three. At that age I didn’t have to think and I. didn’t think, and I never intended to think, and if I did happen to think I believed it .Tn fact, I was a frpe agent, which apparently and unhappily we grow out cl. “M."