Refuse to grow old

I have many friends. I also have many senior citizen friends I admire. From time to time they would send me jokes and stories about different subject matters. This friendship is deepened when they give me permission to use the stories in my seminars and training sessions.

Guillermo Co has been a friend for many years. He is a bona fide member of the Baby Boomer generation. He possesses a fantastic sense of humor. He and his lovely wife Becky have raised a family of fun-loving children who are so nice to be with. He sent me this story I want to share with you:

A senior citizen asked his 80-year-old buddy, â€œSo I hear you’re getting married?”

“Yep!’”

“Do I know her?”

“Nope!”

“This woman, is she good looking?”

“‘Not really.’”

“Is she a good cook?”

“Naw, she can’t cook too well.”

“Does she have lots of money?”

“Nope! Poor as a mouse.”

“Why in the world do you want to marry her then?”

“Because she can still drive!”

It’s exciting to be old provided you and I know how to live life successfully. To be successful, we have to come to what is beyond. In other words, we need to innovate, create, recreate and reinvent ourselves. This will not happen unless we are self-motivated.

Being imprisoned to old ways and living and reliving the past will leave one in the rut. There are so many things we need to learn, obviously so many things we have to unlearn, and perhaps a few things we need to relearn. The key here is to never stop learning. The person who said that old people are too old to learn new things should stop talking, because this negative philosophy has permeated many to believe that it is the gospel truth. And so many seniors go into their old years believing that they are incapable of learning new things, and they resign themselves to oblivion.

I get a kick every time I see seniors swiping away their iPads. I smile every time I see seniors playing Candy Crush or Flappy Bird, and I laugh so hard when I see seniors with Skullcandy headphones on. Notice them. These are the people who are vibrant and have a fantastic sense of humor. And then again there are seniors who get together and do nothing but complain about how dumb their daughters-in-law are. Their national pastime is playing bingo, and when they get together they compare their sicknesses, doctors and medication. They have lived many years of life and possess very little life in their years. This should not be the case.

One thing that has warmed my heart is having a 75 year-old engineer/entrepreneur, who flew all the way from Davao, in my two-day public seminar workshop on leadership. He is such a delight to the class, and we all learned from his sharing. Guess what? He has a fantastic sense of humor.

There is no such thing as being too old to learn new things. It is not true that one cannot teach old dogs new tricks. I am a dog lover, and I have six dogs in the house. Hunter is a German Shepherd, and he is my personal favorite. He’s old now, but he still learns new tricks. What is true is that you cannot teach new tricks with old dogmas.

The willingness to learn involves its very namesake: the “WILL.” Do not let your years make you miserable. Be hopeful. Be vibrant. God is not done with you yet. Learn, and make yourself useful.

According to Michael Pritchard, “You don’t stop laughing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop laughing.” And guess what? He is right!

(Mark your calendars. Francis Kong will team up with famous speaker and author Krish Dhanam on May 15 in a whole day seminar entitled Achieving Peak Performance at EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. For further inquiries contact Inspire at 09158055910 or call 632-6310912 for details.)