Tag Archives: life

Aging and Change – It happens to us all

20 Thursday Nov 2025

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As I’ve aged I have had much more time to think, write, spend time with family and friends, and do whatever I wish to do whenever I wish to do it. As a consequence, I’ve developed a greater sense of realism about those changes occurring in my mind, body, heart, and spirit. I’m particularly aware of the many ways in which I’m stronger than I once was, as well as the ways in which I have lost strength. Physically, though I walk 3-4 miles most mornings, I have lost, to my consternation, a measure of physical stamina that I once had without thinking much about it. For example, when playing on the floor with my grandchildren, getting up to a standing position now requires that I strategize three or four moves and then consciously play them out before reaching a standing position. When I was a young father and I stood up suddenly, often with one of my then young boys in my arms, I took such strength for granted.

These days I have the most energy in the morning, and that vigor carries me comfortably into the mid-afternoon. It is in those early hours that my thinking is sharpest and my spirit is the most unencumbered. By evening, most every day, unless I ingest a strong cup of dark French roast coffee before an evening out, I’m utterly exhausted. It didn’t used to be this way. When I served as a congregational rabbi, I went day after day, from early morning to night-time propelled like an energizer bunny, never slowing down, shifting focus easily from one thing to another without skipping a beat, being everywhere all-at-once all-the-time.

I’m in fairly good shape for my age (my doctors tell me) so I can’t complain. Just as my “boomer” contemporaries and slightly older “silent generation” friends understand only too well, none of us is as young as we used to be. Part of me is saddened and frustrated in my recognition of that truth.

The worst part of getting older for me, and I suspect for most of us, is that so many of the people I’ve loved have become ill and/or died. I consequently appreciate the people I care most about far more deeply than ever before.

As I’ve thought about how I’ve lived my life to this stage, I’ve struggled to accept all the changes with equanimity and greater patience. I’ve sought also to learn from my limitations and weaknesses, and from the lived experiences of others older than myself.

I wrote in this blog a month ago, for example, about the great Jane Goodall (see – https://rabbijohnrosove.blog/2025/10/12/dr-jane-goodall-lessons-about-life-and-aging/) and how successfully she maximized every opportunity and how with grace and high energy she drew meaning and joy from every experience. She was a great model in how to live one’s life fully and well.

One other thing that I appreciate more and more with the passing months and years – reading history, not only because life as it was lived in other eras is fascinating in its own right, but because history has much to teach us about the greatest figures of those by-gone times. In studying the past, we revisit the reoccurring themes that are part of the human condition regardless of time, place, and circumstance.

I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ “The American Revolution” on PBS, and as I learn more than I have ever known before about what Burns characterizes as the greatest historical event since the time of Jesus Christ, I’m amazed at the ease with which I am able to project myself back to those days, weeks, months, and years of our nation’s founding. In viewing the painted portraits of significant British and American leaders, though painted in an idealized classical style, it is striking to me that everyone of historic importance was far younger than me today when they made the most consequential contributions and personal sacrifices on behalf of the future of the United States and humankind. George Washington was only 43 when he assumed command of the revolutionary forces in 1775, and Benjamin Franklin was only 70 at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 6 years younger than me now.

It is true about every one of us who, if we live long enough, we confront change in our society, the world, and in ourselves. Indeed, we change every day – sometimes without our being particularly aware of it as it happens – but there come those moments, inevitably, when the changes become clear. Change is an axiom of living. We can’t avoid it, and if we’re wise, we struggle and learn to accept it – even relish in it.

I offer below reflections by some of history’s greatest thinkers about the challenges of change that they came to understand. These statements have been helpful to me, and perhaps they will be to you too, whether you are old or young, or anywhere in-between.

“Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

“If you don’t take change by the hand, it will take you by the throat.” -Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” -Anatole France (1844-1924)

“Everything flows, and nothing abides; everything gives way, and nothing stays fixed.” -Heraclitus (circa 500 BCE)

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” -Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

And this from a centenarian: “Comprehend the changing of times—never stay stuck in the past or its difficulties.” -Concepción Calvillo de Nava (b. 1920-)

Dr. Jane Goodall – Lessons about Life and Aging

12 Sunday Oct 2025

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The recent death of the remarkable anthropologist, primatologist, ethologist, climate activist, humanitarian, and author Dr. Jane Goodall (1934-2025) is a huge loss to the world and to all those who have respected, admired and loved her for her foundational work with chimpanzees in Tanzania and her teachings about the relationship between the primate species and how we humans ought to regard who we are in relationship to the natural world. In recent years, she spoke in a series of interviews about aging and what was important to her that enabled her to live a life of meaning and significance that sustained her until the day she died this month. The following is a list of what she strove to do every day:

  • Learn new things;
  • Avoid stress by accepting whatever happened to her as a part of the natural process of living;
  • Accept death as the next great experience;
  • Spend substantial time in nature;
  • Clarify her sense of purpose and strive to make a difference in the world;
  • Walk and exercise;
  • Eat a plant-based diet;
  • Surround her life with animals thereby enhancing her joy, empathy and comfort (she loved dogs most of all);
  • Take time to “step back, recalibrate, and maintain balance in my life”;
  • Build strong relationships with the people she loved and trusted – family, colleagues and young activists in her Roots & Shoots youth program;
  • Travel (she was on the road 300 days a year);
  • Live simply without acquiring unnecessary things that cluttered her life;
  • Feel gratitude for what she had without focusing on what she lacked;
  • Be hopeful, optimistic and think positively. She once said: “Hope is what enables us to keep going in the face of adversity. It is what we desire to happen, but we must be prepared to work hard to make it so.”

As the “Baby-Boom” generation (those of us born between 1946 and 1964) enters our senior years (73 million Americans) along with those of older living generations, I offer the following quotations of writers, thinkers, and religious figures on the theme of aging. Taken together, I hope they are as meaningful and inspiring to you as they are to me:

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love.” -Sophia Loren (b. 1934)

“In youth we learn; in age we understand.” -Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916)

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” -Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“One day, you will look back and see that all along, you were blooming.” -Morgan Harper Nichols (b. 1990)

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” -Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007)

“No one is as old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” -Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

“Know that you are the perfect age. Each year is special and precious, for you shall only live it once.” –Louise Hay (1926-2017)

“The more the bodily faculties weaken and the fire of the passions subsides, the intellect is strengthened, its lights extend outward, its apprehension is purified, and [the soul] rejoices in what it apprehends. [This continues] until the…individual is advanced in years…[and] grows very powerful, and the joy in that apprehension and an ardent love for that which is apprehended grows [with it]...” -Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (AKA Maimonides or RAMBAM) (12th-13th century C.E.)

“Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure.” -George Santayana (1863-1962)

Maria Branyas Morera believed her longevity stemmed from “order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity and staying away from toxic people.” –Maria Branyas died at the age of 117 (1907-2024). She was at the time of her death the oldest person in the world.

“A person is not old until his/her regrets take the place of dreams.” -Yiddish proverb

“You are only as old as you feel.” –President Jimmy Carter (1924-2024)

“One who greets an elder is as though s/he has greeted the face of the Shechinah [the face of the Divine].” –Midrash, Genesis Rabbah 63.6 (400-500 CE)

“Accept her counsel and do not despise her on account of her old age, for she has experienced many things and knows well how to dispense proper counsel. On this account, the sages of blessed memory have said: ‘An old woman in the house bodes well for the house.’” –Israel ibn al-Nakawa (14th century CE)

“Scholars, at the time of their old age, decrepitude, and bodily deterioration, grow in knowledge, strengthen in intellect, and increase in perfection, as it says, ‘Wisdom is with elders and understanding comes with length of days.’” –Maimonides (12-13th century CE)

“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” -Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

Like an Old Car

16 Friday May 2025

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As we age, we’re like old cars – hopefully classic cars – but regardless of whether we regard ourselves as old Chevy’s or Cadillacs, the reality is that just as those jalopies break down and need replacement parts and tune-ups to keep running effectively, so too is it for each of us.

I passed my 75th birthday last December, and though I feel good enough, the reality of aging is ever-present and something I don’t take for granted.

I first got the shock of my life at the age of 59 when I was diagnosed with a relatively advanced stage of prostate cancer. I had surgery to remove it and then I had to confront (for the first time in my life) that had modern science, a great doctor and competent and compassionate nurses not taken care of me, I would have died young, like my father before me who succumbed to his second heart attack at the age of 53.

As I’ve aged, I think much more than ever before about my parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents too, and the maladies of aging they experienced in their generations. Thanks to medical research and development in so many areas of bodily and mental health over many decades, longevity and good health have increased in modern societies if we’re treated, that is, by competent physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, and state-of-the-science hospitals and clinics. How we take care of ourselves, how much exercise we do each day, whether we eat well and in moderation, forgo alcohol and drugs, get adequate sleep, enjoy positive mutually supportive relationships with family and friends, control our stress levels, do productive and creative work, have good genes, and get appropriate bio-medical support – all taken together – make a substantial difference in our quality of life, happiness and contentment, health, energy and longevity.

I regard my body and mind often like the first car I co-owned with my brother – a 1955 Chevy. I loved that car, and when Barbara and I led a congregational tour to Cuba years ago, seeing those 1950s models rumble along on the streets of Havana, held together by spit and wire, made me happy and nostalgic for my early years.

Last week, after returning from an overseas trip, to catch up on my health issues, I saw a different doctor every day. But – whether I complain about the effort it takes to go to one physician after another, given my respect for their competence, expertise and treatment, I much prefer that to the alternative. I used to say when I played golf regularly, especially when I had a mediocre hitting day that was frustrating no matter what I did to make adjustments in my focus, stance and swing: “Better this side of the grass.”

I depend now more than ever on the expertise of those physicians and the bio-medical assistance they prescribe to sustain me as a positive thinking half-glass-full 75 year-old Jew that I now am, a positive quality that propelled me from my youngest years to be productive and to find meaning in my life. I’m grateful not only to them, but most especially to my family, friends and community. They sustain and inspire me.

May we all “live long and prosper,” and be for each of us the embodiment of wisdom, strength, love and support that we can offer to one another.

The Art of Growing Old – Thoughts for Joe Biden

21 Sunday Jul 2024

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I love Joe Biden – always have. He has heart and his personal losses, wonderful marriage and loving children and grandchildren, the esteem of his colleagues and from the Democratic Party, and his understanding of America’s purpose in the world have made him a great president with accomplishments that will be compared with FDR and LBJ. But, he’s having a hard time aging and letting go, and that’s sad to watch. We all get old, if we’re lucky. At almost 75, I’m beginning to understand the effects of aging much better myself – mild memory loss, loss of quickness of mind, more aches and pains, physical weariness earlier in the day, etc. etc. etc. – but so much positive comes with aging too – a greater perspective, enhanced appreciation, deepening gratitude, wider generosity of heart, inner calm.

Joe is a great man, and perhaps his resistance in stepping aside is part of the reason for his greatness, that his dogged persistence in making a difference, to do what few human beings have been successful in doing – reaching the highest office in the world – blinds him to the new reality in his life – getting old. Joe’s accomplishments as a leader, politician and statesman are very great, but his time to step aside has come – that’s obvious to any objective observer.

Step aside Joe – we love you. We admire you. Your legacy will stand the test of time. You will rise even higher than #14 in the long list of presidents as history judges you so very well.

Here are some inspired thoughts about getting older, both from the perspective of one who ages and from philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists, artists, and writers. If anyone knows Joe personally who reads this, share these quotations with him and Jill. He has nothing to fear and everything to gain. He has been and can be still our hero and example.

Aging is a gift – “Aging is a gift, a chance to keep growing, learning and experiencing life in new ways. It’s about defying limitations and embracing the possibilities that lie ahead… It’s not about passively accepting age it’s about actively living each day to the fullest, wrinkles and all.” -David S. Cantor

Senility and Aging – “I feel as if I’m losing all my leaves. The branches, and the wind, and the rain… I don’t know what’s happening any more. Do you know what’s happening?” -“The Father” with Anthony Hopkins

Compensation of Growing Old – “The compensation of growing old, Peter Walsh thought, coming out of Regent’s Park, and holding his hat in his hand was simply this, that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained – at last! – The power which adds the supreme flavour to existence – the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light.” -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Respecting the Aged – “Respect an old man who has lost his learning: remember that the fragments of the tablets broken by Moses were preserved alongside the new.” – -Babylonian Talmud, B’rachot 8b

The Aging Artist – “The art of fresco was not work for old me…one paints with the brain and not with the hands.” -Michelangelo

“Clouds of affection from our younger eyes / Conceal the emptiness which age descries. / The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed. / Let’s in new light through chinks that time hath made.”-Rembrandt

Characteristics of Old-Age Style in Work of Greatest Painters and Sculptors – “A sense of isolation, a feeling of holy rage, developing into what I have called transcendental pessimism: a mistrust of reason, a belief in instinct. … the feeling that the crimes and follies of mankind must be accepted with resignation… a retreat from realism, an impatience with established technique and a craving for complete unity of treatment, as if the picture were an organism in which every member shared in the life of the whole.” – Kenneth Clark, Aging Artists

The Complete Life – “The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquility of the evening. Old age has its pleasures which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.” -W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up

Loving Life – “No man loves life like him that’s growing old.” -Sophocles, Acrisius

Growing Old – “Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be, / The last of life, for which the first was made.” -Robert Browning

The Secret of Old Age – “The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.” -Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Continuing On – “There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning.” -Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age

The Blessings of Age – “For age is opportunity no less / Than youth itself, though in another dress. / And as the evening twilight fades away / The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus

A Truth About Growing Older – “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” -Audrey Hepburn

The Life of the Elderly – “We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning.” -Carl Jung

The Art of Growing Old – “The art of growing old is the art of being regarded by the oncoming generations as a support and not a stumbling block.” -Andre Maurois, An Art of Living

About Aging and Joe Biden’s Fitness to Lead

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

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Over many years I have collected thousands of quotations on countless themes. In light of the current national discussion about aging as Joe Biden runs again for president as the oldest chief executive in our nation’s history, I thought it worthwhile to share a few thoughts about getting older that have been left to us by writers, artists, philosophers and commentators over the centuries. Hopefully, these can remind us about the positives that come with aging. For those who think that Joe Biden is too old to be president (I don’t – see below), I suggest sending them this list to offer a wider perspective about what, hopefully, will be the destiny of us all, to age gracefully, with dignity and with our intellectual wits and moral compass largely intact.

First, however, I want to say a few words about the negative attitude of many younger people about Biden’s decision to seek a second term. Some 80 year-olds are, indeed, wise to retire and commence the last period of their lives with family and friends, doing whatever they choose that is productive, relevant, creative and meaningful for them. Others who have the wherewithal still, who have their wits and are wise based on a lifetime of experience and learning, who want to continue to work and contribute and are able to do so physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually, they should be encouraged to do so without the second-guessing of younger people who presume that aging means broad-based diminished capacities for everyone over a certain age, whatever that age may be.

Traditional religions revere the elderly for their life-experience and wisdom. Unfortunately, in our western youth-oriented culture, too many people who aren’t yet seniors themselves and don’t fully understand what seniors are able and not able to do assume that anyone older than 65, 70, 75, or 80 automatically can’t measure up to what is required. Though some aspects of our lives are indeed diminished when we age, there are other strengths that make up for what is over and gone. Every older person has to make the decision for him/herself about what they are able and willing to do, and though some professions, businesses and organizations make that decision for them based on quantifiable and justifiable standards, especially when the health and well-being of others are directly affected, many occupations ought to remain open to those who still have capacity and a proven recent track-record of accomplishment.

Joe Biden is one of those who still has the capacity to lead the nation and free world (see my last blog post “Let’s Stop the Bed-Wetting!” – Feb 12) and the op-ed I included there by Dr. Haran Ranganath “Biden Seems Forgetful, but That Doesn’t Mean He is ‘Forgetting'” (NYT – Feb. 12).

I mentioned in that blog that Biden “appears” old due to his arthritic back problems, a life-time of compensating for a stutter, and a quieter and slower speaking style. Those who know him believe he is focused and fully in command of the facts and policies on multiple issues facing this country and world. The NYT’s Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman said this week on MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber that he spent an hour with Biden recently and he detected no diminished intellectual capacity whatsoever, a view that even former Republican MAGA Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy acknowledged privately. Biden’s advisors concur with both Krugman’s and McCarthy’s observations. The DC media bubble and even Jon Stewart in his offensive – IMO – attack on Biden on his maiden re-voyage of The Daily Show on Monday night are having a field day since Special Counsel Robert Hur’s gratuitous, unprofessional and unqualified attack on President Biden’s mental acuity.

I agree with many political pundits who say that it’s high time for Biden to appear everywhere, before the press, on late-night television, etc. and show the country that he still has what it takes to be president. Hopefully, the State of the Union will begin to put to rest the public perception about his mental capacities and the two old guys running for president can be evaluated on the basis of policy differences, competency, decency, morality, mental health, what is good for American democracy and the vast majority of the American people, and for a stable world order led by the United States.

Rob Reiner put it far more succinctly than I did above when he said: “Here’s the truth. Biden is old. But he is a decent moral person who is incredibly effective at governing. Trump is old. But he’s a pathologically lying criminal who is incapable of governing and will destroy American Democracy.”

Here is some food for thought on aging over the centuries:

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” -Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007)

“No one is as old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” -Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

“One does not get better but different and older and that is always a pleasure.” -Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)

“Today we are wasting resources of incalculable value: the accumulated knowledge, the mature wisdom, the seasoned experience, the skilled capacities, the productivity of a great and growing number of our people—our senior citizens.” -John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” -Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825)

“The compensation of growing old, Peter Walsh thought, coming out of Regent’s Park, and holding his hat in his hand was simply this, that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained – at last! – The power which adds the supreme flavour to existence – the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light.” -Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

“One who greets an elder is as though he has greeted the face of the Shechinah” (the feminine divine presence of God). -Genesis Rabbah 63.6 (300-500 CE)

“In the aged is wisdom, and in length of days understanding.” –Job 12:12 (between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE)

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” -Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“The art of fresco was not work for old me…one paints with the brain and not with the hands.” -Michelangelo (1475-1564)

“All I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three I learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. In consequence when I am eighty, I shall have made still more progress. At ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things: at a hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvelous stage: and when I am a hundred and ten, everything I do, be it a dot on a line, will be alive. I beg those who live as long as I to see if I do not keep my word. Written at the age of seventy-five by me, once Hokusai, today Gwakio Rojin, the old man mad about drawing.” -Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849)

“What is old age? A sense of isolation, a feeling of holy rage, developing into what I have called transcendental pessimism: a mistrust of reason, a belief in instinct. … the feeling that the crimes and follies of mankind must be accepted with resignation… a retreat from realism, an impatience with established technique and a craving for complete unity of treatment, as if the picture were an organism in which every member shared in the life of the whole.” -Kenneth Clark (1903-1983)

“The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquility of the evening. Old age has its pleasures which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.” -W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

“No human loves life like the one that’s growing old.” -Sophocles (497/496-406/405 BCE)

“Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be, / The last of life, for which the first was made.” -Robert Browning (1812-1889)

“When we’re young we have faith in what is seen, but when we’re old we know that what is seen is traced in air and built on water.” -Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959)

“There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning.” -Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)

“For age is opportunity no less / Than youth itself, though in another dress. / And as the evening twilight fades away / The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

“Age is never so old as youth would measure it.” -Jack London (1876-1916)

“The art of growing old is the art of being regarded by the oncoming generations as a support and not a stumbling block.” -Andre Maurois (1885-1967)

“Seek not to follow in the footsteps of the old; seek what they sought.” -Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age.” -Sophia Loren (1934- )

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” -Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993)