LIVING LIFE : Forever Young

My jolly grey-haired Rotarian friend who had seen the better side of his life used to crack ribs while introducing himself. “I am only sixty five years young.” Indeed, the jolly good Rotarian was a copy of someone who was aging gracefully and who refused age to get the better of his good sense of humour and his optimistic approach to life and everything therein. And there goes the eternal hunger for humans to achieve immortality or even more so eternal youth. No wonder the cosmetic industry is a billion dollar one. Women would kill to have a beautiful baby face into their sixties and even men are jumping on that bandwagon. Poor Silvio Berlusconi was the plastic surgery type - it’s a pity all that money wasted on getting a shapely chin and nose got messed by a vengeful attacker the other day – so are the risks of being a metrosexual man. So what’s the trick to staying young longer? For starters, it pays a lot to smile a lot. The muscles we use to smile lift the face, making a person appear younger. It is just not about appearing younger. A smile is the one act that exercises a lot of muscles in a human body, so it is a simple but good form of exercise as well. Remember exercise is the other simple way of staying younger for longer. People who feel better about themselves are very optimistic and to other people, it looks as if things just go their way without thinking. Some people like to call it the secret of attraction, that those who feel good attract good things to them. But feeling good is one of the easiest ways of staying younger for longer. It might just help to eat green, kick the meats away, stick those tumblers of natural fruit juice, plus lots and lost of water – they say water is good for the skin – and well give the beer a holiday, except of course for good old wine, that one the doctors blame it for a good, healthy heart, who am I to deny? And you might just live to see one hundred years. If all that fails, so they say music is food for the soul. I stumbled on a newer funky version of the hit track ‘Young Forever’ by one of the few American rappers who seem to turn ageless pieces of musical creations into modern entertaining stuff without passing off as too hiphopish. Jay Z’s rendition of Forever Young took me back to those days when I was not yet born and in the process reminded me of those times when I was still a boy listening to the music playing on the radio just because music was playing on the radio. It just did not make any sense then, I mean the music, but now the original versions of Young Forever or Forever Young make me feel young, though am not sure whether you and I can ever stay forever young! Otherwise, I wish you a funky Sunday. kelviod@yahoo.com