How Old Are YOU?
Youth is not a time of life - it is a state of mind, it is a temper of the
will, a quality of the imagination, a vigour of the emotions, a predominance of
courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by
deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm
wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair - these are the
long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.
Whether they are sixteen or seventy, there is in every being's heart the love of
wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and star like things and thoughts, the
undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike
appetite for what is to come next, and the joy and the game of life.
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your
self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your
despair.
When the wires are all down and all the innermost core of your heart is covered
with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then you are grown old
indeed.
But so long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur
and power from the earth, from man and from the Infinite, so long you are young.
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