Good evening friends.
This is my mother Jo Ann Smith. I really admire her message. She poses the question what is so bad about aging ? Where is that written ? Is there somebody out there who doesn’t age that I should take this personally ? Jo Ann wants to answer that rhetorically. There are 7 billion people on the Earth and each day, no matter who you are, you’re one day older. Or for the positive people, one day wiser and happier.
The minute you’re born the time clock on your life is winding against you or for you depending how your look at it. I am 71 years old or young, call it what you will. People have said my whole life that getting old sucks. Even the Rolling Stones sang in 1966, ♫♫♫ What a drag it is getting old ♫♫♫ in their song, “Mother’s little helper”
Its interesting that mentally we accept gravity with no reservations, if we jump up we come landing down. Aging is the same concept. As soon as your born you’re aging. But mentally the media has drilled it into our heads that we have to stay younger. The concept of gravity says you cannot stay younger. But the concept of acceptance and happiness is ageless, you always have that choice.
If people want to sit around holding on to the younger years, Who am i to judge ? But at 71 years old, your looks may not be what they used to, so you better have something to say for yourself above and beyond how pretty you once were.
My name is Jo Ann Smith. I was a June Taylor dancer from Queens many ions ago. My son was right, If you feel happy, you’ll always feel the like the youngest person in the room. The media is so crafty they’ll have you believing that you’re worth less then you were as you are getting older. Whose rules are those ? I never subscribed to such an inaccurate subscription. Time moves on and we get older no matter who you are. That is a mathematical fact.
People who are in the business of seeking happiness are timeless. That is a spiritual fact. As time moves on, if you’re fighting to stay younger, you are going against gravity. I am 71 one years old, tomorrow I will be a day older than I am today, but a day wiser and happier.
I’m in this life to be happy. If you’re in this life chasing the past, I feel sorry for you from the bottom of my heart because you’re missing the present. My husband died at 45 years old in 1984 with six kids. When he was on his death bed for the last couple of weeks, he never said to me” Am I still handsome” — He said I”m glad I have a wife and six kids and skied every chance I got. He also said, don’t eat red meat, yolk, or salt right before he died.
If any of you lovely people are wondering what people think of you, your thinking is in the wrong direction. The question is, what do you think of certain people and who do you want in your life that will enhance it ?
I wish you all the love and happiness I’ve had and continue to have in my life. I am my own resource of happiness. All my loved ones and friends that are in my life only enhance what is already magical. It starts with you, nobody else but you.
Sincerely, Jo Ann Santoro Smith, a survivor, a fighter and a lover of life.