How To Stay Young







Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind. It is the temper of the will; a quality of the imagination; a vigor of the emotions; a predominance of courage over timidity; of appetite for adventure over love of ease. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old 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 years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.





Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement of the stars and star-like things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events; the unfailing child-like appetite for what-next and the joy and the game of life.





So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the Infinite, so long you are young. When the wires are all down and the central place of your heart is all covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then you are grown old indeed.





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.







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