How old am I?

I took a quiz this morning on Facebook, which purported to be able to determine your age based on your political positions.  My computed age was 26, based on the fact that I am very much a liberal on social issues and the environment.

I have one of those fancy scales that I weigh myself on.  It gives weight, age, body fat %, muscle mass weight and basic calorie burn per day (plus a couple I can't remember).  Yesterday (didn't pay attention this morning) I was 27 according to my scale.

Really, I'm 55 years old, chronologically.   What does age really mean?

Why do we place so much importance on how many days we have been on the planet?  Isn't it more important to make every day on the planet count for something?

The take away message I got from the Facebook poll is that most people get less optimistic, less generous, and less thoughtful as they age.  Egads!  What a terrible algorithm, even if it proves out.

My scale tells me that maintaining a healthy weight, muscle mass and body fat percentage indicate youth.  Yikes!  There are a lot of us old fogies who are trying our best to keep those numbers in line.

I realize that the more time you spend on the planet, the more opportunities you have for being disappointed, for seeing tragedy, for feeling left out, or cheated, or lonely.  But you also have more opportunity to be delightfully surprised, to see miracles, to find more social circles, to have more victories, to bond tightly to each other.

Are we born with a propensity to optimism, pessimism or realism?  Or do we become what we nurture?

For years, I classified my self as a pragmatic realist.  I know that things will not always go the way I want them to.  I know some people will behave in less than optimum ways.  I know that not every kindness will be met with kindness.  So, for most of my life, I haven't gotten really upset when things don't go my way.  I expect that to be reality.

What I've come to understand about myself is this pragmatic realism has allowed me to be a basically happy person, who never loses hope that the world can be a better place.  Because sometimes things turn out better than I expected.  And sometimes people do amazingly nice things.  And sometimes I find unexpected kindnesses.

All of us are more vulnerable to sadness and disappointment when we don't take time to recharge our batteries.   I love to be outside, and I love to walk.  So, even though it can be physically exhausting to walk every day that I can, walking is so emotionally restorative for me I hate to miss a day.  The happy by-product of this is good numbers on the scale.

The combination of expecting negative outcomes and being delighted when they don't manifest, and restoring my equilibrium with walking is that I am enjoying almost every day on the planet.  It is not that I don't have bad days, or sad days.  It is just that there are good moments in almost every day.  

I don't know what it is like if you are born with an optimistic or pessimistic nature, but I know that nurturing yourself is always the right answer.

Spend enough time with yourself to know what makes you happy, what recharges your soul.  Then spend time doing what you need to do for yourself.  It is never too late to start taking care of yourself, physically and emotionally.

There is no way of knowing how many days you have, and it really doesn't matter.  What matters is making every day you have count by making someone's day better.  And it is perfectly OK if the someone whose day you make better is you.