Ask people their feelings on growing old, i.e., whether they see it as a blessing or a curse, and you’ll get a subjective answer every time. That’s, of course, if you ask older people. Don’t bother asking young people; they haven’t a clue.

Some unfortunate person, battling a horrible disease like Parkinson or Multiple Sclerosis will most likely have a different answer than someone in the same age group who is in perfect health. You probably are thinking the person with the illness would be more negative than the healthy person but that’s not always the case.

There are many people who appear to be healthy who will tell you, without hesitation, growing old is a curse. Likewise, you will find people going through some very serious ailments who will tell you they are so happy to be alive and growing old is a blessing in spite of the obvious shortcomings.

Your outlook on getting older is all in your attitude. The healthy person may have had nothing but turmoil in his life, due to a negative attitude and can’t see anything but the negative aspects of growing old. He sees graying hair, wrinkles in the face, slowing down physically and retirement as bad things.

Of course, no one would willingly trade his hard, strong, healthy body of twenty for that soft, wrinkling, body of a sixty-year old but given time, there is no doubt about it, you’re going to get old. The alternative, death, is the only way to keep from getting here. When faced with that, getting old sounds pretty good to most people.

Put it in perspective and a person with a healthy mind, regardless of what the body is going through, will certainly tell you growing old is a blessing; here’s proof.

If you’re a seventy-year old guy, due to natural selection (the grim reaper), you have become the hottest guy on the block. You’re now in demand, the Brad Pitt of the geriatric set. Yahoo, life is a blessing.

Despite all the crazy, stupid things you did as a young man, somehow, you survived, no thanks to you, so you’d better be thanking God.

No more getting up at ungodly hours to go meet a boss that you can’t stand. Retirement has given you freedom to use your time as you see fit, at long last. Golfing, fishing or even working, if you so desire, is totally up to you.

Time has given you the wisdom to know right from wrong. You can now look back with one-hundred percent accuracy at what you should have done as opposed to what you actually did.

Because of all of that wisdom, you can now, confidently, advise your kids and grand kids on what they should be doing. Of course, no one listens to you but that’s alright, in time they will see their foolishness, just like you did. You can have the satisfaction of knowing, you were right.

All that praying you were too busy to do in your younger, sin-filled, days, well, you now have time to do. After all, you’re not going to be old forever. Get ready for the next step.

Yes, growing old, without a doubt, is a blessing.