A couple years ago, I agreed to participate in a book exchange someone started on social media. It was reminiscent of 90’s chain emails, but I did get two pretty good books out of it. One was The Kite Runner, which I’d put off reading. The other was Tuesday’s with Morrie, by Mitch Albom. They’re both great books – highly recommended!
Tuesday’s with Morrie got me thinking deeply about death for the first time in my life. The book follows a series of meetings between the author and his university professor, Morrie, during the final months of Morrie’s life. It’s lighthearted and uplifting for such a heavy topic.
Most of us avoid thinking about death. We spend our days like we have all the time in the world, acting like the “eubeings” in Mark P. Ryall’s novel, Age-Decoded. Mark mentioned during our conversation that if he had all the time in the world, he wouldn’t have written the novel. Just imagine all the time you’d have to procrastinate with immortality! Checks out, it took me a few years to actually start this podcast once I determined that I was going to do it.
Perhaps confronting death is a way to remind us of what’s important. Our time is short, so we’d better spend it on the things and people that are meaningful. Pretending otherwise only prolongs the procrastination. The good news is, as Mark pointed out: It’s never too late. Mark spent most of his adult life teaching high school math and economics. He became a writer after retiring, and published his first novel in his mid-sixties.
That’s exactly the lesson Albom leaves us with at the end of Tuesday’s with Morrie: “if professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as ‘too late’ in life” (190). You’re never too old to do something you’ve always wanted to do, or be the person you want to be.
Despite what they say about “old dogs”, this lesson applies to learning as well. Scientific research shows that we retain our ability to learn even as we age. Our brains remain malleable, and continue to change as we get older, granting us the ability to continue learning. As brain expert Richard Restak advises, “think of your brain as a work in progress that continues from birth until the day you die,” (38).
Like a muscle, our brain needs exercise to grow. As is the case with physical exercise (also good for our brains), actively working out our brain stimulates growth. Though certain types of mental exercise become more challenging, growth doesn’t stop in old age. “No matter how old you may be at this moment, it’s never too late to change your brain for the better. That’s because the brain is different from every other organ in the body...it improves with use” (Restak, 41).
This is great news! You can start playing piano, dancing salsa, or writing a novel at any age. Not only that but doing so will be good for your brain’s health and longevity.
This doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. That’s the whole point. The challenge is what’s good for our brains. Again, it’s like physical exercise that way. The problem is not that we can’t learn new things later in life, it’s that we stop bothering to do so. Perhaps we’re satisfied with what we’ve learned, or perhaps we let pride trick us into believing that we don’t need to learn anything new. Whatever the cause, it’s important to remember that we can always learn something new, no matter how old we are.
Even if we’re not picking up a new skill such as carpentry (perhaps we’re too busy with work and family commitments), we are still learning from our experiences. This is what makes growing old so enriching. In Morrie’s words, “As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two” (119).
If our civilization ever discovers a fountain of youth, or if we invent a procedure to become like the “eubeings” of Age-Decoded, would we continue growing and learning? It’s a question that Mark encourages us to ponder through the book. I highly recommend giving it a read. You might think differently about your lifespan and how mortality gives rather than takes away – it facilitates rather than hinders our growth.
What’s the best way to make sure a project gets done? Give it a deadline. Not paying attention to the deadline doesn’t make it go away. So what’s your project? No matter how old you are, it’s time to get to work on it!
Keep learning my friends. I know that these past two years have been tough, but you’re growing from the experience. Remember, the greater the challenge, the greater the reward. Yes, 2022 might be a difficult year (it’s hard to believe it could be any worse than 2021 – but remember when we used to say that about 2020?). No matter, you’ll rise from the challenge.
References
Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays With Morrie. Broadway Books, 2017.
Restak, Richard. Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.
Ryall, Mark P. Age-Decoded. Mark P. Ryall, 2021.