The Fear of AGING

Everyone is affected by fears associated with aging, including fears of diminished ability, loss of identity, self-worth, relevance, and loneliness. Overcoming these fears requires wisdom and compassion and starts with admitting and accepting the changes that occur with aging. Once you honestly acknowledge your fear of aging you gain the power of compassion necessary to move beyond the fear.

We are discussing this topic this month in response to the recognition that an opportunity to alter misconceptions about aging arose when it became evident that President Joe Biden had been showing signs of aging that could interfere with his performance as president. When signs of aging—like slower speech, memory lapses, or physical frailty—are concealed, denied, or downplayed by those in power, it sends a cultural message:

“This is something to be hidden. Something to be ashamed of.”

In an atmosphere of fear, cultural and personal beliefs that ‘aging equals incompetence’ and ‘if you are old, you better not show it’ reinforce the seeming need for secrecy. Instead of normalizing aging as a part of life, the secrecy fueled stigma. Instead of a moment in presidential history that could have gracefully acknowledged and created a path of respect for the changes Joe Biden and much of the aging population of America were and are experiencing, the fear of aging pushed an agenda of a clandestine political operation.

It is time to redefine what it means to be old. The sense that “old” means irrelevant or incompetent is a myth shaped by advertising and cultural beliefs, not reality. It is time as a culture to look at the assumptions made about aging and begin to shift the idea that aging is a process of losing—youth, vitality, time—to aging as the time of accumulating--wisdom, perspective, and influence. If the only publicly “acceptable” older people are those who appear unusually energetic, sharp, or ageless, an impossible standard for everyone else is set. This furthers the fear that if you show signs of aging, you lose your value and will be dismissed.

Although President Biden did step down in acknowledgement of a need for a new expression other than President, there was a missed opportunity for cultural leadership. Because there was an attempt to hide President Biden’s age-related changes, the public was denied the opportunity to engage in the recognition of the aging process naturally over time. If the fear of aging and its consequences were not driving the coverup, Biden could have much more easily become a powerful symbol of aging with dignity—someone still contributing, still leading, while also acknowledging human limitations.

Now from a One Life perspective, it becomes clear that as you age you are asked to accept change without judgment. Aging is not a failure. It is a privilege that not everyone gets to experience. The fear of aging, and the attempt to hide it (as in the case of Biden or anyone else), can be understood as a form of ignorance of your true nature, mistaking the relative conditioned self for the primordial, One Life Awareness you truly are.

When you fear aging, you can get caught in grasping a self that never existed. This is like trying to hold on to a mirage. The tragedy is not aging itself, but the clinging to appearances and the aversion to What Is. Fear of aging manifests out of Dualistic Mind. Trying to hide aging is an act of concealment, which is a movement away from openness—away from the natural state. When you divide your experience into the good and the bad, the young and the old, you are obscuring the natural state of One Life Awareness. All phenomena are spontaneous expressions of mind, and the body aging is no more or less significant than a wave arising and dissolving in the ocean.

Simply let go of the fear of aging by relying on your understanding of who you truly are. It is time for a cultural shift to take place where you can relish old age, its slowness, its wrinkles and its awareness as a perfect expression in the moment of What Is. Let the body be as it is, let your true nature be like a sparkling diamond representing clarity and awareness at every age and in every way. Fear can be utilized as a tool to discover where obscurations of the primordial perfection lie. Use your fear as a tool that asks you to dive deep and to allow an ever more compassionate response to life emerge as changes unfold all around you. A recognition of Great Perfection as it is can assuage all fears, especially the fear of aging.