SECOND CHANCE AT YOUTH

Articles In This Section:

· SECOND CHANCE AT YOUTH

· ENDOCRINE GLANDS

· APPRECIATING THE YOGI'S PHILOSOPHICAL AND SPIRITUAL ORIENTATION

· THE THYROID

· GONADS THE ENDOCRINES

· FINAL INGREDIENT WITH ASANAS

· SENILITY IS DUE TO THYROID DEGENERATION

To quote George Bernard Shaw a second time, youth is wasted on the young. Of course, like all paradoxes this one can be shot full of holes, for who would really grudge young people their vitality and their joy of living! Yet it is also true that the young seldom fully savor the gifts with which the gods so liberally endow them. Some things they take too much for granted, others they cannot enjoy to the hilt because their emotions and mental capacities have not yet developed in depth.

Later on, after we have grown and learned, many of us wish for a second chance at youth, knowing we would live it more fully, find values we once never dreamed were there for the taking, develop potentials within ourselves we once let go to waste. If only we had it to do over again, we sigh nostalgically.

But it wouldn't work, if you stop to think about it. To get the most out of such a second chance we should have to be both young and old at once, wise before our time and perceptive as no untutored young mind—save possibly a genius— ever can be. And yet a second chance is possible through Yoga. The clock will not be turned back, nor would we really want it to be. Instead, at a time when our emotions have matured, our tastes fully formed and our wisdom (we hope) ripened, we may experience a kind of second youth by preventing the slowing-down and deterioration processes, and lengthening the span of our productive years.

A long life is not of itself necessarily a boon. Certainly it wouldn't be desirable if we were merely going to drag on, vegetating like withered apples, helpless and listless and full of infirmities, useless to ourselves and to others. But the old man or woman who retains a zest for living and knows how to relish each day's experiences, one who instead of mourning lost opportunities accepts the advantages of the present, is a rich and fortunate human being. Especially fortunate is the one who to the very end remains hale, vigorous, free of illness and pain and fears, and whose philosophy endows him with the serenity and dignity becoming to his years.

Nor is a serene old age our only goal. First there are the middle years which can and should be productive and satisfying. Earlier in the book we discussed the restlessness and tensions which beset most of us Westerners, poisoning the emotional climate in which we live. But we have still another lurking enemy to cope with: from early middle age on, sometimes even from early adulthood, we allow ourselves to become obsessed with the fear of growing old.