I was listening to a lecture online by a guy who was talking about how to get old on the calendar but not mentally or physically. It was very enlightening and fascinating as he related the results of studies and experiments with old codgers. There were half a dozen key principles. The first one was to regularly do new things, try new things, learn new things, go different places, and have new experiences. It helps if the new experiences have a risk factor to them that makes the adrenaline pump for awhile, like sky diving. It also helps if the new experience requires learning new skills and requires a lot of mental preparation and learning. Old people naturally tend towards the opposite which accelerates the aging process physically and mentally.

I have gone on a few white water rafting trips on the Deschutes over the years with groups from our church. I have always been a passenger on the raft, but this year I am going to run the oars on a trip down the Rogue River in May and the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in August, and this last week I bought my own 15 foot rubber raft, complete with a frame, oars, dry boxes, and a yeti cooler. Now I am a bonafide rafter 😀. With purple tubes and a red frame it is going to be prettiest raft on the river, and I was thinking of painting hearts all around it on the tubes just to attract a little more attention.

It is interesting how growth as a person is all interrelated. We can grow in our character, in our spiritual life, in our mental capacity, in our physical abilities, and in our relational intelligence and skill, and when we grow in one area all the other areas are influenced upward as well.