![9sr9pp.jpg](https://img.esteem.app/9sr9pp.jpg)
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Thinking of getting older and how is a sign of aging to overlook the real good in one's life in favor of an illusory past.

Yet, it's never quite the present that fails us, but our own powers of perception.

Growing older and growing up are not the same. Growing up means complaining less, since one cannot complain and learn or evolve, at the same time.

If, over the years, we are lucky that the prison of our personality melts away along with youth's gifts, then it will have been worth it... 

Just as the body begins to perish, the rose bush of the soul starts to bloom.  

In Hamlet, Shakespeare touches on this, when he writes of " what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause." 

Muslim mystic poet, Rumi, also addresses this state of Grace and dissolving in his way:

*Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.*

Below, is a short poem of mine on this elusive subject:

**Liberation**

*In the mirror, old age is peering through
my features grow indistinct, more distant
blurring the iron bars of personality.*

© [Yahia Lababidi](https://www.amazon.com/Yahia-Lababidi/e/B0042SRQWG%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share)
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