W<\/span>e\u2019re comfortable saying to a 15-year-old, \u201cMy, how you\u2019ve grown!\u201d but we\u2019d never say that to a 65-year-old. And, of course, we will never say to that 15-year-old, \u201cWow, you\u2019ve aged since I last saw you.\u201d<\/p>\n When does growing stop and aging begin? Is it 25, 45, 65? That\u2019s a loaded question because it suggests you can\u2019t grow and age simultaneously.<\/p>\n Having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for nearly forty years, I know the majesty of a towering redwood, the tallest tree on the planet. They can span more than 400 feet, which is taller than a thirty-seven-story skyscraper.<\/p>\n A typical redwood lives for 500 to 700 years, although some coastal redwoods reach the age of 2,000 years, according to the National Parks Service. Not only that, but coastal redwoods have been on the planet far longer than humans. They\u2019ve been around for over 240 million years, which means they inhabited the earth at the same time as the dinosaurs.<\/p>\n We have wrinkles. Trees have rings. These growth rings not only tell us its age, they offer clues about the climate conditions the tree lived through. Our wrinkles are the same. The only difference is that we don\u2019t grow taller as we acquire more wrinkles, whereas trees continue to both age and grow.<\/p>\n In a forest, nutrients tend to flow from the oldest to the youngest trees. A small seedling tree that has been severed from the forest\u2019s underground circuitry is much more likely to die than one that is part of a rooted network. And, as a tree nears its death, it bestows its carbon on its neighbors. This is a good metaphor for the knowledge and wisdom that we can bestow on the younger generation as we age.<\/p>\n When it comes to nature, we marvel at the grace and majesty of the old. We see the trees that stretch to the heavens, enraptured with their beauty and \u201cold growth.\u201d<\/p>\n What if we applied that same thinking to older humans?<\/p>\n What if we looked at them (and ourselves) and saw the grace and beauty that comes with age? And what if we saw their wrinkles as testimony to their internal growth \u2014 the growth\nof heart, spirit, and soul \u2014 like we do the rings of a tree?<\/p>\n How many rings do you have inside you?<\/p>\n Tragically, when we apply the term old growth to humans, it sounds like an oxymoron. Old people don\u2019t grow; they just die. Yet every living thing dies at some point, and most animals and trees wear their years much as we do.<\/p>\n Growing and aging are not mutually exclusive, neither in redwoods nor in humans. In the forest, growth requires regeneration \u2014 of old leaves, of old branches, of anything that needs composting. In humans, it requires the regeneration of old ideas, old identities, of any part of our life that needs reimagining.<\/p>\n It is that cycle of life and death that makes an ecosystem so fresh and alive.<\/p>\n So, if we could realize that our earthly body isn\u2019t the only way to measure growth, we\u2019d realize that our hearts and souls continue to learn and grow all the way up to our last breath.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s when we would realize that old and growth can be synonymous.<\/p>\n What if you were to make a list of all the ways you\u2019re still growing today? Once you\u2019ve finished that list, make a list of all the ways you hope you\u2019re still growing near the end of your life.<\/p>\n Why life gets better with age<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winter-2024","category-winter-2024-columns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14524"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14845,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14524\/revisions\/14845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Excerpt used with permission from Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age<\/em><\/a> by Chip Conley. Little, Brown Spark<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"