To age or not to age: Is that the question?

Today I received a cold call from a skin care company promising a machine I could purchase and use on my clients that eliminates cell destruction, effectively stopping the aging process. Aside from the obvious invalidity of this (right?), I stopped the woman mid-sentence and said that I didn’t want to waste her time. I wasn’t interested in this or any kind of similar product. I told her that my philosophy is based on “anti-anti-aging.”

For those of you who know me, you know this is true. My analogy is we are all on “the train”—the aging train. We boarded at birth and the train is continually moving, however fast or slow, every day of our lives. We are all on it—this train. It’s how we choose to live on the train that I believe makes our life feel purpose-filled or perhaps a living misery. 

It’s not so much what you look like in the mirror but how you’re looking out the train windows and on to life, nature, and all there is to do “out there” that makes the biggest difference in how you feel about this process, the inevitable moving aging train we’re on.

So this phone call ended sort of abruptly, which is fine. I truly didn’t want to waste this lady’s time. I’m sure there will be lots of skin care professionals who will buy that machine and buy into the “anti”-aging philosophy, selling their clients on the idea that aging is bad. In my mind, aging is normal and—obviously—completely inevitable.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I should change my whole paradigm of “aging is cool and interesting and sets us apart as individuals.” And then again, maybe—definitely—not. There may be few people who agree with me, but when I look in the mirror I keep saying, “Hey—you’re almost 50!” That is what 50 looks like for me.

For more information, see:

• One Secret to Aging Gracefully
• Ageless Beauty—Part I 
• Trends & fads in skin care

Meandering through life on “the train.”