You just can’t win!

If vanity is the big trap in life, you’d think after some decades of life we’d learn about it and stop ‘doing’ it. All I’m saying here is that, for older people who could be setting an example for the young, if they want to avoid neuroses (concerning lost youth and missed opportunities) they need to stop running up their vanity ‘debts’. We should get used to paying-back as we go along, doing without, a little self-effacement, a touch of responsibility-taking. If we don’t, then we risk not being able to restore balance later in life and of course …then it all ends in tears.
We might start out in life with a sense of abundance. When we’re young we mightn’t need to be too sensible about things; we seem to be able to enjoy effortless sensory experiences. We’re lulled into a false sense of security. And then, as we get older and past our prime, we want to recapture some of the pleasures of past years. But now pleasure requires more investment. We lose our capacity for pursuing it. Then our health goes and then our strength. We don’t spontaneously run just for fun. Our body creaks more and now we can’t even run for a bus! If you speak with very old people they’ll say how important it is to ‘keep your health’, because once lost it’s very hard to get it back. For them, so they say, there’s pain every day. Whereas younger people don’t get much body pain and it isn’t so ominous when they do - health isn’t an issue because they haven’t lost it yet. But they do know that good health and good looks go together, and energy, sexuality and a slim, athletic body also go together, and this pulls them into line, somewhat. But up against this there’s a powerful need to excite the taste buds and satisfy food cravings. So here, at this battle site, we’re torn between pleasure and good sense. It’s so all-consuming that we forget the rest of the world going on about us, and about the need to pursue ‘the greater good’. And then we are criticised for living an indulgent lifestyle.
Huh! You just can’t win. But it was never just about winning anyway.