Youth
By Samuel Ullman
Youth is not a time of life;
it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and
supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination,
a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of
life.
Youth means a temperamental
predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure
over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy
of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by
deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle
the
skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear,
self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spring back to dust.
Whether 60 or 16, there is in
every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike
appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the
center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station: so long
as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from
men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are
down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of
pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your
aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die
young at 80.
