As we age, deeper questions about life’s meaning emerge. The following excerpt by Lewis Richmond addresses this issue.

Spiritual Well-Being

You don’t often see references to spiritual health in relation to aging. It’s not even clear what spiritual health might mean in an aging context. That’s one reason why I wrote the book Aging as a Spiritual Practice. In that book I tried to provide a definition and context for the spiritual aspects of aging. 

In developing my vocabulary for that book, I used the word spiritual rather than religious because I didn’t want to limit my discussion to any particular religious faith or belief system. 

For me, spiritual means that aspect of our life that deals with fundamental questions about existence: 

• What is our purpose on this earth? 
• What core values should we live by? 

As we grow older and have experienced all the things that happened to happen, further questions may well arise: 

• Where are we headed? 
• What will happen when we die? 
• What about the loved ones we leave behind? 

I know many men who would not feel comfortable talking about any of these questions. To some men, talking about them seems to violate the masculine principle to stand strong and maintain a taciturn demeanor. In other words, rest in what you know and don’t admit what you don’t know. These fundamental questions, to many men, imply uncertainty, weakness, or doubt. That said, I believe that most men do enter this terrain of fundamental questions in the privacy of their own thoughts. 

These questions are all central to aging—especially when we ask:

• Reflecting on the life I have lived, what did it all mean? 
• How do I feel about it as I march into the twilight of my own time?

This reflection belongs here in a chapter on health because our bodies and minds are not just machines, to be kept well oiled and smoothly humming for as long as possible. 

We are also all souls on a journey, and without a clear picture of where the journey leads and where it ends, the rest of the system is wanting in meaning. 

In medical terms, we can become anxious or depressed, but those psychological diagnoses do not, in my view, really capture the feeling of being lost, confused, or at sea. There is a psychological component, for sure, but the main issue is existential and spiritual—realms that no medical diagnosis can capture. 

This is the spiritual conundrum [a confusing and difficult problem or question] of growing old, and it needs tending as much as our blood pressure or cholesterol. 

Whether or not spiritual questions have come forward thus far in your life, aging will bring them forward—if not now, then presently. 

It’s good to be prepared for them and even to welcome them, because the question of life’s meaning and death’s presentiment [an intuitive feeling about the future, especially one of foreboding]—even if your actual death is many years off—is key to making growing old a genuine “golden age” in the sense that gold represents the most precious thing.

Source: Based on Richmond, Lewis. Every Breath, New Chances: How to Age with Honor and Dignity. A Guide for Men. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2020.

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