The Best is Yet to Come…

Maybe. It depends on you.

Fundamentally, there are two kinds of persons: conformists or individuals. It is self-evident that the former are part of an overwhelming majority. We are all familiar with the concept that we are ‘products’ of our heredity and environment. Niceties aside, there is a far stronger force that makes each of us who we are.

Perhaps an analogy will serve to clarify my explanation for the source of individuality. Imagine an artist with a palette of innumerable colors with which to realize the design for his painting. Now, in place of colors, imagine a palette of genes representing inherited characteristics and a brush representing random events. He dips his brush from ‘color’ to ‘color,’ mixing and matching them on his canvas until he gets the desired result. The artist is you.

Life is an art. If you have no design, you will be a conformist. In that case, heredity and environment will determine who you are. The principal factor for individuality is the Will. Like the artist who wields his brush, you design who you are. Without your conscious input, you will be a product of heredity and environment, a ‘type’ rather than an individual. It all depends on how you mix and match those colors and create new colors.

The forces of Heredity and Environment are subordinate to Individuality. Being an individual is not a matter of intellect, however desirable intelligence may be. Physical strength diminishes with age, but if you are an individual rather than a type, you become more resourceful as you age; adjustments to change are made more easily as the number of changes increases; your love life never dies as long as you love in a manner that is appropriate for your age. Aging is far more a matter of mind than it is of body.

Types do not evolve. Individuals do. And here I’d like to explain what I mean by ‘the best is yet to come.’ When I was young, I wondered how specific elderly persons can know so much about people merely by looking into their eyes. I remember how I was in awe of elderly persons who remained calm during times of great stress. I remember the confidence and peace that elderly persons displayed without effort every moment of their lives. Those persons were individuals.

Unfortunately (but naturally), there is no way to communicate the exquisite emotion this state of being gives me every day. But I can express it intellectually. You need not think about the discomforts associated with aging. That is as it should be. But you may occasionally ask yourself, “What of my physical strength? What of my adjustment to change? What of my love life?” Well, if you have designed your life above the limitations and constraints of heredity and environment you are in for an exquisite surprise.

You cannot know exactly what I mean until you have attained a wisdom that is possible only when you have sufficiently aged, as I certainly have done! But, I can assure you of this: the greater your escape from the notion that you must remain the product of your heredity and environment, the greater the depth of your wisdom. I am exhilarated by this wonderful phase of my life.

Perhaps the best is yet to come for you too.