There are four stages of elimination in life. The first stage is at age 60 when the work eliminates you, no matter how important, respected or skilled you are! Somebody else takes your place, the organisation moves on and you are slowly but surely forgotten. This is the time to let go of your ego and discover yourself beyond your work.
The second stage begins at age 70 when the society begins to eliminate you. You have fewer friends, fewer social engagements and fewer invitations.
The third stage is at age 80 when the family begins to eliminate you. No, the members of the family don’t start ignoring or abandoning you, but they get totally engrossed in their own lives. Your children get busy with the their jobs, their children and their affairs, continuing to have great regard but scant time for you.
The fourth and the final stage comes at age 90 when the earth begins to eliminate you. Your body becomes frail and weak, many contemporaries and friends already gone from the face of the world, very little appetite and lots of restrictions – to sum up, losing the zeal or willingness to live with hardly anything to look forward to.
As the protagonist of this video message, shared by my friend Sunil Babbar, says that all these eliminations should be viewed as progression in life and accepted gratefully. Stage 1 comes after a long, satisfying and fruitful professional stint, stage 2 comes after living a wholesome life post superannuation by spending quality time with friends and family and pursuing all that we missed out in stage1 . Stage 3 is a blessing to see the family thriving and achieving great success. Stage 4 is a blessing itself to have attained – for how many of us are lucky to survive to be living in 90s and looking to completing a century!
I found the message worth sharing with larger audience, even with those who are still miles away from even stage 1. Life moves very fast and we should always be preparing our mind for the future reality.
Arvind Arya blog 