By ,
Published May 05, 2017
On the death of Jim Cantalupo, I received this e-mail from Kelly:
"You remarked that he was ‘only’ 60 years old. That's pretty old to me."
Well, Kelly since you go on to say you're 21 years old, I guess 60 is old. But age is a relative thing, Kelly.
I'm sure a 59-year-old doesn't think 60 is old. Someone who's 70, or 80 might find 60 positively youthful.
Perspective is everything. Appreciating your time on this Earth is everything too.
I've met 90-year-olds who live life with gusto and 30-year-olds who live life in fear.
So many of us get so set in ways that define the decade we live in.
You're young and free in your twenties. You’re more serious in your forties. You’re wrapping it up in your sixties. And on and on.
Some people even dress their decade, look their decade and comply with the rules of their decade.
I'm biased here. But one person I've always admired didn't do that: my mother. When she was alive, she decided to go to college when she was 60 years old.
She took a trip to a dangerous Latin American country without a second thought.
She refused to succumb to the image of her years, by simply having fun "in" her years. To me she lived far too few years. But what she did with those years!
She's gone now, but the wonderful message I take from her life now is this: Age is a number. It's a mindset.
It's why 60 is young if you have so much you want to do. And why it's old if you haven't the foggiest clue what to do.
I've met young fools and I've met old fools.
But this much I can tell you: It's not the lines on the face that matter, but the passion in the blood that runs beneath.
Watch Neil Cavuto's Common Sense weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto."
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/perspective-is-everything