Are you thankful for not being young?' 'Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone through again, and the end would be a weary way off, don't you see?
Interpretation
Gratitude for experience gained with age outweighs the desire for youth.
This quote by Charles Dickens reflects a sentiment of appreciation for the wisdom and experiences gained over the years. The speaker acknowledges that being young requires facing the challenges and uncertainties of life all over again, which can be exhausting, suggesting that with age comes a deeper understanding and acceptance of life’s journey.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of appreciating life's journey.
I recollected one story there was in the village, how that on a certain night in the year (it might be that very night for anything I knew), all the dead people came out of the ground and sat at the heads of their own graves till morning.
A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.
There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs.
You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.
Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man's pockets.
A man must not always tell all, for that be folly; but what a man says should be what he thinks.
Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life that he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is the child of God.
Mistakes are at the very base of human thought, embedded there, feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack for being wrong, we could never get anything useful done. We think our way along by choosing between right and wrong alternatives, and the wrong choices have to be made as often as the right ones. We get along in life this way.
If you vanquish ego-clinging today, tonight you will be enlightened.
Nothing raises the price of a blessing like its removal; whereas, it was its continuance which should have taught us its value. [It is wise to be grateful of what we have while we have it.]
Fear represents our need to hang on to the riverbank, to control outcomes, results, our lives; it swims upstream. Truth is about releasing that hold, letting go of results, and trusting the direction of Life’s current.
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