I encountered somebody the other day I hadn’t seen in a quarter of a century. I did not recognize him. To say that time had not been kind to him would be a major understatement. But then I’m not sure he knew who I was either.

Time is not on our side. I once heard a song that spoke of time as a thief who steals away our youth as we sleep. It does so a little at a time until one day you look in the mirror and see a stranger looking back. There s a billion dollar industry out there whose single purpose is directed toward combating the ravages of time and turning back the clock. But there is no fountain of youth, no magical potion that does anymore than create an illusion of renewed youthfulness.

But there is a rather odd aspect to all of this. I’ve found that in the realm of dreams I am without age. I am as young as I have ever been. I am pure being experiencing the dream journey which makes me think that while our mortal aspects are subject to the tyranny of time our sense of self is not. That part of us that is not of a material substance, that perhaps is immortal cannot be stolen away by the passage of the years.

It seems to that the wisest approach we can take to this thing called aging is to live in the moment, savoring the gift that each moment offers us and finding humor in the subtle tricks time may play on us. And if the person that looks back at us in the mirror is not a true reflection of how we see ourselves then don’t look in mirrors.