Birthdays are the obvious milestones but believe me once you get past 40, you kind of want to forget, not because it’s depressing, it just gets a bit boring.

Recently I came across an older man’s reflection on being 84 years old.

He said, “Fellows my age ought to be looking into their hearts, become refined and mellow. True, there is a bit of panting, a tardiness in the limbs, a protesting backbone that makes it hard to pick up something from the floor, but these are trifles for the body to tackle.”

Many older people are secretly uneasy about their exit. They resent death breathing down their neck.

However, for many there’s a wonderment in, ‘How could I possibly get so far?’

Those fortunate older people reach a plateau, from where they no longer look at the debris of the past years, but also the glories of the sunset days.

I’m nowhere near 84 – yet, but it’s steaming towards me at a rate of knots.

Our 84-year-old friend says every dawn finds him more filled with wonder and better qualified to draw ‘joy’ from it.

My ‘joy’ this weekend was an encounter I had with an elderly couple who were sitting in their lounge room with their two dogs.  I spotted them, picked up my dog and the three humans proceeded to wave their respected dog’s paws at each other, it was ‘joyful’.

It has been said the beauty of future is that it comes one day at a time – a journey to enjoy.