1. Colours of Life – from Childhood to Old age
From childhood to old age, life is a rainbow with each colour representing a different shade of
life. As Shakespeare put it in Seven Ages of Man All the World’s a Stage and as we go through
our lives we play the same character in different colours.
Childhood is filled with moments which are looked back upon as fond memories. The years of
fun, laughter, innocence and mischief are the ones that remain in our minds as eternal bliss.
Whether we spent them running around playing games, engrossed in books, surrounded by
friends or pulling pigtails on the playground we all have stories about the early years of our lives
that we tell with such joy. We hold these years of life closest to our hearts, cherishing the joys of
our ignorance.
But as we all know, childhood doesn’t last forever and before we know it we’re teenagers,
understanding ourselves and the world around us. Those teenage years are truly turbulent.
Remember your first kiss? Your first date? There’s a maddening excitement to those years that
flows through every teenager’s blood. It makes us want to sing, shout, dance when no one’s
looking and laugh at the silliest things. It is in these years that we discover who we really are and
find the people and things that we value the most.
Once college is done, life takes us to the ‘real’ world. Suddenly, our jobs become an important
aspect. We begin to understand finances, work culture and worldly matters. Many choose to
travel when they can, and spend time exploring areas previously unknown to them. This fantastic
phase of life is filled with the yearning for more. Ambition takes us from one place to another
until we finally settle into the comfort of married life.
With married life comes a new beginning – a new life with a spouse and maybe even the pitter-
patter of little feet in the house. Life is now lived as a collective and the wellbeing of other has to
be thought of before that of our own. Living with and for a family is a joy in itself. In our
children we see ourselves. We look out for them as much as we can and soon learn that we have
to let them make some mistakes for themselves.
Old age is often considered to be a second childhood. Time after retirement is spent relaxing,
enjoying all we earned throughout our lives. With family there to help out whenever needed,
now’s the time to do all those things you told yourself you would but never got around to doing.
With a perspective that is framed by knowledge, the world is a different place; much calmer and
clearer than ever before. Wisdom is at its peak, and sometimes shared with the young ones
around us.
These colours of life make this journey a beautiful one. Shared with friends and family, we
always look back affectionately on the years gone by and ambitiously on the ones coming.
However, the moments that you’re living right now are the ones that really count.