Does enthusiasm towards life begin to wane with age? Is it due to aging of the body or maturing of the mind?

Answer 1

I think it is the opposite way instead. Enthusiasm continues with age but reaches a certain point when one has already retired. When we reach the old age it starts to decline not because of a matured mind but because of the weakening body. In fact, if the body could still perform well the enthusiasm is always there. The only problem lies in the health of a person. Even a young man may loose the enthusiasm because of unhealthy body. So it does not really go with age. I believe the enthusiasm of the mind will always be there but the body has its limitations.

Thanks for asking. Have a great day!

Answer 2

1. I don't think enthusiasm for life universally wanes with age. Some people find a greater enthusiasm for life during their later years.

2. I think any decline of enthusiasm that does occur is psychological in origin, even if it is the physical body that directly causes the psychological loss of interest.

Answer 3

Nope, I don't think so. Enthusiasm for life happens to the general run of people, not only when one gets older. Aging of the body is inevitable but that doesn't entail losing the enthusiasm for life nor is it true also when the mind matures. The only thing I have observed with people advanced in years is that they tend to be becoming more enthusiastically religious than in their younger years presumably because of the expectations or intimation of their life's impending mortality.

Answer 4

I am 62. It seems that you have missed the obvious. It is the people that have enthusiasm for life that live the longest. Maybe it is not "jump up and down" enthusiasm, but the idea of enjoying life and the hope of better things based on past successes is a great motivator. One who loses his Zest for life does not stay healthy, mentally or physically for long, and his death usually occurs prematurally.
When you observe the amount of depression in our society, including young people, one has to realize "loss of enthusiasm" is not an old age affliction.

Answer 5

My enthusiasm has actually grown with my age.
I feel it is due to finding my power as a woman, and becoming the love I want to give.
That creates the perfect environment for nurturing the soul, which keeps us young forever.
Aging is in the mind, it is a disease that can consume you, if you let it.
But feeling your youth and experiencing everyday with the fervor of a child, new eyes for each thing, this will help you embrace life in an entirely new manner.
Love and light be upon you, Small!

Answer 6

(1) The pulse rate in a new born baby is about 140
beats per minute. This pulse rate gradually reduces
during the Koumaaram period and settles down to it's
stable value of 76 beats per minute after the age of 24
years. Different sects in the world have different
criteria to declare a person to become a youth. The
Indian tradition says that a person becomes a youth on
his 25th birth day, taking the stable heat beat value
into consideration.

(2) Modern psychologists treat the period from 35 to 40
years as middle-age crisis period. Most of the people
may not feel much during this period. However for those
few persons who experience its full intensity, it will
be like a mini-death. In English, 'flourit' means the
age of dawning of wisdom; it also means the age of 40.
(See a multi-volume dictionary in a library). Energy in
the body will be at its highest during the youth period
from 25 to 40 years of age. Generally, Buddhi
(intellect) starts funtcioning after the age of 40
years, but it may take longer for others. You can not
blame a teenager or a youth for not having it. It is a
general observation that only person aged beyond 40
years are called intellectuals.

(3) The period from 40 to 60 years is called the
declining period of youth-hood. It is also the period
of gaining wisdom.

Answer 7

I don't think it wanes with age. When one is younger one takes life for granted. Open to change and more mature, I think enthusiasm can grow.

Answer 8

Don't look in the rearview mirror - and it doesn't matter how old you are. Have you ever gone up a climbing wall? If you look down, you realize how far you've gone - but if you keep looking up - you have the enthusiasm to get to your goal - it's just a 'little further' - same way everything is when you're young. I think 'past experience' makes us older than biology does --- just remember - don't look in the rearview mirror - keep looking up!

Answer 9

Wow. Im surprised we have two 60 years old in the same question. I gotta agree with them. Im 22 and sometimes I can feel that life isnt great anymore. There are certain things that I want to do that go against my life objectives, goals, parental vision, culture, etc. Pursuing them might be my cure tho. But this is a good question with good answers.

Answer 10

People give up on life when they give up on life. I'm sixty--don't leave your pretty sister alone with me--and life is ahead of me. But in sixty years, I've seen people losing interest, losing enthusiasm, losing lust for life in their teens, twenties, thirties, forties, etc. They all die, sooner or later, but they're thoroughly dead the instant life loses zest for them. My mother, as example, gave up living in her mid-thirties, but we couldn't legally bury her until thirty years later, as she wasn't yet actually deceased.

I can't account for it. I have no 'cure' for the ill. But I have to reject any and all glib explanations of the phenomenon. That feeble, uneducated old lady with chronic pain still flirts and has a wicked smile. That strong young man with the Ph. D. over there is waiting to die.

"Richard Corey" is a poem. Look it up. It won't explain a damn thing, but it's a good statement on the problem.