You can’t help getting older,
but you don’t have to get old.
George Burns

I agree with George. The only way to prevent getting older is to die. I also agree you don’t have to get old. I think to prevent getting old is just to take life one day at a time. Spending too much time in the past is not healthy. It is fine to remember and reflect but if the past is the only place you visit you are wasting today. Go ahead and think about the past, learn what it has to teach you and then leave it there, in the past, and live today. The same goes for thinking about and planning for the future. Yes, some thought and planning needs to be given to the future but if it is all consuming or brings worry it is wasting the life of today.
I am healthy with just a few minor bothersome things that occasionally pop up. Those bothers can put a damper on things but on the whole not a big problem. Then there is the fact of living on an income that is not going to change even though the economy can and often does change. There all kinds of things that are not the best of circumstances and situations that can happen at any time but worrying about them only takes away the good of today. Not that I never worry. Yes, I do worry. But not often or for long, just enough to make me stop and look around with truly open eyes to see my reality for this day. I can only live one day at a time, and that day is today, not yesterday or tomorrow, just today.
The truth is I find being where I am in life is a wonder and I am quite enjoying it. Being the age I am today, for me, is better than being young was. When I was young, I put a lot of effort into trying to be the person that the people I was with thought I was or who they wanted me to be. It was exhausting and I was pretty miserable and unhappy most of the time. When I finally came to realize that was no way to live and decided to just be me, the real me, there were people who I thought were friends who simply disappeared. I guess they didn’t like the real me. It hurt, but I let them go and started my journey, my wonderful journey to where I am now, no longer young …just older.