How Do We Grow Old? By Kayode Oladeji 

According to the renowned Psychologist, Elizabeth Cobbler Rose, death is the final stage of growth.

Growing old or attaining old age, is a privilege which nature has denied many. Virtually everybody in life, covets, wants, prays and works towards getting to the advanced biological stage in life. It’s a stage of descent in one’s life which is equally concomitant with infirmities.

Every seconds of the day, do you realise that your years are on the descending order? Yeah, everybody wants to live long. Some die the very minute they are born; some, even right in the womb before birth!

To doctors and those in related fields of endeavour, the science of conception, inception and  growth, may look too cheap, simple and straight forward, to warrant any brain-tasking. But to laymen  like me, the way you and I came to be, is unarguably, unfathomable!

Truly, God is wonderful. How on earth does  ordinary semen/sperm become a human being? It defies logic. Science, knowledge and even religion may pontificate in this regard, I care less.

Gradually, a baby is formed in the womb and stays their for between 7 and 9 months or thereabouts; the baby is born and starts the wahala of life.

Second by second, he/she begins to change in features up to the stage of crawling, tottering, walking and running.

In a year, there are 31, 536,000 (31.5m) seconds, 525,600 minutes, 8, 760 hours. 365 days, 52 weeks and 12 months. As long as one remains alive, even though one may not notice it on time, physiological and physical developments take place in the body.

So, unconsciously, for every second that passes by, we grow in age but we may not know. Some people have this wrong notion that it is only when they clock another year or mark their birthday, that they become older. Most times, the mirrow deceives us. Though age counts for nothing, if you think it, you will look it.

However, some of the major indicators to knowing one is growing, is response of the body system to environmental stimuli. For those who have children, the growth of their  children or those in their neighbourhood whom they used to know as “kids”, is a clear signal that you are ” moving” or have “moved”. After all, Yoruba would say, ” Nibi ti agbalagba ba dagba de, l’omode maa n ba” (where the elder is, the child would grow up to meet him/her there).

I ask again;How do we even  grow old?