Outlook Towards Ageing

 Outlook Towards Ageing

A middle-aged man sat in a salon chair, frowning at his greying hair in the mirror. He sighed and said to the hairdresser, "I am becoming old."

An older man in the chair next to him overheard him. "You are becoming wise," he said gently.

The middle-aged man turned to him with a puzzled expression. "What do you mean, wiser?"

"Ageing is a physical process," the old man explained, "but feeling young is a state of mind."

Glancing at the old man's bald head, the younger man joked, "So, does your bald head mean you are wiser?"

The old man smiled. "Perhaps."

"I admire your confidence," the middle-aged man said.

"Our confidence shouldn't come from our external looks," the old man added, "but from our outlook on life."

The hairdresser, who had been listening, finally chimed in. "Well, gentlemen, my job is to change that greying hair to any colour you like and groom you to look young and fresh."

"I'll take the dye," the middle-aged man said immediately.

The old man chuckled. "Give me a facial massage, a head massage, and dye the few hairs I have left."

With a newfound smile, the middle-aged man asked, "Got a big party to go to?"

 

"I have a date, actually," the old man replied. "With a lovely young woman, I met at a shop nearby."

The middle-aged man laughed. "I hope your wife doesn't find out!"

The old man grinned mischievously. "Which wife? The first or the second?"

The hairstylist leaned toward the middle-aged man and whispered, "This gentleman may be old on the outside, but he's young forever on the inside."

An hour later, after the old man had left, the hairstylist approached the middle-aged man again, her tone now more serious. "He's fighting cancer, you know. But with his spirit and determination, he has already outlived his prognosis by years."

The middle-aged man looked at his own reflection—now with freshly dyed, vibrant hair. This time, his thought was clear and firm: I need to spend more time strengthening what's on the inside, instead of worrying about the grey on the outside.

M.L. Narendra Kumar