Analects of Confucius

Old Age: Confucius

Confucius, the great Chinese sage, was known for his stand on culture, old age, respect and admiration for one's parents and ancestors and tradition. Chinese revere tradition and everything old is also considered wise and better. For this reason Confucius felt that respecting one's elders and learning from them was the wisest and most admirable thing a young person could do. This he referred to as filial piety. He equated old age with wisdom and is known for having said that: "Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as spectator."

This means that old age is not something to be afraid of. Instead it is something one can actually enjoy if only man had the wisdom to change his perspective and see his aging as part of a natural order of things. Old men are not worthless by any means even though they are not longer performing actively on the stage of life. This is because no stage or world show is ever complete without a good audience. Old people are that audience that we all need when we are young so we are certain that our good actions would be rightly applauded and bad actions severely criticized. We have all been with old people in some relationship. Most of us have them as grandparents and it is important to see how wise, unbiased, frank and honest they are. Life has taught them one thing i.e. be true to your beliefs because nothing else really matters. This is something most young people do not know and thus we need old people to be around us to teach us valuable lessons of life. Old age, according to Confucius, is something to be cherished for it brings you to a point in life where you no longer want to aggressively fight on the stage of life, where you are more interested in human company and truly understand worth and value of human relationships. In short, old age is the time when you have gained all the wisdom that if you wish you had when you were younger.