If the mind doesn’t tell the body what to do, it won’t do anything - Hulda Crooks
Age Is Simply A State of Mind
Is is said that age is simply a state of mind. I remember hearing my mother complain so many times about how she was ‘getting old’ She was in her 60’s at the time. Her body just didn’t want to work anymore, she said, and on forgetting things she would say that she was ‘losing her mind’. Yet, I have neighbors across the street in their 80’s that still drive all over the country visiting family and friends. My mother? She’s in a nursing home with advanced Dementia.
Is aging simply a belief process? Do we age simply because we think we are supposed to? What if we began a new series of thoughts, ones that say “You’re only as old as you feel?” Can we prolong, or even reverse aging?
A Tale of Two Women
Two women turn seventy years old, but each takes a different meaning from the event. One “knows” that her life is coming to an end. To her, seven decades of living mean that her body must be breaking down and she’d better start winding up her affairs. I have read where many people live only a short while after retirement. Their thought process, or belief, is that I’m ‘finally done’. Sad really, to just ‘give up’ life. The other woman, Hulda Crooks didn’t give up. She decided that what a person is capable of - at any age - depends upon her belief. So at 70 yrs old she took up a new hobby - mountain climbing.
Hulda passed away in 1997 at the ripe young age of 101, but during those 30 years, Hulda climbed 14,495 foot Mount Whitney a record 23 times. She is on record as the oldest person to climb Mt. Whitney. Her last climb on the 11 mile trail to the summit was in 1987, at age 91.
At age 72, Hulda climbed the mountain twice in 2 weeks; the first time with a group of teens, and the second with two of her brothers, then aged 75 and 77. At age 75 Hulda began back-packing, carrying a 23 pound pack. She hiked the full 212 miles of the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, over 5 summers.
Since age 81, she climbed the 86 highest Southern California mountains in addition to her annual Mt. Whitney climb. And, Hulda also finished the Kiabab Trail down to the Grand Canyon floor twice, as well as being invited, at age 91, to climb 12,389 foot Mt. Fujiyama, Japan’s highest mountain.
It’s Never The Events of our Lives but the Meaning we Attach to Them
Anthony Robbins said in his book Awaken the Giant Within:
You see, it’s never the environment; it’s never the events of our lives, but the meaning we attach to the events—how we interpret them—that shapes who we are today and who we’ll become tomorrow. Beliefs are what make the difference between a lifetime of joyous contribution and one of misery and devastation. Beliefs are what separate a Mozart from a Manson. Beliefs are what cause some individuals to become heroes, while others “lead lives of quiet desperation.
Hulda Crooks had been featured on many television programs over the years. Camera crews have even climbed Mt. Whitney with her, and she was once interviewed by Johnny Carson. But she rarely watched the television shows she appeared in.
Hulda believed there was much more important things to do than to sit around watching television. That’s what old folks do.
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