Thoughts for the Coming Summer

Summer is almost here, and it really couldn't come at a better time. I am burnt out at work and the upcoming vacation time will help.
This burnt out feeling is resulting in me feeling old, really old. I have decided that aging really means having fewer and fewer days that you feel one hundred percent. About two weeks ago I had this horrible neck pain that was causing major headaches. Then this past weekend my left jaw and underneath started to hurt. I went to the dentist and he determined that I had some kind of infection. Is this what older means??????? Little aches and pains here and there that make me forget what youth really is? I maybe worked myself too hard over the past couple of months and that might have had something to do with me feeling a little off.
I don't know which is better, realizing your own mortality suddenly and powerfully through a horrific accident or terrible disease or slowly and surely over the course of many years. The first seems to be an epiphany that can produce powerful results. You see everything more clearly, priorities are set and the rest of your life can be lived with truth and purpose. The second will suck the very soul out of you and leads many of us to blind ourselves to this slow realization.
The scary thing is that it seems like I am taking better care of myself these days then in the past. I try to exercise more, those little vices that have plagued my life have been cut to a bare minimum and I am with someone who I love and loves me in return.
I might have set myself up for all of this a couple of months ago when I was driving in my car and thought, "Wow, things are really great right now, I must be in the throws of the Yin or Yang or whatever." You see in college I took a "Taoism in Eastern Literature" class. This was one of the few classes that I kept most of my books and I still think back to today. One of the major things that I remember is the whole idea of the Yin-Yang symbol (pictured on the right) that is associated with Taoism. Let's say that the white part of the symbol are good things happening in your life and the the black are the bad things. Now, travel on the outside edge of the circle in a counter-clockwise direction starting at the top. At this point your life is shit and things couldn't get any worse, but as you start to move to the left, a little bit of the white starts to appear; before you know it, you are in midst of the extreme happiness and bliss, but don't get too cocky, because a little bit of black is starting to sneak into your white happiness. When things are going really bad or really well, I always think back to that symbol. The trick is that when things are going really bad, you convince yourself that you are in the depths of blackness and all you need to do is to start looking for a little bit of that good old white. It's amazing, but usually that little bit of white is enough to keep you going, because a whole lot more of it is coming your way.