With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come. — William Shakespeare

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

Author: William Shakespeare

Insight: There's something quietly rebellious about laughing anyway, even when life has earned you those lines around your eyes. We spend so much energy trying to look younger—the creams, the procedures, the careful angles in photos—that we've almost forgotten that wrinkles are often a record of something we actually want: a life where we found things funny enough to laugh at. Shakespeare's point isn't to ignore aging or pretend it doesn't happen. It's something weirder and more practical. He's suggesting that the alternative to mirth isn't actually youthfulness—it's bitterness, resignation, the kind of careful, joyless life that ages you from the inside out. The person who stops laughing doesn't stay young; they just look it for a while before they look exhausted. What makes this relevant now is how much we've disconnected aging from joy. We treat wrinkles like the enemy, when they might actually be evidence that you're winning at something harder: you're the kind of person who laughs. Who finds moments worth smiling about. That's not a small thing, and it's definitely not something worth trading away in pursuit of smooth skin.

Source: The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, scene 1, line 80