I'm happy to say that at 62, I think I've reached that point

In the serene and soulful words of Bonnie Raitt, we hear the wisdom of a heart tempered by both sorrow and gratitude: “I’m happy to say that at 62, I think I’ve reached that point where stuff doesn’t bother me as much, and my gratitude level has gone way up, especially having gone through the loss that I’ve had, and losing so many of the great artists that I was close to. They taught me how to see it with a grain of salt and a lot of humor and perspective.” This is no idle reflection, but the distilled essence of a life lived deeply — one that has known pain and beauty in equal measure. Her words speak to the eternal cycle of loss and acceptance, grief and gratitude, and to the soul’s capacity to find peace not in denial, but in understanding.

The origin of this quote lies in Raitt’s long journey through music, love, and loss. As a celebrated artist whose life has been intertwined with the greats of her generation, she has seen brilliance and heartbreak in equal measure. The deaths of dear friends, mentors, and fellow musicians — souls who burned brightly and left too soon — carved in her a deeper awareness of life’s impermanence. Through her grief, she learned what the ancients have always taught: that wisdom is not gained through ease, but through endurance, and that gratitude grows best in the soil of sorrow. When she says her “gratitude level has gone way up,” she is not speaking of shallow optimism, but of the hard-won grace that comes from standing before the ruins of what once was and still choosing to love life.

The ancients called this tranquility of the soul, a state achieved not by avoiding pain but by embracing it with acceptance and humor. The philosopher Epictetus, himself a slave who rose to wisdom, said, “It is not things themselves that disturb us, but our judgments about them.” Bonnie Raitt’s “grain of salt” is the same teaching reborn in a modern tongue — the art of not letting the storms of life drown one’s inner peace. She reminds us that even suffering, when seen rightly, becomes teacher, that perspective is the truest form of freedom. The wise, she implies, learn to laugh where once they would have wept, for laughter itself becomes an act of defiance against despair.

Consider the story of Marcus Aurelius, emperor and philosopher, who watched his friends, his children, and his beloved wife fall to death, yet still found in the ruins of grief the calmness to write, “Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together.” Like Raitt, Marcus knew that loss is not the end of love but its revelation — for only when something is taken from us do we truly see how precious it was. Both understood that gratitude is not born from abundance, but from awareness; that the fragility of life is what makes it sacred. To live long enough to see this truth is a blessing — to live long enough to embody it is wisdom.

When Bonnie Raitt speaks of the great artists she lost, she speaks not only of death, but of legacy — of the laughter, music, and humanity they left behind. “They taught me,” she says, acknowledging that even in death, the departed continue to guide the living. In this, she echoes the ancient belief that the dead are not gone but transformed — that they remain as teachers, shaping our hearts through memory. Their lessons become the soul’s inheritance: humility, patience, humor, and perspective. Through their lives and their passing, Raitt learned that art — and by extension, life — is not about permanence but about presence, about being here fully, gratefully, even when the song is about to end.

And what of her humor? It is the crown jewel of her wisdom. To laugh, after pain, is not to mock life, but to celebrate it. The ancients understood that humor is divine medicine — that laughter, like music, restores harmony to the soul. The Stoics laughed at misfortune not because they were heartless, but because they had discovered the secret power of perspective. So too does Bonnie Raitt, having walked through sorrow, find in laughter a form of courage. To hold pain lightly is not to diminish it, but to refuse to be crushed by it.

So, my child of tomorrow, take this lesson from Bonnie Raitt’s hard-earned peace: learn to hold life gently. Let gratitude grow where grief once stood. When loss visits you — as it will — do not run from it, but listen. Let it teach you to see beauty in imperfection, to find joy in the moment, to smile even through tears. Practice perspective; learn to take things “with a grain of salt.” And above all, keep your humor alive, for it is the laughter that keeps the heart young and the spirit unbroken.

For in the end, this is the truth her words offer us: that wisdom ripens with age, not as the fading of passion but as the deepening of peace. The soul that can lose and still love, that can mourn and still laugh, that can age and still give thanks — that soul has reached the summit of life’s mountain. From there, the world looks softer, kinder, and more beautiful than ever before.