Aging Is aTime for Self-Reflection on What Life Has Taught
The purpose of life is learning in order to evolve
Nancy Peckenham, in Attitudes About Aging are Changing, said, “We’ve learned a lot through life and we are ready to share it with those ready to listen.” She asked me to write for Crow’s Feet — and I am honored to do so.
As I am reaching 90, I have certainly changed my own attitudes. Aging itself is an attitude, sometimes we feel old and sometimes we don’t. It has less to do with the body and age, and more to do with the mind. It behooves us to learn more about our feelings.
Lanu Pitan said: “If we are in charge of our feelings, we will realize that we cannot control how others treat us, we can only control how we react to their treatment.”
Balance both physically and mentally is the greatest struggle in my life — that I now feel I have achieved in aging.
Rami Dhanoa wrote, “Once we use tools such as meditation and mindfulness to balm the wounds that our imbalanced society keeps dishing out, we eventually reach a state of comfortable equilibrium.” After almost 50 years of meditation, I do feel I’ve reached a comfortable balance between myself and society.
Not only have I been convinced of the purpose of learning, but I have also become aware that we learn through pain, not pleasure. The following poem that I wrote in 1985, explains that idea
“Life is, unquestionably, an unfolding drama –
With all its pains and pleasures.
When you recall “that deepest pain”, and with it –
The learning;
A smile breaks across the face. In having experienced –
Faced and resolved the pain;
You are now the audience — — looking upon it,
Judging and enjoying –
One of the greatest plays ever written;
And would not have missed it — on a bet”
A card I designed in 1985 in my 50s and starting on a path to my spiritual future.
Thank you, my readers and Nancy Peckenham for asking me to write for Crows Feet.
