The opportunities for growth continue to flow.
Our purpose for being here remains the same.
Our responsibility to ourselves never abates.
It’s comforting to count on these things.
It makes our choices simpler.
There’s always the right step to take,
the right response to make,
the right attitude to foster.
But if ever we’re in doubt,
the impulse to forgive and to love will never be wrong.
Keepers of the Wisdom © 1996 by Karen Casey
Looking back at the handouts for a series of classes called “Off the Beaten Path” that I facilitated in 2000, it is amazing how differently I am seeing the information these 18 years later…
The flyers read: Once you know you cannot live the second half (what I am now calling the third third) of life by the same old rules, it is a snap to stepping into the unknown to embrace the “one wild thing called your life.” This is not a class for the nervous, or for the person willing to stay in a rut… Join us if you dare… The rest of your life awaits…
One glaring detail that jumps out is the lack of proper attribution. Although there are references to Angeles Arrien’s book, The Four Fold Way, the basis of the series is not clear. Some vague memory of CDs or cassette tapes, but I could not swear to that. I do a better job of attribution now. The following is from the introduction to The Second Half of Life, by Angeles Arrien.
“There are more of us entering the second half of our lives than at any other time in history. Our numbers are growing rapidly, as life expectancy continues to rise, more of us will find ourselves living much longer as elders than did our parents and grandparents.
These extra years, even decades, extend the blessings of life. Yet in many ways we are not prepared to live these years fully. Our American culture has lost the capacity to acknowledge and value elders the way many other cultures around the world do. We have forgotten the rights of passage that help us learn how to become wise elders who actively participate in our communities and live deep, fulfilling lives. Unfortunately, our culture’s current perspective is that the second half of life offers only decline, disease, despair, and death.”
In the 2016 movie “Arrival,” actress Amy Adams starred as a linguist tasked with trying to communicate with extraterrestrial visitors. An online article by Denise Chow highlighted what the film got right about communicating with space aliens, and her words tie right in with my musings regarding the Third Third of Life: “What we’re doing now is kind of taking our responsibility as scientists seriously, and doing some of the preparatory work that we are capable of doing now — which isn’t a lot, but there are things we can do to get ready. Our responsibility is to make intellectual, emotional, ethical, spiritual preparations for what’s to come.”
Following Joel’s recent hernia surgery, we have begun to make intellectual, emotional, ethical, spiritual preparations for what’s to come. We are having conversations about advanced directives and Joel will be filling out Five Wishes: A Living Will Document. You have to make decisions before the need for choice-making arises. This is about a lot more than having a will to avoid probate costs and delays to your heirs receiving your estate. This is about realizing we do not stay in these physical bodies for ever. The new average life expectancy for Americans is 78.7 years (Feb 9, 2018).
In a recent blog post, Renewal of Mind, Body, and Spirit, I wrote about Frank J. Cunningham’s Vesper Time: The Spiritual Practice of Growing Older. Cunningham writes, “… we are in a phase of life that we will not look back on as we do on childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We do not grow out of this phase.”
If you really are taking your responsibility as scientists seriously, and you have a sense of humor, you might appreciate Reader’s Digest “16 Things Smart People Do to Prepare for Death.” There are things we can do to get ready.
A few weeks ago, as I was out for a ride on my bike, I had a sense of genuine curiosity (not dread, not longing) about how I will transition. Perhaps that was a result of the “preparatory work we are capable of doing now.” Arrival is inevitable….