Aging

If I Had My Life To Live Over Again

/ James Browning

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If I had my life to live over again,
I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.
I’d relax.
I’d limber up.
I’d be sillier than I’ve been this trip.
I would take fewer things seriously.
I would take more chances,
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.
I would, perhaps, have more actual troubles but fewer imaginary ones.
you see, I’m one of those people who was sensible and sane,
hour after hour,
day after day.

Oh, I’ve had my moments.
If I had to do it over again,
I’d have more of them.
In fact, I’d try to have nothing else – just moments,
one after another, instead of living so many yeas ahead of each day.
I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute.
If I could do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had to live my life over,
I would start barefoot earlier in the spring
and stay that way later in the fall.
I would go to more dances,
I would ride more merry-go-rounds,
I would pick more daisies.
By Nadine Stair, an amazing 85-year-old woman, from Louisville, Kentucky, who provided the words above after someone asked her how she would have lived her life differently if she had a chance.

Gratefulness adds richer color and a gentle texture to everything.

Never let the things you want
make you forget the things you have.
Anonymous

Look Closer

/ James Browning

old manI came across this on-line and knew nothing of its authenticity. So I did a little research and found generally the free form poem is considered a “hoax” and not necessarily written by a “cranky old man”. Regardless of who wrote it and why, there is wisdom contained within. As one transitioning from the late fall to the early winter season of life I was touched by the realities highlighted many old-timers have quietly thought and felt.

Amongst his belongings, the memories of an entire life, they found this poem:

What do you see nurses? What do you see? What are you thinking, when you look at me? A cranky old man, not very wise, What are you thinking, when you look at me? A cranky old man, not very wise, Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes? Who dribbles his food and makes no reply. When you say in a loud voice, “I do wish you’d try!” Who seems not to notice, the things that you do. And forever is losing… a sock or a shoe? Who, resisting or not lets you do as you will, With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill? Is that what you’re thinking? Is that what you see? Then open you eyes, nurse.

You’re not looking at me. I’ll tell you who I am, as I sit here so still, As I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will. I’m a small child of 10, with a father and mother, Brothers and sisters, who love one another. A young boy of sixteen, with wings on his feet Dreaming that soon now, a lover he’ll meet. A groom soon at twenty, my heart gives a leap, Remembering the vows, that I promised to keep. At 25, now I have young of my own, Who need me to guide, and a secure happy home.

A man of thirty, my young now grown fast, Bound to each other, with ties that should last. At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone, But my woman is beside me, to see that I don’t mourn. At fifty once more, babies play ’round my knee, Again we know children, my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me, my wife is now dead. I look at the future, I shudder with dread. For my young are all rearing young of their own, And I think of the years, and the love that I’ve known. I’m now an old man, and nature is cruel, It’s jest to make old age look like a fool.

The body, it crumbles, grace and vigor depart, There is now a stone, where once I had a heart. But inside this old carcass a young man still dwells, and now and again, my battered heart swells. I remember the joys, I remember the pain, And I’m loving and living, life over again.I think of the years, all too few, gone too fast, And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, people, open and see: Not a cranky old man, Look closer, see ME!

I wept for relationships not possible
due to denial and dreams locked
in the back of people’s minds,
all of the bits of life
that lay dormant until
the babblings of televisions
and nursing homes sweep them away.
It makes me wonder how many of the dreams
we had originally have already been forgotten.
Christopher Hawke

Perspective Is Your Choice

/ James Browning

Woman Standing by a Deathbed null by Sir David Wilkie 1785-1841

Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse, who worked exclusively with the terminally ill wrote a book titled “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing Regrets of the Dying”. For many years she was with patients during the last three to twelve weeks of their life and from her experiences came a list of the regrets people make most frequently on their deathbed:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

In the article Ms. Ware was especially emphatic about most not realizing that happiness is a choice until it was almost too late. Fear of change was the number one reason patients cited for pretending to themselves and others they were happy. At the same time most secretly longed to laugh more and better and to simply have more silliness in their life.

With gratitude for the chance encounter with Ms. Ware’s article (thank you to my friend Katie for bringing it to my attention), I commit to laugh easier and be silly more often. With that in mind, the rest of the week is going to be a lot more fun that the first half (and it was pretty darn good!).

The same view you look at every day,
the same life, can become something brand new
by focusing on its gifts rather than the negative aspects.
Perspective is your own choice and the best way to shift
that perspective is through gratitude, by acknowledging
and appreciating the positives.
Bronnie Ware

Made Doing The Right Thing Look Cool

/ James Browning

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shirley temple memorial statement copy

* http://www.shirleytemple.com/guestbook.html

Shirley Temple Black died Monday and finding out today touched me more deeply than I would have imagined. She was grown and her child-star movies were old by the time I was born, but I came to know them well as TV movies. Every Shirley Temple movie was “G rated” and more wholesome than a typical Disney family movie.

She was called “American’s Little Darling” for a good reason; she deserved it and was adored by kids and adults alike. President Franklin Roosevelt one said “as long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right”.

Except for some cause based television work, Shirley Temple Black left acting by adulthood and went on to distinguished life including many years as a U.S. Ambassador.

The world has lost a sweet soul and caring human being who made a difference. I will always be grateful for the positive contributions Shirley Temple made to my childhood. In her movies and how she lived she made doing the right thing look cool.

Watching a peaceful death of a human being
reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights
in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment
only to disappear into the endless night forever.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

A Better Me

/ James Browning

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The saying goes “if only to not know what I now know”. It is in gaining knowledge that we actually lose a good bit of our self. The more know-how a person assimilates the more narrow their perspective generally becomes.

It’s been written that we are quite young when creativity erodes. For example, one train of thought says by three or four years of age we have already learned that a square block will not sit easily atop a pyramid. It was recently reported in another instance that painters created their most valued work around 61.8% of their life or about 42 years of age on average.

Here are a few other stats from a Prosumer Report survey of 7,213 adults in 19 countries:Men and Women

It seems a bit odd to me that these stats show women peaking at a later age in five of six capacities. That brings me to the point I am ultimately headed toward: Statistics are just numbers and individuals rarely fit consistently into them. There is only the “Norm” (50.1%) the “Deviant” (49.9%). None of us fit neatly on any list of numbers. We are uniquely “our self”. Trying to fit into what is ‘Normal’ is a complete waste of time. The only potential each person has is to be the best version of them self.

Certainly after a point we humans “wear-out”. However, exactly what begins to fade, and when, frequently has as much to do with choices as it does with genetics and age. When our capacities begin to diminish it is often because we did not use them enough. ‘Use it or lose it’, as they say. One of the biggest culprits here is the simple pattern of habits. Once we start doing something one way, we get comfortable with it and then do not change or vary it.

Tomorrow I begin the first of fifty sessions with a person trainer. This time I am more committed than ever before. Just going to the gym won’t be enough. My eating habits will change as will getting exercise, even if just walking, on my non-gym days. I am grateful to be in good health and still able to work on becoming a better me.

We all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves. Robert R. McCammon

The Power of Hopeful Wisdom

/ James Browning

angelyes1

*Voice 1: You have been given a second chance to start your life over.

Voice 2: How can that be? I’m late middle age… hell, I’m old.

Voice 1: You can’t throw this opportunity away. If you do you will be a colossal fool.

Voice 2: I’m tired and don’t believe in things like I once did. Leave me alone.

Voice 1: If you get the chance to do something and don’t do it then you’ll simply live with regret.

Voice 2: I have failed so many times I am tired of even thinking about starting new.

Voice 1: That’s a worse situation than trying something daring and maybe not succeeding. At least you tried. Dare to dream!

Voice 2: Why should I believe I still have the ability to make what I wish for come true?

*Voice 1: If you did not have the capability to make your wildest wishes come true, your mind would not have the capacity to conjure such ideas in the first place.

Voice 2: But I am emotionally beat up and battle-scarred.

Voice 1: There is no limitation on what you can potentially achieve, except for the limitation you choose to impose on your own imagination.

Voice 2: So you’re saying if it is to be it’s up to me?

Voice 1: What you believe to be possible will always come to pass – to the extent that you deem it possible. It really is as simple as that.

The voice in my head was naively hopeful in my youth (Voice 1). In middle age, the experienced voice became wiser, but cynical (Voice 2). By fighting my tendencies and stirring both Voices together I was able to connect a measure of wisdom and hope. It took intention and a lot of effort to change my perceptions, but was worth the struggle.

To be wise to some extent and hopeful at the same time, now that’s a great life. I am grateful it is mine.

I am old and I have had
more than my share of good and bad.
I’ve had love and sorrow, seen sudden death
and been left alone and of love bereft.
I thought I would never love again
and I thought my life was grief and pain.
The edge between life and death was thin,
but then I discovered discipline.
I learned to smile when I felt sad,
I learned to take the good and the bad,
I learned to care a great deal more
for the world about me than before.
I began to forget the “Me” and “I”
and joined in life as it rolled by:
this may not mean sheer ecstasy
but is better by far than “I” and “Me.
Meryl Gordon

*Voice 1 borrowed from the writings of Anthon St. Maarten and Lorena Bathey

Your Very Own Self

/ James Browning

child-mirror

It starts innocently enough, perhaps the first time you recognize your own reflection.

You’re not yet 2 years old, brushing your teeth, standing on your steppy stool by the bathroom sink, when suddenly it dawns on you: That foam-flecked face beaming back from the mirror is you. You. Yourself. Your very own self.

It’s a revelation—and an affliction. Human infants have no capacity for self-awareness. Then, between 18 and 24 months of age, they become conscious of their own thoughts, feelings, and sensations—thereby embarking on a quest that will consume much of their lives. For many modern selves, the first shock of self-recognition marks the beginning of a lifelong search for the one “true” self and for a feeling of behaving in accordance with that self that can be called authenticity.

A hunger for authenticity guides us in every age and aspect of life. It drives our explorations of work, relationships, play, and prayer. Teens and twentysomethings try out friends, fashions, hobbies, jobs, lovers, locations, and living arrangements to see what fits and what’s “just not me.” Midlifers deepen commitments to career, community, faith, and family that match their self-images, or feel trapped in existences that seem not their own. Elders regard life choices with regret or satisfaction based largely on whether they were “true” to themselves.

It’s also a cornerstone of mental health. Authenticity is correlated with many aspects of psychological well-being, including vitality, self-esteem, and coping skills. Acting in accordance with one’s core self—a trait called self-determination—is ranked by some experts as one of three basic psychological needs, along with competence and a sense of relatedness.

Yet, increasingly, contemporary culture seems to mock the very idea that there is anything solid and true about the self. Cosmetic surgery, psycho-pharmaceuticals, and perpetual makeovers favor a mutable ideal over the genuine article. MySpace profiles and tell-all blogs carry the whiff of wishful identity. Steroids, stimulants, and doping transform athletic and academic performance. Fabricated memoirs become best-sellers. Speed-dating discounts sincerity. Amid a clutter of counterfeits, the core self is struggling to assert itself.

“It’s some kind of epidemic right now,” says Stephen Cope, author of Yoga and the Quest for the True Self. “People feel profoundly like they’re not living from who they really are, their authentic self, their deepest possibility in the world. The result is a sense of near-desperation.” From an article by Karen Wright http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200804/dare-be-yourself

Here I sit showing the signs of age: reading glasses, mostly gray hair (but grateful to still have hair!), untouched natural lines on my face, memory not as razor-sharp as it once was, a paunch at my waistline, a few ages spots on my arms and so on. I have never given serious thought to changing any of it except losing 25 pounds. All of it is me just as I have naturally evolved.

It’s a personal thing, but I think for me there would be something dishonest about hair dye or plastic surgery. As a man it would be bothersome if I did remade myself synthetically and other guys found out. I’d not casting aspersions toward men who do, just saying that it’s not right for me.

Being real and authentic has become more and more important to me as the years have passed. I’ve earned every line on my skin and every gray hair. My face and body is an accurate living record of my life. I am 100% grateful to be who and what I am. It took a lot of hard work to get there.

The authentic self
is soul made visible.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

Better With Age

/ James Browning

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Walking across a college campus for a business meeting with the athletic director of a Midwest college an epiphany hit me. In my late thirties college aged people hardly noticed me. I suppose I just looked like someone’s Dad. It occurred to me that I had become “invisible to college girls”. And that makes sense considering I was on average close to twenty years older. However, the male ego is a fragile thing.

I’m absolutely certain the twenties are not an age I would want to endure again. Too much change; too many mistakes; too much uncertainty and a general lack of respect from those older. The thirties were a time of arriving, but not yet getting there. I swear I did not deserve to be called an adult until at least my 40s!

The quality of my life has continued to improve as I have aged. An article published in the U.K. sheds light on aging.

Researchers have found that people’s’ mental abilities peak at 22 before beginning to deteriorate just five years later.

Professor Timothy Salthouse, “Results converge on a conclusion that some aspects of age-related cognitive decline begins in healthy, educated adults when they are in their 20s and 30s,” he said.

The study of 2,000 men and women lasted over seven years. The respondents, aged between 18-60, were asked to solve visual puzzles, recall words and story details and spot patterns in letters and symbols. The research by the University of Virginia found that in nine out of 12 tests the average age at which the top performance was achieved was 22.

The first age at which performance was significantly lower than the peak scores was 27 – for three tests of reasoning, speed of thought and spatial visualization. Memory was shown to decline from the average age of 37. In the other tests, poorer results were shown by the age of 42.

However, the report published in the academic journal Neurobiology Of Aging, found that abilities based on accumulated knowledge, such as performance on tests of vocabulary or general information, increased until at the age of 60. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4995546/Old-age-begins-at-27-as-mental-powers-start-to-decline-scientists-find.html

Another article about a related study in the same U.K. newspaper said, “While university-age participants were quicker to make choices which led to immediate rewards, another group aged 60 to 80 were much more adept at taking strategic decisions which took future stages into account”. Two experiments designed to mirror realistic decision-making scenarios showed that older people were far better at making choices that led to long-term gain.

So to the college kids who I am invisible to, enjoy your twenties because it’s downhill after that. I just can’t help smirking a little when I write that. The next time some 30-something hotshot who thinks they have the world by the ass lays a ‘tude on me I will silently think he or she is actually quite comical. They’re already past prime in some ways and don’t even know it.

I am happily grateful to be a bit less admiring of younger ages after reading the British articles. I’ve gotten better with age. All in all, I am the best I have ever been.

It’s not how old you are,
it’s how you are old.
Jules Renard

Unrestrained Innocence

/ James Browning

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When we are children we seldom think of the future.
This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can.
The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
Patrick Rothfuss

Before there was maturity, adult ways, sexual attraction and worries of the world the uncorrupted simplicity of childhood filled me. A good while prior to “liking” a girl, studying for tests, giving book reports or choosing sides on the playground was the beautiful naivety of a child.

I am reminded of myself long ago by stories I am told by my best friend about one specific grandchild. This young man daily exhibits the unrestrained innocence of the first few years of life better than most. One particular habit of his is laughing fits before bed, brought on especially when he is tired. Over time it’s been noted when a strong laughter episode overtakes him before bed he sleeps even better than usual. I suspect the world would be a better place if all of us had a genuine laughing fit before nodding off each night.

Clearly I recall how ‘grown up’ and happy I was to take breakfast to my father. I was four years old. My Dad, Mom, little Brother and I lived in the country where my parents operated a small store and gas station. The little two room house where we lived was down a dirt road about a hundred yards away. That day I had the honor of walking breakfast over to my Father who opened the grocery very early each morning.

In a small box with the sides cut down to about four inches high my Mother had placed a plate with aluminum foil covering scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. Black coffee was in a pint canning jar. I was told to be very careful and walk slow. That’s exactly what I did and felt so very proud to be trusted with such an honor as taking my Dad his breakfast. Carrying the box hid the immediate view in front of me and I stubbed my toe badly. I dropped the box and the coffee jar broke. I was so disappointed and humiliated plus my toe was hurt and bleeding.

The breakfast was held on the plate by the foil and that is all I arrived with to give my Father through my tears. No one got on to me. I was not in trouble. I was only disappointed with myself. It was the first of such a feeling I can remember and a little of my innocence was lost that day.

I am grateful to remember…

Sometimes,
I miss so much the person
that I was before the world
tore me up in so many places.
C. Joybell C.

In a Thousand Ways and More

/ James Browning

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To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.
“Promise Yourself” by Christian D. Larson

Such are the birthday wishes to myself; my hopes told to the world to commit myself further to them. My sixth decade concluded yesterday and today I strike out on the first day of the seventh. In a thousand ways and more I am a blessed man. As the days of my life tick away, I become a little more grateful with each one’s passing.

With mirth and laughter
let old wrinkles come.
William Shakespeare