Aging

Little Bit of Harmless Insanity

/ James Browning

DSCN0880Being blessed with a successful career allowed me to live a life filled with comfort and acquiring material things, the quantity of which go far beyond what I now consider ‘normal’. With the ability to “have” I overdid it to where the magnitude of my possessions have become something of a curse. It never occurred to me at the time of buying that one day I would have to do something with it all. So easy it came to convert money into things, but the conversion of things back into money is difficult and time-consuming.

When I was fifteen I met a boy a couple of years older who had more record albums than I had ever seen any place except a record store. I decided “he who has the most records wins” and from that thought I began a collection that is now well over 4000 LPs. Then there are the 45’s, cassettes and CD’s that come along with a healthy addiction to music. Without doubt it is wonderful to be able to listen to just about anything I want when I want to. What is not so great is that a hundred records weights about eighty pounds and my collection LPs weighs about two tons! Over time I have moved them from the Atlantic to the Pacific and lots of other places in between. There’s a little bit of harmless insanity within that somewhere.

My music collection is just the beginning. There’s all the DVD’s and Blueray’s (thankfully most of the VHS tapes are gone!). Don’t even get me started about a book collection that runs about 150 linear feet! And then all the antiques and collectables I have amassed. My home is about 3500 sq feet and while cluttered it is orderly and organized. But then there is the ten by 25 foot storage until full of stuff also. It blows my mind now that I managed to acquire all this “stuff”.

Moving into a different phase of my life now with wishes for more freedom, I have a sizeable task in front of me. Once I stop working at a regular job every day (soon) so I chase more of my dreams, one of my first tasks has to be scaling back on the sheer quantity of my material possessions. I am more than a little embarrassed that I mindlessly spent so many years building this mountain of stuff that is now a burden. Looking ahead I hope to adopt more of the attitude of William Henry Channing:

To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable,
and wealthy, not, rich;
to listen to stars and birds,
babes and sages, with open heart;
to study hard;
to think quietly,
act frankly,
talk gently,
await occasions,
hurry never;
in a word, to let the spiritual,
unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common
…this is my symphony.

To not be too hard on myself, it is important to acknowledge that one can not see the next horizon past the one currently in view. When younger there was much satisfaction in enjoying my hobbies, shopping for antiques and showing off my treasures. Then it would have been impossible to know the wisdom that comes from living past my “acquiring years”. I am grateful for the clarity to see I spent a large part of my life climbing the ‘stuff mountain’. Now I am now on the other side where it is liberation from material things I wish to gain. For me, this is a VERY important nugget of wisdom!

Anything you cannot relinquish
when it has outlived its usefulness
possesses you,
and in this materialistic age
a great many of us
are possessed by our possessions.
Peace Pilgrim

My Treasury of Time

/ James Browning

hourglass EDITEverything is always changing no matter how much we wish for it not to. It is the way of the world. Nothing is permanent. At birth each life starts evaporating, accelerating more rapidly all the time. Even with a loving life made with another a day will come when they will likely depart this Earth one at a time. And likewise go friends, family and everyone we know. Everything is just for its time, and no more. My accumulation of years is not such that all in Saxe’s poem below belongs to me. However, a good bit of it does. Even more I can feel and see it on the horizon.

My days pass pleasantly away;
My nights are blest with sweetest sleep;
I feel no symptoms of decay;
I have no cause to mourn nor weep;
My foes are impotent and shy;
My friends are neither false nor cold,
And yet, of late, I often sigh–
I am growing old!

My growing talk of olden times,
My growing thirst for early news,
My growing apathy to rhymes,
My growing love of easy shoes,
My growing hate of crowds and noise,
My growing fear of taking cold,
All whisper, in the plainest voice,
I’m growing old!

I’m growing fonder of my staff;
I’m growing dimmer in the eyes;
I’m growing fainter in my laugh;
I’m growing deeper in my sighs;
I’m growing careless of my dress;
I’m growing frugal of my gold;
I’m growing wise; I’m growing–yes–
I’m growing old!

I see it in my changing taste;
I see it in my changing hair;
I see it in my growing waist;
I see it in my growing heir;
A thousand signs proclaim the truth,
As plain as truth was ever told,
That, even in my vaunted youth,
I’m growing old!

Ah me!–my very laurels breathe
The tale in my reluctant ears,
And every boon the Hours bequeath
But makes me debtor to the Years!
Even flattery’s honeyed words declare
The secret she would fain withhold,
And tells me in “How young you are!”
I’m growing old!

Thanks for the years!–whose rapid flight
My somber Muse too sadly sings;
Thanks for the gleams of golden light
That tint the darkness of their wings;
The light that beams from out the sky,
Those heavenly mansions to unfold
Where all are blest, and none may sigh,
“I’m growing old!”
By John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

Gratitude thrives in me for every hour lived and resounds even more strongly for each one remaining. Today I strive to make better choices more true to the hopes and dreams I hold. With my treasury of time dropping like sand through an hour-glass I have little to spend on anything except being true to what contributes to happiness.

Real generosity towards the future
lies in giving all to the present.
Albert Camus

Three Blinks and a Sneeze

/ James Browning

old-lady-driverr612x344Her expression was that of a frightened seven-year old girl as she sat there in the front seat of the car. The look was one you’d expect to see on a youngster’s face who was sitting outside the principle’s office. Starring forward she never moved her head as I passed. The police car behind with its lights on signaled all was not well.

When first I saw the police car and the vehicle in front of it, I was nearing the intersection of two four-lane city streets. At the traffic light there was a long left hand turn lane that could probably hold a dozen cars with a concrete barrier around it about ten inches high. Just before it was another similar, but smaller, turn lane for the same direction that might hold two cars before they turned into a business parking lot. This too had concrete separating it from the other lanes.

At first glance the car with the “frightened girl” in it looked to be okay, but as I came beside it I saw a blown out tire and a broken front wheel bent sideways. The entire vehicle, with the exception of the passenger side back wheel, was up on top of the concrete barrier. The driver was barely tall enough to see over the driver’s wheel and I suspect she mistook the first small turn lane to be the beginning of the larger one. She had run smack dab into concrete barrier and her car bounced to be almost completely on top of it.

The person driving the car was not actually a seven-year old girl, but an elderly woman I suspect had entered a portion of her second childhood sometime back, or at the very least had failing eyesight.

What touched me about the scene that was in my view for no more than seconds was the thought that came to mind: “I bet this is the day she loses her driver’s license”. Make no mistake; I am all for getting people off the highway who can no longer operate a vehicle safely. It was my empathy for her and the realization that one day it might be me who loses his right to drive that etched the moment in my psyche. Assuming it is my good fortune to make it to an advanced age, it will still be twenty-five years or more before age-wise I catch up with the elderly woman.

Life has taught me that two decades and a half can pass in what feels little more than three blinks and a sneeze. Twenty five years ago I was thirty-four years old and it feels like that should be only six or eight years ago. But it is not so.

If the old lady driving the car is an unsafe driver she should lose her license. Yet, I can empathize with her as age has already taken some things from me like the inability to read without glasses or being as physically resilient and capable as I once was. It is not lamenting the older portion of life that is before me that caused this subject to be top of mind this morning. Rather, being exposed to the little old lady’s accident served as a wake up call to appreciate every day and all that is within each one.

Aging as an adult either makes you humble or pisses you off. Sometimes it does both. For me being upset is usually momentary and the humility that follows rings true and lasting. There is where my gratitude is rooted; a strong base of humility that grows richer with time.

For all I have been and all I will be; for every experience encountered and each one that is my destiny to yet go through, I am thankful. Gratefulness is to life what fertilizer is to a plant; it enables stronger and more resilient growth.

When I can look Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth,
And taken in exchange – my youth.
Sara Teasdale

The Great Adventure

/ James Browning

through the forestHelen Keller once wrote: “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.”

The trial and suffering of growing older has changed my perspective, especially about myself. It was an old habit to try to put a happy face on most everything. When I was down the feelings were hidden from others. Emotional anguish was rarely shown except when those feelings got lose to be a tidal wave aimed at someone. My opinions expressed were most often those which generally went along with the group I was with. Rarely did I express dissenting thoughts and worst yet, often I was unsure what my opinion really was.

I always used to try to be as perfect as I could because I felt so deeply imperfect. It was like a part of me was missing that I never seemed to be able to find. A sense of incompleteness dogged me into all I did.

That was then and this is now. Here are a few lessons my best tutor called “life” has taught me in the “school of hard knocks”.

1. Others don’t cause me to feel inferior. Almost all the time making me feel less than is an habitual inside job.
2. All of us falls apart once in a while. It’s part of gaining a fresh perspective on things.
3. Everyone wonders if they look good enough to others. Lesson learned is most others are barely paying attention to me
4. No one has all the answers all the time. Some answers never come and that is normal.
5. Life is not a puzzle where all the pieces fit. Living is an irregular experience. Otherwise each life lived could not be unique.
6. Crying once in a while is normal. If it’s been months since I last shed a tear, something is wrong.
7. No one has life fully under control and knows all the answers. Allowing me to think others do is a lie told to myself.
8. Trying to look quite young when you’re older makes a mature person look immature. Looking good for my age is more important than appearing twenty years younger.
9. Life passes quickly, more so with age. It’s important not to put off my life’s “can’t not do’s” for too long.
10. Taking a “personal day” for mental health is not screwing off. One in a while getting “emotional flu” is normal as is self-care to get through it.

Aging is not a steady neurological dive… We assume that because memory speed and efficiency decline, all of cognition declines, but, for example, studies have shown that seniors actually have better retention of what they read and are less emotionally reactive when viewing negative images. Older individuals tend to have greater wisdom, the capacity for deep, intimate relationships, and an incredible potential for artistic creativity. (Case in point: Dancer Martha Graham choreographed 10 new ballets from age 75 until her death at 96.) Also, they simply have a more positive outlook on life… There’s a sense of Happiness and contentment when you’re older that you just don’t have when you’re younger. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201110/lifes-new-timeline

Slowly I have arrived at a hypothesis that the last third of life can be the absolute best. The first step is to accept the age I am and stop wishing to be otherwise. Occasionally I think about being in my 20’s again and quickly think “no thanks, too much change and chaos”. How about the 30’s and my response is “nope, that’s the decade of being too self focused through work and other interests. How about being 40 something again which is “a little tempting, but was a decade of denial that brought life crashing down on me later”. Being in my 50’s I am certain I don’t want to do this decade again because “it has been filled with painful growth and a revolution of my core thinking”.

So where does that leave me at fifty-nine years old? Looking forward to my 60’s 70’s, 80’s and beyond with hopes good health stays with me. I am deeply grateful for the great adventure my life has been so far. From the dark emotional jungles to the scorching heat in the deserts of the unknown, I am grateful for it all.

Life is about trusting your feelings
and taking chances,
losing and finding happiness,
appreciating the memories,
learning from the past,
and realizing people change.
Anonymous

Like Smoke Through a Keyhole

/ James Browning

Last night I watched the movie “The Bucket List” again with someone who had never seen it. On the big screen in 2007 the film touched me, but this time it meant even more. First time around I laughed until my ribs hurt and found tears in my eyes several times. Last night this was true to an even greater degree. Five years of life have passed in a hurry since I saw “The Bucket List’ originally. Thoughts of retiring are kicking around strong in my head. My mortality is both more real and better accepted than ever before.

There are a several pieces of dialogue from the movie I find especially meaningful. One is when Morgan Freeman’s character says “Forty-five years goes by pretty fast”. The response from Jack Nicholson is “Like smoke through a keyhole”. Never have heard a more accurate description of how life speeds by so quickly.

Watching Freeman and Nicholson acting last evening confirmed even more pointedly to me I need to let go of work while there is enough of me left to enjoy what’s on my bucket list. My thinking is moving to align more with Masanobu Fukuoka who was a Japanese farmer and philosopher. He wrote several books including “The One-Straw Revolution” where the following comes from.

I do not particularly like the word ‘work.’ Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time.

I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.

No longer do I have this burning need to succeed and make money. After a point success frequently leaves one empty and is often its own undoing. Succeeding leaves most with a yearning for more. Likewise with money. After one’s needs are met and a comfortable life is possible, money can be a person’s downfall. Or more accurately, the relentless pursuit of more does the harm and eventually brings disillusionment. Yearning brings only more yearning.

When I combine what life has taught me, the encouragement of friends and those who care about me along with inspiration that comes from a power beyond me the need to change direction is obvious. The future’s not clearly in focus beyond a few steps, but the joy and excitement in my heart and soul tells me I am moving in the correct direction. I am grateful for such clarity.

God gave us the gift of life;
it is up to us to give ourselves
the gift of living well.
Voltaire

Masters of Our Own Lives

/ James Browning

Last evening when I came across Edgar Guest’s Poem below I started to wonder, “when is a man old?” Many say “you’re only as old as you think you are” or “as old as you act”. My vantage point has been one gets old when he or she ceases to ask questions, stops seeking the truth and does not embrace being alive to the best of their ability.

While more engaged with life than most fifty-nine year olds, the years do count up and my body shows wear. Aches are regular where none used to be. The constant ringing in my ears I don’t notice until I think about it (like now) and I don’t have the energy I once did. This 1953 model is in good shape but has a lot of miles on it.

On the flip side of perspective, I am smarter and more even-tempered than ever before. The vein of kindness in me is wider and stronger than ever. Good memories harmonize better all the time within as the bad ones grow fainter. Life all around me is not only adornment for my existence. I actually see and marvel at living now fully realizing one day this reality will not be mine. Though acceptance of the impermanence of things, of myself, comes a much deeper appreciation for all that currently “is”.

“When An Old Man Gets To Thinking” by Edgar A. Guest

When an old man gets to thinking of the years he’s traveled through,
He hears again the laughter of the little ones he knew.
He isn’t counting money, and he isn’t planning schemes;
He’s at home with friendly people in the shadow of his dreams.

When he’s lived through all life’s trials and his sun is in the west,
When he’s tasted all life’s pleasures and he knows which ones were best,
Then his mind is stored with riches, not of silver and of gold,
But of happy smiling faces and the joys he couldn’t hold.

Could we see what he is seeing as he’s dreaming in his chair,
We should find no scene of struggle in the distance over there.
As he counts his memory treasures, we should see some shady lane
Where’s he walking with his sweetheart, young, and arm in arm again.

We should meet with friendly people, simple, tender folk and kind,
That had once been glad to love him. In his dreaming we should find
All the many little beauties that enrich the lives of men
That the eyes of youth scarce notice and the poets seldom pen.

Age will tell you that the memory is the treasure-house of man.
Gold and fleeting fame may vanish, but life’s riches never can;
For the little home of laughter and the voice of every friend
And the joys of real contentment linger with us to the end.

I hope my destiny includes one day being an “old man” like Guest wrote about. I would be grateful to live to a more straight forward time; one of old age when calmly sitting and sweetly remembering takes up most of my time.

The things we think about, brood on, dwell on…
influence our life in a thousand ways.
When we can actually choose the direction
of our thoughts instead of just letting them
run along the grooves of conditioned thinking,
we become the masters of our own lives.
Eknath Easwaran

Life is Filled with Possibility

/ James Browning

POSSIBILITY: the condition or fact of being possible; an opportunity to do something, or something that can be done or tried; a future prospect or potential.

Growing mentally, physically and spirituality in the last decade has brought me to a vantage point of being highly grateful for possibility.

Before what is possible truly mattered I had to locate and find comfort being in the present.  First I needed appreciation for the good in my life. That was relatively easy. The difficult lesson was learning to see my bitter harvest of disappointment, heartache and grief needed to be appreciated as much as happiness, achievement and joy.  Otherwise I was only accepting and embracing a portion of my life, not all of it. Accepting “what is and has been”  turned out to be the gateway to believing in possibility. It was there my true hope was born.

As long as I live most anything is possible for me to know, achieve or experience. I can’t have everything I want, but a great deal of my dreams are, with doubt, possible.  The secret is to know what I want most and choose wisely which dream to pursue or open myself to. If I can’t sort out how I feel about a particular endeavor or direction that usually means I should not pursue it or I really don’t want it that much.

The imaginings I desire most to happen have become “can’t, not do”. For me it has actually become that simple. Once I realized I am naturally pulled toward what I should do and repelled by what I should not, making choices became somewhat simpler most of the time. The stumbling block is my thinking mind that wants to weigh every option and make near perfect choices. Within my thoughts it’s easy for me to get lost and lose track of what I am feeling. However, my feelings rarely mislead me.

Making good choices is no longer just about good logic. It’s more about feeling good about what I choose. What an eye opener and I am thankful for the insight.  As long as I live my life is filled with enormous possibility!

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be.
If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing,
it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it.
On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it,
I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it
even if I may not have it at the beginning.
Mahatma Gandhi

A Real, True Friend

/ James Browning

Being middle-aged can be a wonderful thing. By the time this fall season of life rolls around one has had enough life experience to potentially assemble some level of wisdom. It’s not automatic. Just staying alive to 40 or 50 something does not guarantee becoming more wise. If one pays attention though, some of the greatest gifts of life make themselves abundantly present and known.

It has been written that joy is the mirror reflection of grief, and conversely grief is the reversed likeness of joy. The more one knows of one, the more fully the other can be felt and comprehended. Nothing broadens and enlivens the joy of life more than a true and dear friend. Nothing makes a burden easier to carry than their loving are.

“A Priceless Gift” by Helen Steiner Rice

Friendship is a priceless gift
That can’t be bought or sold,
But its value is far greater
Than a mountain made of gold.

For gold is cold and lifeless,
It cannot see nor hear,
And in your times of trouble,
It is powerless to cheer.

It has no ears to listen,
No heart to understand.
It cannot bring you comfort
Or reach out a helping hand.

So when you ask God for a gift,
Be thankful that he sends,
Not diamonds, pearls, or riches,
But the love of a real, true friend.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. Henri J. M. Nouwen

Often while traveling on business, I take an extra day or two to visit with a friend when I am in their part of the country. For the last two days I have been blessed to hang out with my friend Sam in Cincinnati. It’s fascinating how a co-worker of years ago has become such a beloved friend over time. On a spiritual and emotional level no one “gets me” as well as he does. Beyond my ability to express fully my feelings, I am grateful for Sam’s presence in my life. “I love you Dude!”

If you live to be a hundred,
I want to live to be a hundred minus one day
so I never have to live without you.
‘Winnie-the-Pooh” (A.A. Milne)

To Find Rest In Knowing Inwardly

/ James Browning

Something I read once said people come in three basic varieties:
1. People who find something bad regardless of how good things may be.
2. People who find something good regardless of how bad things may be.
3. People who ‘go with the flow’ and generally accept whatever happens to them.
The conclusion was to have peace in your life, you need to be number two or three.

If life were only as simple as finding a bit of wisdom and then being able to consistently follow it. Category one above grabs me more than it should, but the seasoning of age has improved my ability to stay in number two and three more often than not. How? Acceptance and Growth.

Acceptance is described as a person’s ability to see the reality of a situation without attempting to change it, protest, or exit. The base word ‘accept’ has it roots in the Latin word ‘acquiēscere’ which means “to find rest in”.

Growth in people is generally defined as development and maturity from a lower or simpler way of being to one that is higher and more complex. Conceptually the word “grow” has its meaning derived from the Latin word “conscius “, meaning “knowing inwardly”.

Simplifying the origin of ‘acceptance’ and ‘growth’ down to the meanings they sprouted from I came up with the phrase “to find rest in knowing inwardly”. That describes ‘peace’ as well as I have ever seen it stated!

The serenity prayer learned from attending Codependence Anonymous meetings helped me gain a good deal of insight. Taken a piece at a time this prayer is about change and growth with ‘acceptance’ bookends on either side. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change” (acceptance) ” courage to change the things I can” (growth) and wisdom to know the difference (acceptance).

At first I thought such thinking was far to simplistic to be helpful. My analytical mind believed to find peace I had to figure everything out. From the past to the future to the current moment my need was to find some balance of logic for everything that happened and for what everyone did. That’s like a never-ending adult ‘snipe hunt’.

Admission I am powerless over certain people and some circumstances then accepting that powerlessness is one of the keys to a better life. Trying to fix the unfixable used to be maddening and even today is at times is a challenge.  However, the more I apply acceptance the more peace from “resting in knowing inwardly” comes to me. I am grateful for every smidgen of it!

Our entire life consists ultimately
in accepting ourselves as we are.
Jean Anouilh

Always Worth Living

/ James Browning

Even though I try not to, I find myself at times wishing for the “good old days”. Yet I know they were not nearly as good as my memory has enshrined them to be. It’s my mind’s way of coping to embellish the days gone by. Sometimes the ‘bad’ is made bigger in retrospect and the good is grown “larger” by memory. One of the gifts of getting older is a growing ability to let past happiness and joy expand while allowing difficulty and sadness to diminish slowly over time.

Taken from “The New Days” by Edgar Guest

The old days, the old days, how oft the poets sing,
The days of hope at dewy morn, the days of early spring,
The days when every mead was fair, and every heart was true,
And every maiden wore a smile, and every sky was blue
The days when dreams were golden and every night brought rest,
The old, old days of youth and love, the days they say were best.

The new days, the new days, of them I want to sing,
The new days with the fancies and the golden dreams they bring;
The old days had their pleasures, but likewise have the new
The gardens with their roses and the meadows bright with dew;
We love to-day the selfsame way they loved in days of old;
The world is bathed in beauty and it isn’t growing cold;
There’s joy for us a-plenty, there are tasks for us to do,
And life is worth the living, for the friends we know are true.

I am grateful for every day of my life: even the most difficult ones. Each one was filled with twenty-four hours of breath and life that I had the gift of life within. Even at their worst, my days been interesting, instructive and always worth living.

Enjoy yourself.
These are the good old days
you’re going to miss in the years ahead.
Unknown