Space in the Glass of Life

                                                                     

I've had a few ridiculously busy days lately.  Going at a clip from one thing to another, from morning until evening, fearing I will make the next appointment on time, I lose myself, my center.  Stress creeps in, an uninvited visitor.  I am reacting to what is happening around me, to me, without the time to process and feel at ease.  What am I doing?  Is this the way I want to live?

What I miss most about days like these is the space in my day for the unexpected: running into a friend and having a leisurely chat;  reading an article in the newspaper or a magazine that has caught my eye; taking in the fall foliage and appreciating the beauty around me.

These are the moments I want to have, the space to step fully into my life, embracing it and smiling in acknowledgement.  These are the moments that make me feel at peace.  I have a choice about how I schedule and spend my time.  I make better decisions when there is space in my life.  Can I wake up each day and have that space? 

I confess I have struggled with this for years, wanting to do a lot with my life, feeling energized and committed to family, friends, causes and work.  I want to make a real difference in the time I spend here.  My life is full.  It's when it teems over, the glass unable to hold the multitude of meetings and responsibilities, where everything gets less of me, not more, that the kind of life I want to live leaks out and I am left depleted.  It's a fine balance, this full glass and the leaky one.  That's where the space comes in:  if I do not fill the glass to the top and leave some space, chances are it will not spill over, even with the unexpected delights and mishaps of life. 

Hmmm . . .

Living Well Into the Future (Part 2)

What does it mean to live and age well?  As a follow-up to the last post, which talks primarily about our physical environment, how it impacts us, and what we can do about it, this post talks about how living well is determined by our personal philosophies and preferences, and the choices we make each and every day.

We know that to have a strong mind and body we need to take our health and well-being into our own hands. This means eating healthy, well-prepared food and exercising regularly.  To maintain our social and psychological well-being, we need friends and to be involved in activities and causes.  Some of these are a continuation of what we’ve known and done for years, but we also want to be open to meeting new people and learning about new topics.  From a financial perspective, as our life situations change, we want to make sure we are not living beyond our means, and have put away a little something for the future.

Yet, once we have attended to our most basic needs, the question of aging well may be a very personal one.

Does it mean:

Having good health?
Maintaining relationships with those we love?

Traveling the world and seeing all those places we’ve dreamed of?

Living life by our own rules without any “shoulds?”

Being able to give freely of ourselves and our wisdom?

Enjoying dinners out or the arts regularly?

You may be thinking at this point of the proverbial “bucket list,” but aging well has less to do with what we want to accomplish as we get older, and more about how we want to BE and interact in the world. 

One way to think about this is to imagine what you would like said about you in a eulogy or written on your tombstone.  How would you like to be remembered?  What will be a personal disappointment if you don't accomplish it during this lifetime?  Or, to be even more dramatic, if you had six months to live, how would you like to spend them? What makes you excited to get up in the morning?  These are just some of the questions you may ask yourself as you think about what "living well" means to you.  There's no better time.