As I’ve evaluated my life in preparation for this next phase, I’ve noticed how time and objective driven I’ve been most of my adult life. I exercise early in the morning so that I have plenty of the day left to “do things.” Even in retirement, my morning rituals such as showering, shaving, brushing my teeth, etc are done to get them done so that I can get on with my day. I’m very conscious of the clock. Almost 50 years ago, I was in the Andean Mountains on a Peace Corp project building a school in a little mountain community. My tent was next to the construction site, and all I had to do was be ready to work when the people came. Then my watch broke and I about went nuts until I could get it replaced. I always want to know what time it is?
I’ve always known this about myself, but as I enter this new phase of my life, I’m wondering if my new call is to move towards learning how to “be” and away from such a focus on what to “do.” In one way I know that is a cliche but it also may hold some truth as my life moves towards some less productive years. While many of us, especially after 70 or 80, would like to just go to bed one evening and never wake up, there is a strong possibility that our bodies may decay at a slower rate and we will have to learn to live with less flexibility than earlier in our life.
I’m wondering if over the next several years, I need to grow in my ability to give up the clock and measuring my life or my day by what I do, and, to use another cliche, “stop and smell the lilies.” How do I learn to appreciate the moment and the experience of living. That seems to me to be part of my new calling.
