Life is Precious, Time is Scarce, Spend it Wisely

    This is how I felt in January.

Whatever the number of actual days, I experience January as exceptionally long. In addition to its length, this year we can add snowy, cold, dark and dreary, at least in our part of the world. Ugh.

While I busied myself with activities, snow sports, and slowly working on chapters for a book, I also spent time deeply engaged in reading.

I've been reading Atul Gawande's book Being Mortal, a book I'd say is a must read for almost anyone over the age of 21 who plans to age, who has aging family members or who is human. His is my favorite type of book for it stimulated all kinds of questions and 
thoughts and ideas and caused me to research similar material and to read and reread 
important pieces.

One such piece was Ezekiel Emanuel's essay, "Why I hope to Die at 75," from a 2014 issue of The Atlantic. This I followed with Paul Kalanithi's  2014 essay, "How Long Have I Got Left?" published in The New York Times  and then his wife's, Lucy Kalanithi, 2016 essay, "My Marriage Didn't End When I Became a Widow" also in The NY Times. I finished off this series with Arthur Brooks' 2016 NY Times essay, "To Be Happier, Start Thinking More About Your Death."

Hmmm. Do you notice a pattern? I'm certainly thinking lots about the end of life for these works thematically hang together in their exploration of death or as I see it, the idea of living fully with the time you have.

Physicians penned three of the pieces and an ultra conservative, Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, the fourth.
Normally, I'm far left of aligning with Brooks and the AEI, but I was intrigued enough by the essay's title to give it a quick read and found value in a few of his ideas.

 Probably too often I've written here about making good use of one's active, Go-Go Years, living with urgency in retirement (Hearn's idea), postponing nothing, living now, and acknowledging that life is finite.

In his essay, Brooks cites a Buddhist monk practice of meditating on photos of decaying corpses as a way of increasing awareness that the physical self, thus life, is temporary, fleeting. The practice's purpose is to assist the individual in focusing on the present, on what is important, to live better in the moment and to realign one's values with allocation of time.  Brooks argues that most people are misaligned, spending time on low value activities (surfing the Internet, viewing tedious television programs) that are not in harmony with their stated values. Misalignment, Brooks thinks results from an "error in decision making," leads to a life of boredom, tedium, and regret.

The solution to wasting time? It is here that I find myself aligned with Brooks' thinking, especially after reading Being Mortal and "How Long Have a I Got Left?" He proposes that consciously contemplating that life is precious and time is scarce as the solution, as in the Buddhist monks' practice. In other words, to live mindfully, with the full awareness that life is momentary can help one realign values.
How does one put such mindfulness into practice?
Brooks proposes that we live a year as though it were our last, living consciously and intentionally. Many others have suggested this strategy. In 1997 Stephen Levine published the book, A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as if it Were Your Last.

To some this might sound bleak, but not to me. Squandering precious time and denying reality, that sounds bleak. Being clear and intentional about life sounds ....optimistic.
As I finish reading Being Mortal, nudging my husband to read it too, I've already selected my next book, Paul Kalanithi's When Breathe Becomes Air. 
My overarching goal for 2016 is to live this year as if it were my last. For this task, I have found some excellent guides.

    Time for some adventures.

     Stay calm and travel.

Part III -- How Am I Doing?

Figuring out a new daily life (and activities)  --  We moved from Chicago to a small town in the west. This means that we've been building our new lives from scratch which is quite a different experience from folks who retire where they've lived. Constructing a new life is a process, takes lots of time, and especially takes effort. We'll be tweaking our lives, adding, subtracting, all that for some time to come. I think of this phase like dating -- lots of trial and error, experimenting, drawing upon what you know works for you mixed in with lots of risk-taking

So far, I've figured out I'm more a poker playing kind of girl than a bridge player.   Actually, I'd play any board game rather than bridge.

Right now, any activity with too much structure makes me want to bolt. Chairs lined up old fashioned lecture-hall style at Osher Life Long Learning Center caused me to do a fast and fancy night-club two step right out the door without any thoughts of looking back. Granted my quick escape is partially rooted in having completed a fair amount of graduate education and thus having sat through lots of academic classes. At this stage I'm not interested in someone lecturing at me. Lots of better ways exist for learning. I'm all about having experiences.

However, I've found that taking fun, active classes is an excellent way to sort through, in an experienced based way what I like. Dance class -- just ok. Digital photography -- good. Nordic ski lessons fun, active, cold, and painful!  The basic skills in kayaking course sealed the deal in terms of "Do we like this enough to fork over the money for kayaking gear?"  We did and we did. See pretty photo of shiny kayaks hanging and another thank you to Gregg for hanging the racks.

I'm just plain not ready to undertake a new long term work commitment. I've deflected professional opportunities because I'm simply not ready to do what others want. If I took a job, secretly, I know I probably would just not show up.

As much as I love dogs and devotedly cared for three different ones over 28 years, right now I satisfy my doggie care taking need by dog sitting our niece/nephew's 80 pound furry ball of love, Lily (see commitment issues explained above).

    

     The sweet and lovely Lily.

Joining a weekly hiking/walking group, a monthly book club, attending wine drinking socials has yielded interesting new connections and budding friendships. But more is in the works for building a sense of community. The summer has been packed with music. We've seen The Dobbie Brothers and Pink Martini in Bend and took a road trip to Eugene to see the still fab Jackson Browne. We've enjoyed local groups like The Moonlight Ramblers and Honey Don't all around town.

More to Come -- Travel -- Right now most other activities take a back seat to travel and experiencing the world. Trips to see the wonders of Peru and the jungles of the Osa Pennisula in Costa Rica, new locales for us, are on the books. The Go-Go Years are precious and not to be wasted. But in the future, I can imagine volunteering, perhaps finding some kind of work, writing more.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

The easiest fix for a life is to work. Work provides identity, money, work relationships, structure, purpose and more. I decided that for two years, working was not option because I wanted to push myself to build a life beyond work, to settle in and that takes time and effort. I gave myself good advice.

Other advice I've given to me -- process the disappointments. If you didn't think disappointments were part of post-work life, think again. They are part of all lives. Might be disappointments with others, yourself, a place, your vision of how you thought this time would unfold, your aging body....who knows. They are there. Process them and move on. Time is a wasting.

The two concepts that guide my life right now are -- Postpone Nothing and Say "Yes" to Just About Everything (within reason).

Did I ever hanker to play Mah Jong? No, but someone asked if I wanted to learn and I said "Yes."  While I find this an incredibly complicated game that I'll probably always suck at, my "yes" yielded an invitation to lake kayaking and drinks after and discussions about future outings including snowshoeing in the winter. And oddly enough, two of the women also do not have children. Taking chances is powerful. You never know what it will yield.

The most important idea I hold and remind myself of each day is that I'll never have this time again and I'll probably never be healthier than I am now. This holds true for all of you, too.

This week, I hiked twice, including the easier trail at Smith Rock, kayaked, took a Mah Jong lesson, attended a wine event that included couples, joined women for drinks (I see a pattern emerging), cycled with R, and went to the movies. We'll close out the week by dog sitting Lily and listening to music at the High & Dry Bluegrass Festival -- where the niece, nephew, and grandniece will perform. Not bad.

Smith Rock, Oregon