This month I will celebrate 72 years on earth. Here are a few notes on the view from here.
There is only one thing I do not like about being older – I have less energy.
Were it possible, I should have saved half of my wasted energy for now.
Message to young earthlings: Use time and energy wisely.
The biggest difference I’ve noticed is that so much less really matters to me.
The Indigo Girls song says, “there must be a thousand things you would die for; I can hardly think of two”. I’m sure I had 1,000 in my 20s and 30s, maybe 500 in my 40s and 50s…I’m now down to two, my faith and my family.
Message to young earthlings: Prioritize what’s worth caring about.
It’s nice to finally have time to think.
Looking back, the worst decisions I made were hurried. I still make stupid decisions but now given more time, I make fewer.
Message to young earthlings: Read “Thinking Fast and Slow”
I’m noticing more little pleasures that are enjoyable, just by being more present.
A good weather day, a kindness in a grocery store line, a bird or small animal just “being”, laughter, a dance especially by someone very young or very old
Message to young earthlings: Come to the now.
Fear or fix only what has happened.
Those who paint dark or bright futures are simply trying to get my attention for political or monetary profit. When I allow stories about what has not happened to catch and keep my attention, I lose my present.
Message to young earthlings: Stick to what you know is true. Life is complicated enough without adding a dark or utopian future.
Trust, loyalty and forgiveness are of singular value.
I can name important relationships that began in each of the eight decades I’ve lived in. In each case, both me and the party I’m close with feel like we are getting the better end of the deal. Each of these enduring relationships still requires watering (trust) and weeding (forgiveness) to bloom (loyalty).
Message to young earthlings: Beyond service, if you find you’re doing all the heavy lifting in a relationship, it is not really an enduring one.
“And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love…you make.” --- Lennon-McCartney
Peace.
Tim McCarthy
Now that I am full of years and white of hair and the evening star glows in the sky, I know that as my life accumulates, I am surprised by the intensity of one overmastering emotion—gratitude —for my family, for enduring friendships, for a lifelong addiction to language and learning, and for my brief involvement in the astonishing human adventure. Here’s to life—what it has been, what it is, and what it will become. Hurrah!
---Richard Lederer
Editor’s note: Befitting this month’s topic, here’s an oldie from my college days.
Favorite lyric:
“Old man, take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes and you can tell that's true.”
Editor’s note: This is the third Whitehead book I’ve featured. After enjoying his fictional character portrayals of 1970’s Harlem, I tried “Underground Railroad” and was unable to get a third of the way through. There are only so many holocaust and slavery books I can read without fulling falling into depression. This novel remained poignant though readable novel is set in 1960s Tallahassee, Florida, as civil rights were just emerging.
Favorite excerpt:
“In our modern age, cell phone technology permits us to record the constant brutality that occurs all around us; we experience not an uptick in violence but a new kind of witnessing.”
I was an aspiring young ad agency executive, and our shop hired legendary ad man Bill Hesse to help us make new business presentation to a major brand. Five of us were having a beer and debriefing after the pitch when I asked Mr. Hesse what he thought.
He said, “We did wonderful, like an orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony.”
I said, “great, we won then, right?”
He said, “not if they are Beach Boy fans”.