Learn
the Lesson
“Don’t
be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.”
Ralph
Waldo Emerson
In my
dotage, I am learning what it means to have a body that can no longer dig holes
in the hard soil of the garden, wrest off the lid of a pickle jar, lift a heavy
bagful of garbage into a 40-gallon can, use trimmers on overgrown shrubbery for
more than fifteen minutes, or bend over long enough to scrub fourteen basement
steps. I usually learn these things by doing them and then experiencing the
consequences. And I seem to be a slow learner…it takes more than one trial to
get the lesson across. This experiment in old age is not going so well.
It’s a conundrum,
isn’t it, as to whether one keeps doing things that leave one sore and stiff,
or give up and find someone else to do them. There is all that talk of
losing muscle mass and strength and such. If you haven’t had to make such
choices, don’t worry; your time will come if you are fortunate enough to live a long time. This stage of life is all about letting go, and that includes letting
go of the claim you first made when you were three years old, “I’ll do it
myself!”
There are
consequences to every choice we make, some more impactful than others. When we
make our choices based upon what other people may think about us, we take a step
backward in terms of psychosocial development. We can lose years of growth
doing this—I speak from experience. When we make decisions because we are
trying to take care of someone else’s fragile feelings, we take another step
backward. It is important in this endeavor to communicate what you want and
need in a way that can be heard and does not trigger a defensive response in
the one with the fragile feelings. That’s another thing I am learning the hard
way.
Life is
just chock full of experiments and lessons. You’ll see as you go along that they change with each life stage, but they never end. You never arrive
at: “Done!” I’m afraid there are no laurels to rest upon. Here is a clue, though,
if you hurt yourself doing it, then you probably should not do it. Or, you can
be like me, and learn every single lesson the hard way. Up to you.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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