Tender Reach

Age, toward which you draw amid the storms of life, is nothing so dreadful. Those who call it so have found all stages of life unwelcome, thanks to their mishandling of life, not to a particular age. ~Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), letter, c.1366–1367, translated by Morris Bishop, 1966

I have come to consider that maturity has to do with responsibility.  We should be responsible, emotionally, and then, it follows that life might be so hard on us as we age.  If we have not dealt with life's stressors, throughout our life and expect our older age to be easy, we are wrong.  As the physical breaks down, wears out, ages out, that, alone is enough stressors.  If we are emotionally immature, it follows that we will react, more emotionally, to the others stress areas of our life and, thus, have no reserves.  Same old.  Same old, only worse, because the body betrays us.  It all comes down to choice, to maturing in all areas of our life.  It has to do with attitudes, as well.  All we have to do is think to ourselves, "life sucks", and it will.  All we have to do is say, "I do not have to change,"  and it will come to a time and place that we are truly stuck and life will be more than hard to try to change, then.  Best we do it as it comes, methinks.

What do we value?  What is worth doing, when intelligence and emotion and spirit is not involved?  Once we find a passion for things, we fill up our time, and change towards being able to gain what we value.  Who do we spend our time on?  Are we more focused on Self than others.  I think there is something to the fact that, if we do for others, maintain accessibility for others, our lives should remain adventurous, affable, and time does not seem to slow to a snail's pace because we are involved with our living. It has never been 'what can the world do for me...', it has always been about 'what can I do for the world?'

If we have truly lived and have found ways to maintain some sort of balance in our lives, we will find that we were always independent.  it is only us that gives up our power.  We have set things we will do and things we will not do.  We have tried (yes, and sometimes failed) at setting boundaries.  But, hopefully we have learned that there needs be some give and take, to following our heart and making wise choices.  And, there needs be learning the lessons as we go rather than stay mired in same old, same old, that ends up 'same old'.  We were born with a gnaw to rise and walk on our own two feet.  We were born to seek mastery over ourselves and our own limitations.

We always have to be willing to learn the lessons and to go from tunnel-vision of memememe, to a world-conscious being, one tribe to the next.  We learn to be aware of beyond the nipple.  We were meant to learn from our experiences, from our mistakes, and to blossom beyond self-interest.  We grow beyond fulfilling the need to manipulate (crying for attention, food, shelter, as a new baby) in order to get what we want.  We learn to surround ourselves with people of like mind, but those who press us to more forward thinking.  We are meant to be problem-solvers. We seek self-mastery and the day we give that up, we are giving up on life.  

We learn to accept differences in others, to accept our own differences, and when to, perhaps, learn new truths about ourselves in the process.  We, alone, know our own weaknesses and flaws and what we should be working on to become more rounded, healthy, human beings.  We know our own courage.  We know our own wisdom.  We learn not to dread what might be dreadful because, there is always a solution and what is does not need to be what is.  Choices. Yes, we may choose wrong, but t is our responsibility to make wiser choices second time around.

Attitude gets us everywhere.  We learn to persevere and we learn patience.  We know rules and we know what are suggestions.  We know what rules apply to us and what do not.  We seek the highest good in people, places and things.  Everything is not supposed to be perfect, we are developing beings.  We can't have what we cannot have.  We learn self-control. We learn to keep a rein on our instant gratification in all areas of our life.  We learn that we are enough, we have enough, and not to desire things that are simply not in our reach, not good for us, or just not in our cards.  Attitude.  

We learn toleration until we solve something in a better way for us.  We need to pause, to keep it simple, and to deal with our own problems.  We learn to consider alternatives and consequences.  We learn that we need to have, or should be now, developing gratitude.  As I age, my gratitude list surely has been cut down to core things.  We learn to be giving and in sharing and in generosity.  It is there that we truly grasp the lessons of how blessed we are when we are giving back.  

We learn, as we have gone through life, the blessings of being honest with and about Self.  We learn about humiliation, about how we might be difficult, how we might need to change something in ourselves in order to life a life of integrity.  We learn not to compromise our integrity because someone else wishes it.  We should be wishing it for ourselves.  If we come from a place of soul, we come from our core belief system and our core truths.

We learn not to blame others, but to find the mote in our eye and remove it ourselves.  We learn to be accountable for what we say and do and act upon. Our destiny is hinged on choices that we are accountable for.   We look for ways to grow, to learn to develop, to become better accountants of Mother Earth and others.  The more we grow, the more we have to offer.  We can decide whether to live an accountable life or one where we blamed or shamed others for our position in life.  We do have accountability for our own destiny.

Yes, the years are going to get difficult in ways we had not thought of.  The little things we took for granted are where life will find you lacking if we do not learn to pare down our wants and needs until we are at core self-sufficiancy.  The pride, the peace, the wisdom and wealth we will have is in the depth of our soul.  It is big work and if we have not devleoped the skills of physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual before this, we best be working on them.  Bless us as we work on them.  Bless each other.

©Carol Desjarlais 11.28.19