Excerpt from Daily Cures, Wisdom for Healthy Aging
Have you asked yourself that question, “How did I get here?” It seems to come up in my life frequently. Like sitting at the high school graduation of a grandchild. I think, “How could time have passed so fast, I was just at my son’s graduation!” I get on the scales and see a shocking number, and I think, “How did this happen?” I joke with my kids about the dark ages when we had one TV set with two channels and a test pattern; it seems impossible! I guess time does not need our permission to move forward, even if we resist. When we find ourselves in places we’re not particularly happy about, how do we deal with the present reality? A friend expressed clearly, “Life is right now, not the way I thought it should be.”
It seems as we grow older, we have more occasions to come face to face with the present time and deal with our aging lives. Through eons of time, great thinkers have pondered what it means to grow old. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.” We may need to be flexible and creative in our older years, not rigid and stubborn. There may come a time when making a move to senior living is the right thing to do; if we but know what to do with it, it can be a wonderful time. Embracing the present and adjusting to our limitations is our best bet. Like Henry David Thoreau says, “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.” What shall we catch in that stream? Freedom, contentment, peace are pretty good prizes for all of us. My advice is, don’t quit fishing for life!
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.” Henry David Thoreau
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