Aging Capriciously

You have only one week to live. We have explored this concept before in terms of life expectancy. However, let us think about it again but with a different time frame in mind. Right now, how long do you think you have left to live? Hopefully, it will be a very long time. But what if you went from thinking you had twenty or more years to live and suddenly found out you had only one more week left on this earth? God forbid that should ever happen to you, but it does happen. It might be one of the main reasons we all dread that annual visit to our doctor. We fear that we might hear some bad news. I recently had an MRI and a Colonoscopy within two weeks of each other. Both times, I was very anxious less I hear the dreaded news “you have cancer.” We all know someone who received this news but we don’t know how we will respond until we hear it.

One week is a lot more than one second but a lot less than one year. I would not wish such news on anyone. We would all trade for more time, but if you only had one week, how would you make the best of it? Even one week is better than the sudden death that comes from an accident or other catastrophe. It is probably too late for those trips you never took or the time to spend with some friends and relatives. However, it might be enough time for some apologies and goodbyes or perhaps one last adventure you always dreamed of. One week to spend. So many things we want to do and so little time. No time to spend worrying about the life we wished we had lived. We have one week to conclude our business on this earth and wrap it up. In some ways, it would be wonderful if we were all given a one week warning of our impending death. We might be able to use this last week very effectively.

How would you spend your last week? Would it be a week of doing or being? Would you opt for finishing some things or would you choose to be more peaceful and contemplative? What are the most important things you would want to accomplish during your last week on earth?

I give you Tree Time! (I found the following quote on a box of Celestial Seasoning Time)

“I planted a tree next to the first house I owned, just a skinny runt of a tree….But when I went back there 40 years later, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The tree was towering over the house, the queen of the neighborhood. In the meantime, I’d become an old man. This was the first time, I ever really believed that the world will go on just fine when I’m gone…Ever since then, I’ve been living in tree time.”

There is no further explanation as to what is meant by “tree time” but the meaning seems pretty clear. The young man had aged and the tree had grown into its maturity. The tree would go on living long after the old man had passed away. The old man realized that life would go on long after he had passed away. Perhaps to the tree nothing in the world had really changed very much.

I once remember seeing a Red Wood tree that had been sliced open and a series of events had been inscribed on the various rings of the tree. You could look at most of history in the rings of a Redwood tree. Redwood trees can live up to 2000 years old. A single tree captures in a simple non-technological presentation (as opposed to a PowerPoint presentation) one half of the history of modern humanity on a slice of wood. It is hard to envision a simpler or more powerfully evocative depiction of history. The tree has been there and seen it all. Where human time is frantic, noisy, urgent and chaotic, tree time is solid, steadfast, peaceful and quiet. Tree time simply is without judging or reacting. While we all love flowers and the colors they manifest, can you really think of anything more beautiful or simpler than a tree?

What if we all faced life like a tree? What if we spent our time each day as tree time? How would our perspectives on life change if we thought and behaved in tree time rather than in human time? Would we still be as frantic and rushed? Would you still think that what you were doing was so important that nothing else mattered?

“Are we there yet?” The movie Shrek was so popular that it has immortalized this line: “Are we there yet.” Every parent and child can identify with the phrase. The movie was very interesting in that people of all ages enjoyed it. We have all been on a long trip and perhaps not very far into it when we hear a young one say “are we there yet?” This phrase illuminates the difference in time perception between the old and the young. A year is a short time for an older person and indeed, they often seem to go by in a blur. For a young child, an hour seems like a long time and they become quite restless and bored very quickly. How often have you heard an older person wail: “I’m bored?” Well, maybe too often for some of you.

We took our one year old grandson on a trip with us to Korea a number of years ago. The trip was a constant effort (much fun though) to entertain Sam and keep him from being bored. You know how one year olds get when they are bored. It was also a constant effort to keep him happy and occupied. I will say that many other passengers and much of the crew helped out. Sam was a hyperactive one year old who seemed to never tire from wanting attention or help in exploring the plane and all of its occupants. I have been on many overseas trips and most of us “old” folks just sit and patiently wait for the plane to land. It might be 26 hours but we read, write, nap and somehow pass the time. I don’t think it ever occurs to us that we are bored, although we might wonder when we “will be there.” I think it is fun to watch the little plane fly across the computer screen as I get closer to my destination.

Boredom seems to be a condition of youth. As we age, the weeks start to fly by. Then the months fly by and finally the years by. Older people are too busy to be bored. When you are older, who has time to be bored? Boredom would be a luxury for some of us now. When was the last time you were bored? Do you ever have time to be bored? When did you outgrow boredom?

Now it’s time to create the time line of your dreams. This is a fantasy time line or the time line of your wildest dreams. You can let your imagination have free rein here. All you have to do is create the time line that you would have wanted, if you could have had your wildest dreams come true. What would be the greatest moments in your life if you could have this fantasy time line? Not just one moment, but an entire life of them. You can pick any events or situations that you would desire. It may be hard to conceive of such a time line since it forces us to really stretch our minds. Doing this exercise (creating an entire life that would perhaps be very different than the one we did live) forces us to ask some tough questions about the life we are living.

Why did we not live the time line that we could dream of? Perhaps you did not really dream enough or perhaps you did not really risk enough. I see so many people who do not think they have the power to make their dreams become reality. Many of us watch these fantasy TV shows and live vicariously through others, never thinking that we could be living a dream life if we had really believed it was possible. Now, of course not everything is possible for everyone. However, the world shows us that our limits are usually far above our aspirations and most people under-strive rather than over-strive.

However, if you want to change your dreams into reality, they must first become goals. What makes dreams into goals? Dreams become goals when you have a plan. A plan allocates the time and resources and is the pathway to reality. Your dreams are in the sky, reality is on the earth. If you want to attain reality, you must put resources and commitment into a concrete plan. Only then will your dreams become real.

The good story is that if you are reading this your life is not over. You still have time to attain many if not most of your dreams. Starting today, starting right now, you can create the time line that you want for the rest of your life and start living it. Have you started? If not, what is standing in your way? What would it take to remove these obstacles? Who could help you? There is always someone willing to help make your dreams a reality.

The time line that might have been! In the reading before you were asked to do a time line. This was to be a short version of the key points and milestones in your life. However, what if you had done the time line you might have had? The time line you might have had would center on the key decisions that you made and the alternate changes to you life if you had decided otherwise. For instance, what if you had not married? What if you had gone to school or what if you had not gone to school? What if you had not gone into the military or perhaps had gone into the military? The time line that might have been will look at all those decisions and opportunities that you passed up in favor of other opportunities and decisions. It is not a pure fantasy, since it is not a wishful timeline, but it is based on choices and events that you could have chosen. For instance, when I was eighteen, I went into the Air Force. I could have chosen to go to college. If I had made that choice, how would my time line have looked? Would I still have married at 21 and had a baby girl?

If you went back to your time line and thought about the key decision points, how might your life had changed at these points? This exercise is somewhat conjecture, because you can only guess how these changes “might” have changed your life. It is interesting to look at it from this perspective though as it helps us to reflect on the key decision points or our lives and what impact they have had or how our lives might have been different.

What key decisions have most impacted you life? Have they been mostly for the good? Would your life have been happier or more satisfactory with a different set of decisions? Are you positioned now to make better decisions in the future? Can you accept the fact that you can now choose a different life for yourself and do not have to go on with the one you have created so far?

Time stood still! When I was young there was a movie called “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” It was about an alien and his robot partner who came to earth. They came to warn us that we needed to stop our wars and our petty squabbles or we would be destroyed as a menace to the universe. Whenever I think of this old movie, I think of the phrase “and time stood still.” I am not quite sure of the connection anymore. However, what if time did stand still for a day?

What if for one day, all of our petty bigotry and animosities towards other people, other religions, other countries and other political persuasions would all stop. What would the world be like if one day; no one was killed, injured, raped or assaulted in any act of violence. What would the newspapers, TV’s and radios say at the end of the day? At what point in the day, do you think anyone would start to notice the difference? What would the world be like without violence for one day? Would this day be remembered as the “day TIME stood still?” Would we feel any different the next day or would we just start the violence all over again?

“I am making time today”. You have all heard this expression and no doubt used it yourself. Have you thought about what it means? Is it accurate to say we are making time? Is time like a piece of furniture, product or some baked good that we can assemble or create out of nothing? If it were, would we be able to store it or reuse it? It would be wonderful, if whenever we needed some time, we could go to our kitchen, mix some ingredients and make some time. How long do you think time would keep? Do you suppose we could refrigerate it?

Such nonsense you are thinking. Making time is not like baking a pie. Making time is different. When you make time, you simply put some other things aside and that’s how you make time. You forego some other activities, opportunities or tasks. However, then you are not really making time, you are simply re-ordering time or re-prioritizing your time. It would be more accurate to say “today I am forgoing some activities so that I can” (add whatever you would rather do). I am making time to play with my children, to work on my drawing, to help my friend move, to spend some time meditating.

It is not easy to “make time.” It is very difficult to re-order our schedules and to put aside some of the things we must do and make room for new things. Making time is a little like making room in a cluttered attic. While you could throw some things out, it is easier to keep trying to stuff more things in and not throw anything out. Maybe that’s why we are all busy. We are unable to do a good job of “making time” by throwing some old things out. We don’t do a good job of prioritizing.

What if you could throw more old things out? How many old time wasters and useless time activities do you have? What could you throw out today to make more time? If you could re-order all of your time priorities, what would your life be like? Could you just try it for a day? See what happens. Take at least one piece of time out of your attic today or this week and throw it away.

Do you remember the song that went: “I’m a slow lover?” In the movies, all love making seems to go on forever, despite the fact that it really occupies only about 1 or 2 minutes of screen time. However, the lovers generally start in the late evening and are still making love in the twilight hours of morning. Well, love making is still one of those things that seem to be best going slow. How many people want a “fast” lover? Of course, there are those days and times when fast love making has some merit. Nevertheless, what is less conducive to romance than watching the clock? Even fast love making requires a loss of time consciousness.

Making love by the clock has not become fashionable yet. Our chronic excuse of “no time” does not play well when it comes to love making. However, love making is something that as we get older we often discover that we must schedule. When we lead a hectic and busy life, some things easily get left out. There may be psychological imperatives for love making, but seldom are the physical imperatives so urgent that time cannot be a barrier to a good love life. As with all else in a relationship, time, money and love making must all find their proper balance.

Karen and I have been married now for over 20 years. A while ago we attended a weekend Marriage Encounter. There were 23 couples at our weekend who ranged from engaged and due to be married in two weeks to one couple that was married for 42 years. I was somewhat skeptical about the value of a weekend talking about love and romance. After all, I have never been a shy person and I have always thought I was open to any idea and discussion. What I found really opened my horizons. Despite the weekly family talks with Karen, we both noted that there were many aspects of our lives that we had not shared. Some of this was due to time constraints. Problems seemed to dominate our weekly agenda and we seldom had time to talk about the “other” stuff. Stuff like how we like to do things sexually and how we like to be touched or held or talked to. We have now decided to balance our “problem” time with more discussion about ourselves and life in general.

Do you have a balance in your love life? Do you spend enough time nurturing your love life? Are you able to find the time to take love slowly? How do you keep your balance in this area? What would it take for you to find the balance that you need to have a more satisfactory love life?

Where have all the Minute Men gone? The term “Minute Men” refers to those revolutionaries during the American War of Independence who purportedly could be ready to fight in a minutes notice. If you think about that, it is quite a remarkable feat. Can you imagine a soldier in our armies today getting ready to fight with one minutes notice? Can you imagine anybody of today doing anything with one minutes notice? Getting ready to go out to dinner – 2 hours, Getting ready to go to work – 1 hour, Getting ready to go camping – 4 hours. Maybe getting ready to go shopping might be accomplished in one minute, but the shopping itself would be good for ½ day.

We talk about speed and the fast pace of life, but it takes us longer to do everything. Even instant microwave meals take four or five minutes to cook; and do you know anyone who really lets them sit for two to three minutes after they are done? We are in more of a hurry to do things, but we really cannot do anything very fast. When I was in the service, our motto was “hurry up to wait.” We are always hurrying around only to face gridlock on the freeway, traffic jams, crashed IT systems, lines at the checkout counters and unexpected cancellations.

There is pure irony in the fact that as we speed up, we actually slow down. I once took a course in motorcycle cornering at the Elkhart Lake Speedway sponsored by Keith Code’s Superbike School. Keith who was a former racer and highly respected for his training had a mantra. It went like this: “You must go slow, before you can go fast.” I have since been able to apply that mantra to other areas of my life. If you do not have the right technique or the right attitude, haste will only make waste.

What if we had a One Minutes-Person Society (open to men and women)? Would you join? What might an organization of people brag about being able to do in one minute? What do you do in one minute that you could brag about? Why?