I was thinking about growing older, how what we have learned and accomplished at some point becomes something we did in the past, and are no longer doing in the present. I was writing to my older brother, who did beautiful work and retired this year, of necessity. About how, what with our lives and work, we are sometimes lucky enough to experience pride in our efforts and what we taught ourselves to do so well and beautifully, with heart.
How we grow older or health intervenes, and we find ourselves without that external daily reminder of who we are, and what we are capable of. What wonderful things we have managed.
I think about all the all the older people I have known, who sat before me, knowing all the expertise and effort and satisfaction they experienced in the past, none of which I was aware of, while being younger, sitting there, trying to be both polite and considerate, trying to see who they were with
my young not-so-able eyes.
my young not-so-able eyes.
How the lesson goes round and round, and comes up to us with this necessity to know ourselves. To hold within our selves the knowledge and joy and pleasure of who we are today, and tomorrow. How possibly we will, like so many others, find ourselves one day with noone around as old as us, noone who was there or knew what we were doing over in our neck of the woods when we made our efforts and created some remarkable work.
How we may have our turn, standing there, only known as much as the present moment portrays, and we will have to hold for ourselves the entirety of our being.
“We insist on being Someone, with a capital S. We get security from defining ourselves as worthless or worthy, superior or inferior. We waste precious time exaggerating or romanticizing or belittling ourselves
with a complacent surety that yes, that’s who we are. We mistake the openness of our being—
the inherent wonder and surprise of each moment—for a solid, irrefutable self. Because of this misunderstanding, we suffer.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
“We insist on being Someone, with a capital S. We get security from defining ourselves as worthless or worthy, superior or inferior. We waste precious time exaggerating or romanticizing or belittling ourselves
with a complacent surety that yes, that’s who we are. We mistake the openness of our being—
the inherent wonder and surprise of each moment—for a solid, irrefutable self. Because of this misunderstanding, we suffer.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
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