One of the great joys of aging is getting to be ourselves.
Without the constant need to be better.
For so long in our use,
We strove to overcome our deficiencies.
To become somewhat different.
Not quite trusting who we were or what we knew.
But now,
Having done the hard work of learning how to be in the world,
With our partner,
Our families,
Our friends,
And with those we meet casually through our days,
We can relax into the joy of simply being who we are.
A man I know in his later 60s.
Told me that throughout his life he had been driven by a deep insecurity.
A need to seek an answer to a question you could not quite articulate.
He felt that if he could just know more,
Learn the truth from psychology,
Philosophy,
And religion,
He might live more easily in the world.
Gradually as he aged,
That fear passed.
Not so much because he had figured things out,
But because he had settled into an awareness that all the years of his striving,
All his efforts to learn how to be a better person,
Had somehow shaped him into someone he could be comfortable with,
That he could walk with in this world in peace.
One of the great joys of aging is that we find that we can be ourselves,
Free of the fears that marked our youth.
Comfortable in the awareness that we are good enough and that we like who we are.
If any of this resonates with you.
Or if you find these ideas intriguing.
I invite you to spend a few moments today in quiet reflection on who you have become.
The person you've shaped with all that hard work over all these years.
