Sunday Thought: How We Live

All of us wrestle with the issue of how we
live at various points in our lives.

Many of us grow accustomed to thinking about our
lives in periods and cycles. In reality, there
is a great deal of overlap and variation in those
issues that occupy our lives. Here is typically
how we are accustomed (conditioned) to think about
"how we live" across our lifetime.

Starting out as children, we are taught to be
concerned about love, acceptance, support from
our families, having fun, and making friends.

Our attention shifts to getting an education,
building careers, and creating families of our
own as we enter our twenties and thirties.

Building wealth, creating stability, having our
children succeed, and growing in new personal
directions occupies our attention in our forties
and fifties.

Health, financial security, doing things we didn't
do earlier, and eventually retirement become chief
concerns during our sixties and seventies.

And of course, coming to terms with our eventual end
weighs heavily on our minds, as we grow older. Yes,
many face this issue much earlier in life for a variety
of reasons.

How do you feel about this approach to living (and
dying)? This characterization of life is too "canned"
for me. It's too programmed, and not applicable to
lots of people that I know.

Where's the joy, adventure, compassion, beauty, and
other things that make life really worthwhile?

In my 53 years, I don't think we give enough thought
to our own "personal sustainability" at various
points in our lives. This notion suggests that we
must pace ourselves, save some for others, and do
our best to give back more than we take.

As I think of my own life today, I like to remind
myself of this important point of view, reflected
in this powerful quote:

"Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time
like dew on the tip of a leaf." --Tagore