Aging and Enjoying an Inspired Life

Spanish painter and sculptor, Pablo Picasso said, “Age only matters when one is aging. Now that I have arrived at a great age, I might just as well be twenty.”

What do you imagine he meant by arriving at a “great age?”  Is it marked by the pleasure that forgetting can be as important as the pleasure of remembering?  Does a “great age” mean that your life has become inspired? Or, that among the mysteries of an inspired life you can live as if you were twenty?

Have you arrived at a “great age?” How do you define that? Some might say, “Retirement.” Others say, “There is no such thing as retiring.” You might say, “At last I have the chance to do the painting, the writing, and the gardening that I’ve always wanted to do, and being inspired has nothing to do with chronological age.”

Consider what you’ve been doing for the past however-many-years. You have been doing a lot. Doing the dishes. Doing the laundry. Doing your career and doing it as best as you could. Perhaps you did more than you wanted, and surely there were times when we all felt we didn’t do enough. However, doing is a bit of a trap. Yes, you have visible changes or evidence that you did something, but the trap is that having this evidence of doing sometimes gets confused with our being.

Perhaps, one day it occurred to you to do something different, that you had enough of this doing, doing, doing. The world never runs out of things to be done.

I remember listening to my parents talk for years about retirement. It was the great turning point, the event that would open the door to their “golden years.” I got the feeling that something would change radically, but, of course, I wouldn’t have a clue what that something would look like. A part of me could hardly wait to see the magic and mystery of what their “golden years” held in store. In retrospect, I know that they didn’t know what it would look like either.

Retirement became a sad time for my family. Within six to eight months of having retired at what my father considered the magic turning point of sixty-five, he realized that nothing was different except he had given up doing his work and he missed it immensely. He had hobbies and interests, but they didn’t make his retirement the “great age” he hoped for. What he faced instead was disappointment, gradual decline, and dwindling capacities until he reached death’s door only a year after retiring.

Undoubtedly some of you can relate to feeling disappointed in retirement. It’s no different for baby boomers who are retiring ten to fifteen years before that golden age of sixty-five. Yet there is a common thread.

Often, people don’t do retirement very well. At first, it feels like being on vacation. There is a sense of timelessness, elation, relaxation and comfort.  It feels like the world is spread out like a great banquet with endless possibilities for you to enjoy.

And then something happens. The being on vacation feeling starts to feel slightly uncomfortable. Something within you starts to make you uneasy and the question, “Who am I becoming?” seems to surface out of nowhere. And just as quickly, an old familiar part of yourself says, “Well, we’d better get busy and do something.” 

And so, you set about looking for something to do. This search can be quite humorous, of course. When I hear retirees say, “I have more to do now than I did when I was working,”  I erupt in belly-shaking laughter. We become so familiar with doing that we can’t fathom what it would mean to simply be.

Please don’t misunderstand; the allure of doing endless rounds of golf and soaking up sunshine in Florida and Arizona may prove to be the carrot at the end of the stick for you. And I say, go for it.

But if standing in front of the mirror one morning you find yourself asking, “Is this all there is?” then packing up the golf balls and folding up your chaise lounge might be the next step. And that’s okay, too.

Arriving at a “great age” happens at different times for different people.  Picasso was a prolific artist, painting into his 90s. Pablo Cassals gave concerts and conducted major orchestras into his 90s. Grandma Moses began painting in her 70s. For some people, age never stops them from living inspired lives.

Take a moment and think about it. Do you peek out from under the sheets in the morning enthusiastic about starting your day?  Or do you pull the covers back over your head?

When Picasso said, “I might as well be twenty,” he had mixed enough paint with the passion of a creative life to realize that aging has very little to do with one’s quality of life. It has to do with your state of mind.

Consider the “80-something” people who still hike mountains, take college courses and are “sharp as a tack” with a twinkle in their eyes. They have arrived at their “great age” with a consciousness of doing and being  — what I call an inspired life.

 “How do I get there?” you may ask.

I suggest playing with the notion of doing and being. When you see life like a great treasure hunt, you get to be the child and the adult simultaneously. And, every day you encounter one clue after another toward what will inspire you.

Become curious. Wonder. Ask questions. Consider who you wanted to be before you began working. Consider who you are now.

Ask yourself, “What ‘costume’ have I donned? What role am I playing? Is this who I was? Is this who I am? Or, is this who I want to become?

Children ask these questions all the time and become who they want to be in any given moment. Life is rich with endless possibilities. Or, as Picasso said, “I might just as well be twenty.”

Consider becoming as resilient as trampled grass. Consider being as accepting as the ocean that refuses no river. Find the things you love doing. Play and experiment with new ideas. Set aside the “have to’s” and explore the “want to’s.” Once you find your preferences, “have to” and “want to” fall away.

Notice where you focus. Focusing on the woes of life, quickly move to “woe-is-me.” Directing your attention to the goodness of life, instantly becomes “oh my goodness, life is good.”

Ask yourself, “What am I thinking? What am I experiencing?” There is an exquisite richness in becoming profoundly aware of your senses. Explore touch, smell, sound, taste, and sight. Your senses will guide you into current time, and voila! Notice how time changes.

Imagine cupping a wild mushroom in your hand. Imagine seeing it as if you have never seen it before — smelling as if it’s the first time. An inspired life is about being profoundly connected with your sensory experience — allowing yourself to breathe it all in and experience it in every cell of your body.

The treasure hunt becomes treasuring — treasuring the moment, treasuring your relationship to all things, including the subtle. Time falls away.  Open yourself to any exquisite moment and symphonies of sound can be heard like never before. Air currents tingle the hair upon your face and all the doing falls away as you feel fully alive, fully inspired. Aliveness becomes your purpose.

Learning how to be brings a sense of “ripening” as you age — a softness in your relationship to life. The drive to do falls away as a savoring wells up filling you with a richness of the simple joy of being alive. A new independence emerges grounded in your ability to observe what you have never observed before. By being you, aging becomes meaningless as you embrace the adventure of living an inspired life. Nothing more and nothing less.

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Published in Peninsula Life, July/August 2007.   Visit Ruth's website at www.drruthmarcus.com.