Age and Aging, Part 2: Images

 

 

Often, we have ideas or images of who we are supposed to be, what our life “should look like,” or “where we should be by now” in life—and these ideas get in the way and limit how we respond to life.  “I’m 30 so I should be a home owner, have a life partner, have ‘completed’ a college education.” Or “I’m 60 so I should be enjoying my ‘retirement years’ and traveling a lot, taking it easy, and keeping myself entertained…”  This seems to happen at every stage of life.

Other people, of course, are often more than happy to push these ideas on to us.  When I was about 30 and doing very fulfilling work as a part-time philosophy teacher, I was told “You’re out of college and 30 years old, you should get a real job that’s full time, pays well, and has a good benefits package.”  Yet another idea of what my life was supposed to look like!  If I had bought into it, it would have created great suffering in my life as a result of working all day doing something tedious and mind numbing because there certainly weren’t any full-time teaching positions available in philosophy.

We often unconsciously absorb some “life script” telling us what we are supposed to do at each age in life: be a kid and have fun, do well in school so you can go to college, go to college, pick a major and decide the “one thing” you want to do “full time” (at least 40 hours per week) for the next 40 years to earn money, then land a steady and respectable job that pays well, get married, have kids, advance in your job (more responsibility and more pay and status, more pressure and work hours), retire at “retirement age” (55 to 65?), go out to eat, travel, entertain yourself, drive around in your motor home, die.  Your script may be different.  But the point is:  Who wrote this script?  Not me, that’s for sure.

My life script about careers (see previous paragraph) created the “the problem of a career” which plagued me from the time I was 16 or 17 until I was about 30.  I never did “solve” the problem but I did dissolve it. One day I finally realized that my image of how things were supposed to look is what was blocking me.  I realized that a “career” could be several part time jobs.  Why did I have to pick one thing and do it full time for life when I was interested in many things (philosophy, writing, building, counseling, teaching) and wanted time and energy left over to play music, be with friends, have time for a partner, and personal growth activities?  Why did I have to have paid employment consisting of 40+ hours a week if I didn’t buy all the stuff that the world was telling me I was supposed to have to fulfill some image of success?  Instead, I could only work for money 20-30 hours a week and have a job that was meaningful work and time for other things, too.  Letting go of a particular image of career (which was not something thought up by me) was exhilarating and hugely freeing!

Another image that came up later in life came up when my mother was in the last few days of her dying process. A hospice nurse in our home asked me how I was feeling.  I said I was very tired from lack of sleep but that I was feeling relaxed and at peace about her death.  The nurse told me “No, this is your mother that is dying; you’ve got to be feeling some kind of anxiety, stress, or pain.”  She had an idea of what “being with your dying mother” was supposed to look like. And apparently she wanted me to rearrange my emotions to conform to that image. But for me, her idea was not the truth of my experience, and if I had taken that idea on, I might have felt guilty and miserable because my response to Mom’s death was “wrong.” 

During my life I have had many images of myself: kid, boy scout, athlete, student, academic underachiever/lazy/immature, college student, political conservative, supporter of capitalism, libertarian, flaming atheist, feminist, critical thinker, radical, hippie, single, socially awkward, graduate student, philosophy teacher, radical, hippie, hot-shot thinker, drinker, “wild and crazy guy,” vegetarian, writer, environmentalist, gender liberationist, low consumption lifestyle, community educator, vegan, nondrinker, Buddhist teacher and practitioner, gardener and orchardist, builder, fixer, health advocate and practitioner, physically strong and capable, lover of music, husband, friend, tribal elder… and so on. 

If we cannot let go of these images of self as we age and change, we will suffer as we try to be something that we no longer are. I remember my father, who was in his nineties, still holding on to his fishing gear in the garage long after he was physically unable to go fishing anymore.  He still thought of himself as “a fisherman” and to give away his fishing tackle would mean he wasn’t a fisherman anymore.  He suffered over the loss of some part of who he thought he was.

Ram Dass points out that the images of who we are need to constantly change as we progress through life because we are constantly changing and the old images no longer fit.  This is true.  But deeper than the practice of changing and updating our images of self as we age is the practice of letting go of all images of who we are—not just continuing to update them.  Here’s why.     

Having some sort of idea, image, or definition of who I am severely limits my choices and ability to respond spontaneously and authentically in a situation.  Suppose I think of myself as a “senior citizen,” and then I am invited to go to an amusement park.  I don’t even consider it because “I’m too old to do that; I’d look like a fool.”  So I don’t even consider it and give it a try.  If I have no image of self, I am free to try things.

At the other end of the age spectrum, suppose I am a college student and one of my professors says to me “You should send in this paper you wrote and try to get it published.”  But I say, “I couldn’t do that; I’m just a young student.”  But some years ago a major university held a philosophy essay contest on the subject of pacifism and a student placed in the top three, beating out a number of established professors.  And even if you try and don’t succeed at getting published, you had the experience of trying for something wonderful.  But none of this happens if you have some image of how things are that says “young college students don’t publish academic articles.” 

Channeling our lives to meet some age-related stereotype is very prevalent.  “I’m too old to go out dancing, wear a swim suit in public, go to a heavy metal concert, march in a political demonstration, do something about climate change, be assertive, and…”  Or “I’m too young to make a difference or be assertive and speak out (think Greta Thundberg here!), write a book, or hang out with a bunch of old geezers.”  Or “I’m middle-aged now so I’m sure I’m going to start putting on weight.”  We’re much better off without all of these mind-created straight-jackets.

For a long time, I held fast to the idea that I needed some image or definition of who I was.  I needed to be able to say who I was. Then one day, a friend who was further along the spiritual path than me, asked me a very simple question: “Why do you need a definition of self?  What’s it for?”  This question absolutely stumped me—I had no answer—and I began to realize over time that having an image of self not only did not serve any purpose, it actually was a very limiting factor in my life and caused suffering.

The Zen teachings on “beginner’s mind” are quite useful here.  Adopting the perspective of beginner’s mind means that we can choose to come to each experience in life fresh, as though we were seeing things for the very first time, with no mental preconceptions whatsoever about what is in front of us.  Puppies and babies are good role models here! If we don’t do this, we will find that the accumulation of our years can become a ball and chain.      (For more on beginner’s mind, see Blog Posts Lessons of the Heart, Part 4: Working with Fear, January 31, 2023, and Other Species as Teachers, February 20, 2023.)

We must get in the habit of regularly asking ourselves:  “Is this what I really need to be doing, or is this something that comes out of my conditioning about what I am ‘supposed’ to do?”

 

 

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