Time to start living...

“Life isn’t about finding yourself,

it’s about creating yourself.”

- George Bernard Shaw

It’s quiet in the mornings when I get out of bed.  I try to remember to say, “Thank you” as I put my feet on the floor – one word for each foot…I try to…

My friend Frank uses the shower as a reminder for his life, with something like, “Thank you for the gifts you have given me. Help me to be a better man today.”

The thing is, we are a couple of older guys who try to look at life as though we were young guys. While there is little doubt the end of the story is much closer than the beginning, AND there is little doubt there are a few more aches and pains, we still express gratitude for what has been and look forward to being better as life continues to rush toward us.

Perspective and the journey…

Gail and I were talking about this a couple of days ago.  She is a neighbor who has retired from a successful working life, but continues to ask the questions and seek the answers related to, “What’s next?”

There is, after all the small “…what’s next…” and in a cosmic sense the bigger “…WHAT’S NEXT?!" 

One has to do with what is coming in the short term and the other?  While I have certain confidences, I am uncertain about the details…

In the small ball of ‘…what’s next…’ I am graduating from giving scientific/clinical talks to local lectures related to life and imagination. 

That’s right – graduating! 

There are a few items on the horizon related to my professional journey, but as life moves forward, a need to connect with people in my local community has grown considerably.

Teaching a workshop…

These issues are on the top of my mind, because I prepared and taught a workshop this week called Life Reimagined for the American Association of Retired People (AARP).  I took the course last year and decided to become certified as a ‘guide’ for others who have an interest in resetting their imaginations as a guidepost for the future.

You remember your imagination, right?  That indefinable thing that emerges early in life after the ‘starter dough’ of faith and curiosity have taken root.  Once we get enough experience…enough vocabulary of life experience, our little minds begin to entertain the possibilities of what’s next.

It has to start somewhere…

My first realization of what I might want to be happened because of television.  Watching sports, I made the decision I would be a professional athlete - I was probably five or six.

“Daddy, when I grow up, I’m going to be a professional athlete.” I said with great seriousness.

“In the summer, I want to play for the Cleveland Indians…in the fall for the Cleveland Browns and in the spring for the Boston Celtics!” 

Bob Feller pitched for the Indians, I was pretty sure the ‘Browns’ were named after Jim Brown, and was there a better basketball player than Bob Cousy of the Boston Celtics?

“Honey,” my father replied, “you can be whatever you want to be.”

As fate, talent and circumstance would happen, my imagined rolls on the field, gridiron and court never really emerged. 

I had to re-imagine my future as life moved forward.

This week…

Friday morning, 15 upper middle-aged folk made their way into the classroom at the local library to see what this Life Reimagined thing was all about. 

Since I had actually never taught this course before, I began, “These are the words you never want to hear when you get on an airplane. This is my first flight!”

I was really wondering how this event was going to go!

In a nutshell, the program provides tools to help people get unstuck when their lives have stalled because of personal tragedy, loss of a loved one, retirement, or just a need to find structure to move forward…not solutions, but direction.

Life has moments when we feel comfortable, a place that is familiar and a rhythm that seems to be working.  Life, however, IS change!  Nothing ever stays the same – from the size of our feet…clothing…shifting work life…growing families…everything! 

Life is unpredictable, and in the words and music of Stephen Schwartz for the Broadway musical Pippin – No time at all – originally sung by Irene Ryan (Ma Clampett in television’s Beverly Hillbillies):

Before it's too late stop trying to wait
For fortune and fame you're secure of
For there's one thing to be sure of, mate:
There's nothing to be sure of!

The Life Reimagined workshop is a couple of hours dedicated to reflecting about past life accomplishments and the imagination and effort they required.  It is a program that uses these experiences to remind people they were driven by their imagination and while life may have taken a toll, their imaginations were still intact…their lives, going forward were about ‘reimagining’ what they would like to be doing, and a reminder of the skill sets they already had.

One might say the watchwords for this course could be found in the chorus of that Broadway song:

Oh, it's time to start livin'
Time to take a little from this world we're given
Time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall
In just no time at all....

Event complete – life continued…

In the end, the ‘first flight’ went well for all of us.  In many ways, it brought together for me, all of the life communication skills I have developed and an appreciation for just how similar all of us – every single one of us – are. 

I can’t say what the impact of the experience had on all of the attendees, but a room that began with 15 strangers, finished with a group who felt their lives were anything but over…a room of fellow travelers who had made lists of small accomplishable things they could begin almost immediately…a room of people who realized they were not the only ones feeling the sense of free floating anxiety, wondering what’s next?

Gratitude…you bet!

When I got out of bed the next morning, ‘Thank you” seemed particularly meaningful.  When I got out of bed, I thought about Frank’s words and was more thankful for the gifts I have been given…when I got out of bed I felt more strongly how much I want to continue to become a better man…

- ted