anchor yourself in
the reality of time passing
is fundamental
From the article, “No, age isn’t just a number – and the sooner we realise that, the happier we will be” Moya Sarner in the Guardian.
Moya Sarner is an NHS psychotherapist who writes about the terrible things that can happen in people’s lives and how to deal with them.
Her headlines include, I do not need a £100 hairbrush. So why have I spent so long fantasising about one?, Terrible things happen in life – but it is possible to recover from them, Therapy isn’t about life hacks. The best solutions are simpler – and more complex and Life let you down again? Congratulations – you’re growing.
Kind of depressing to just read the headlines.
So why would I waste my time on the one aging?
Somehow, someway I will turn 65 on Thursday and I am kind of happily mystified to find myself here.
Nothing much will change on the next day, Friday morning.
I will continue to work as long as I can because I need to work as long as I can but I got a good job that I enjoying working at as long as I can.
But I will be 65.
So the headline, No, age isn’t just a number – and the sooner we realise that, the happier we will be caught my interest.
Ms. Sarner writes:
Sitting in a cafe recently, I saw a poster advertising a barista training course for young people interested in a career in hot beverages. Things in the NHS being what they are, I enjoyed losing myself in a fantasy future spent standing behind a sleek, shiny machine, having witty exchanges with customers and colleagues as I skilfully poured smooth, foaming milk into silky dark espresso, tipping and turning each cup to create my own unique artworks on the coffee surface.
That was until I read the small print, which included the rather brutal definition of “young people” as aged 18 to 24. I realised, with an internal gasp, that my limited ability to pour liquid without spilling it was not the only obstacle to this career choice. There was a core personal reality here from which I had become totally untethered: the passing of time.
This untethering is bad news for anyone interested in building a better life. A lot of nonsense is spoken and sung and written on plates and pencil cases about how we should all stay young and never grow old. But I’ve discovered as a therapist and as a patient in psychoanalysis that the capacity to anchor yourself in the reality of time passing is fundamental to good mental health, and to the potential for life to get better.
That old one way passage of time.
Gosh.
It made me wonder if Ms. Sarner took the time to watch the people working in the cafe?
I have no doubt I couldn’t do the job.
I also had to stop at that last line.
She points to … the potential for life to get better.
Pretty thin gruel I guess, but if that’s what you got.
Though it makes me feel good about missing Ms. Sarner’s other stories.
Maybe I have read too much history.
May I have thought about that mental game where I say to myself, 15 years before I was born, World War 2 ended.
End of World War2?
Why that was a lifetime before I was born!
For someone born in 2025, 15 years ago it would have been 2010.
2010?
Wasn’t that just yesterday?
I can’t say I embraced the passage of time, but I understood it was passing and I have happily watched the parade as it went by.
I don’t need the protentional for life to get better as life is good.
Got no complaints.
For afterwards I believe in God and the saving grace of Jesus and for the here and now I pray for guidance and I pray for acceptance.
Aside from that I am just me.
Someone once told me that they never understood how someone could ‘be born to be hung’ and then they met me.
Never quite sure what that person met but with hanging being out of favor, I felt empower to just enjoyed life.
As Mr. Twain said, “I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher.”
In place of Ms. Sarner’s article I offer Big Bill and poor old Macbeth when it all starts to make sense to that feller and he says:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
As I said, nothing will change when I wake up on Friday on the other side of 65.
Well, maybe there are some small changes I can make to my life, but you better look hard to spot them.
No Haiku For You 