Tiny Buddha

Tag: youth

  • Growing Old Gratefully: How to See Each Year as a Gift

    Growing Old Gratefully: How to See Each Year as a Gift

    Growing old gratefully. Yes, you read that right. Gratefully. Why on earth would I be grateful for getting older, less youthful, and more wrinkly with every passing year?? I hear you cry. Let me tell you why I’m trying hard to do just that.

    One bright Saturday afternoon some years back, while chatting with my uncle, he reminded me that my fortieth birthday was fast approaching. I rolled my eyes and said, “Yes, Uncle, thanks for the reminder.”

    He looked at me for a minute and then said, “You know, you should be grateful for every year of life you get. Some people don’t get to see their fortieth birthday.” That remark was quite sobering, and I felt humbled.

    That conversation made me think. Why do we have such a fear about getting older? Why the almost shameful stigma attached to it?

    Apart from the obvious slowing down, loss of vitality, and general “nearer to deathness,” I realized that much of our fear of aging is set in vanity. We equate youth with beauty, desirability, and happiness. We attach the opposite traits to old age; in fact, we fear that as we get older, we become almost obsolete.

    In a society that worships beauty and vitality, it’s little wonder that we are all panic-buying anti-aging serums, trying anti-aging diets, following anti-aging fitness regimes, and generally trying our utmost to stave off any sign that we are getting older.

    The problem with all of this is, well, we age. It’s a fact of life and it will happen whether you fight it or just allow it. This leads me to wonder… what if I just stop fighting and fearing the inevitable?

    Does that mean I will retire myself to Dr. Scholl’s sandals and elasticated waists? Never!! But what if I just accepted, embraced, or even, dare I say it, was grateful to still be here, enjoying life on our beautiful planet? I mean, really, who—apart from greedy, capitalist, big business—benefits from our aging phobia anyway?

    It’s funny that we use the word anti-aging too. We use that word for things that are considered unacceptable in society like anti-bullying or anti-social, as if we had any control over getting older. Using that small, four-lettered word subtly feeds us the message that aging is not only unwanted, it’s down right unacceptable. How ridiculous!!

    I propose that we change our own narrative. That we embrace aging as a privilege not granted to everyone. To see it as a gift.

    In Japanese culture, the mindset is quite different. Japanese conceptions of aging are rooted in Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist philosophical traditions that characterize aging as maturity. Old age is thus understood as a socially valuable part of life, even a time of “spring” or “rebirth” after a busy period of working and raising children” (Karasawa et al., 2011).

    That really appeals to me. See each year as it is—a celebration that we are still here, still enjoying life, still with our loved ones, still with a future, in another phase of our beautiful existence with new and exciting opportunities still ahead.

    I believe that grateful and positive aging is all about the mindset, which is true of so many things that affect our attitudes.

    If we cultivate a mindset where we grow older with a grateful heart, living each day to its fullest in our natural bodies and our natural skin, happy that we still get to watch the sunset and feel the warm embrace of those we love and are still a living breathing part of our wonderful universe; then I believe we stand a chance of drowning out the negative messages put out into society that getting older is something to be ashamed of. That we should go and find a rock to crawl under until we die unless we can claw back some semblance of youth, or at least die trying.

    I propose that with a healthy mindset towards growing older, we give ourselves the right to grow old gratefully.

  • Aging Isn’t About Lost Youth

    Aging Isn’t About Lost Youth

  • The Secret to Eternal Youth: How to Feel Excited About Life Again

    The Secret to Eternal Youth: How to Feel Excited About Life Again

    “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. ” ~Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart

    I am forty-nine years old, and I’ve never felt so young in my life. Many people my age feel old. Many people younger than I am feel old, while many people who are older than I am still feel young.

    What makes someone feel young? I can assure you it has nothing to do with how many wrinkles you have. It is something much deeper than that and yet something very simple.

    Most of us get serious about life around the time we are thirty. We devote ourselves to building our career, building our family, or both. From young people who care mostly about having fun, we become responsible adults. We need to prove ourselves, to make money, to buy a house, and to secure our future.

    “Along the way, I forgot to get excited about things. Everything became a project, something I had to deal with,” a friend told me when I asked her if she was thrilled about buying a new house.

    When we build our home, our career, our family, and our reputation, there is a part of us that we leave behind. When we enter the world of mortgages, insurance, and pension funds, fun goes out the window. And when that happens, we lose our fire.

    Fire is fun; it’s freedom, it’s joy. Fire is courage and boldness. Fire is passion and excitement. Fire is being spontaneous, taking risks, and saying your truth. Fire is exercising and moving energy.

    Fire is fighting for what you believe in. Fire is believing in yourself, believing in life, believing that you deserve to fulfill your wildest dreams. Fire is having wild dreams. Fire is learning new things and teaching them to others. It’s being inspired and inspiring.

    So often we are overwhelmed with life’s demands, and we forget to have fun; we forget to keep our fire alive, and we lose our mojo. Some of us got burnt by our fire when we were younger. Fun led to addictions and other destructive behaviors. We have learned to fear our fire and avoid it at all costs.

    During a few wild years when I lived in New York City, a friend once said to me, “In our twenties we have to do crazy things so that we have something to talk about in our thirties.”

    This is how we live, feeling that from this point onward, life is going downhill toward decay. We feel like our prime years were left behind. We try to reduce the signs of aging to feel better when we look in the mirror or at pictures of ourselves. But no matter what we do, we won’t look like we did in our twenties.

    About three years ago, I started feeling old. I’d always looked younger than my age, but I lost in the Botox race, as I did not do any. I lost my passion; I lost my desire to have fun and enjoy myself; everything was very serious.

    I hated looking at my pictures. All I saw was the lack of charm and beauty that I once possessed. I tried to convince myself that these were external, irrelevant, and unimportant concerns, but they were not; they reflected something deep that was going on in my life.

    Don’t get me wrong. During this time, I was already working at something I loved with all my heart. I loved mothering my son more than anything in the world. I loved my husband and was very grateful for our marriage. But except for my work and my family role, I didn’t care about anything. There was absolutely no time or ability to enjoy life.

    Then things got even worse. I got sick and was forced to constantly deal with my health and nutrition. My diet became more limited than it ever was; I could not enjoy food anymore. I thought I was going to die. I was already older than my mother when she passed away at the age of forty-four, and it just made sense that I would follow in her footsteps to heaven.

    But I was also lucky. I was lucky because there was something inside of me that was stronger than all of this. An inner voice told me that I was still alive and that I should not take it for granted. Every day I got to live was a gift. What was I going to do with this?

    Was I going to look back and cry for not being as beautiful as I once was? Or was I going to look forward and make my life the way I wanted it to be? I realized that it was all up to me. I could continue sinking down into my dietary limitations, my homework struggles, and my aging looks, or I could ignite my fire.

    I decided that it was time to make a big move, from Israel to the US, where I’ve always wanted to live. In order to be fully alive, I had to throw myself out of the nest.

    Even though my husband had no desire to make this move, I knew it was a matter of life and death for me and that I had to take the lead. It was my truth, and it required taking a huge risk.

    During the pandemic we could not even make a preliminary visit, nor could we know for sure if our son would be accepted to school, but we had to take our chances.

    Once we settled in Asheville, NC, I bought new colorful clothes. After years of wearing black bamboo jumpsuits, I added some flair to my wardrobe.

    I took some courses with great teachers who inspired me. I got back to practicing yoga and became a part of the local yoga community. I got back to listening to music that made me want to dance.

    I started writing and publishing my work. I started telling my truth more often. I had some big talks with important people in my life. I said some things I’d never dared say before. What did I have to lose? What does anyone have to lose?

    That’s the beauty of being older. You are wiser, more experienced, you know yourself, and you understand life better than ever before. You are mature enough to deal with your fire in a healthy way.

    You already know that there is no point in pretending or hiding. You can live your truth, you can be who you really are, and you can work toward the fulfillment of your dreams. And it’s rejuvenating, so rejuvenating, despite the wrinkles and the fact that your body is no longer in its prime.

    You can live like you’ve died and come back to life. What will you do differently? Do it. Do it today. Don’t wait.

    If your life does not excite you, make it exciting. If life is not fun, make it fun. Obviously, you can’t control everything. The human experience is not always fun, but no matter what your circumstances are, you can always make things better for yourself, even if it’s just a change of attitude.

    People, especially those on the spiritual path, dismiss fun, and I am the first one to admit that I do this. There are always more important things to do. It’s so hard to find time to mother, to be a partner, to work, to cook, to write, to meditate, to practice. Alcohol is bad, drugs are bad, and sugar is bad. All the things you used to have fun with in your twenties are bad.

    For years I prepared all of my family’s meals. When you eat out, the food does not have your loving energy and is not made with the same organic, local, and fresh ingredients. This is all true, but the pressure to constantly cook had a counterproductive effect on my health.

    Today, sometimes I eat out or order in, and it makes me so happy. I am more flexible, more open, and I am much healthier. It’s all about finding the middle path. If your path puts out your fire, it means that something is wrong.

    It’s not that igniting my fire has solved all my problems. The human experience is still hard. I am still facing many challenges, in some ways even more challenges. When you change, or say your truth, it’s usually not so easy for the people around you to deal with. But I am empowered to deal with my problems. I feel fully alive and beautiful.

    Today I love the way I look. I love the way inspiring aging women and men look. When you live out of passion, courage, and truth, you radiate beauty.

    If you are willing to look beyond the anti-aging ads, you can see that aging is a beautiful process. I’m excited to age. I want to get old. My mother did not have the chance to be old. I have so many dreams to fulfill, and I am grateful for every moment given to me to fulfill them.

    One thing is for sure: I will never lose my healthy fire again.

  • Adapting to Feeling Unseen: How I’m Navigating a World That Overlooks the Aging

    Adapting to Feeling Unseen: How I’m Navigating a World That Overlooks the Aging

    Older
    Beautiful inside and out—
    Invisible

    I gave a little start when those words flashed onto the screen during a presentation by the poet Elizabeth Bradfield. Liz was in the process of describing six-word memoirs, modeled on Hemingway’s heartbreaking story For sale: Baby shoes. Never used.

    The photograph showed a wall from the 6 Words Minneapolis project, in which city residents were asked to briefly describe themselves. This entry spoke directly to an experience I’d been having of late but hadn’t quite been able to name.

    Consider: I smile at a young couple who are walking with their baby out of the grocery store as I enter. Their eyes flit briefly over my face and body without expression.

    Waiting in a loose group of people for service at a food truck—there doesn’t seem to be a line—the fellow taking orders looks straight at me and then asks the guy in back of me what he’d like.

    In a park a young couple finishes a photo shoot for their engagement pictures and walk toward me on a narrow gravel path. I smile and say, “Beautiful day.” They squint and pass by as if they’ve heard a noise but can’t place what it might be.

    Every time this happens, it shocks me. I’m not that old! A little wrinkled, yes, but not even close to elderly.

    True, I can’t know exactly what was going on in each of these instances. Maybe the couple with the baby were in the middle of an argument. Maybe the man behind me at the food truck had somehow gotten there first. The couple in the park—that one’s hard to explain away. I was right in front of them. But maybe they didn’t hear me.

    Still, this kind of thing happens to me a lot now, and I’ve got to think it’s because, as a somewhat older woman, people routinely overlook me.

    I guess I have no right to be surprised, because at a younger age I behaved exactly the same way. Working for newspapers in my twenties, I counted myself among the young reporters who were (we flattered ourselves) the only ones doing cutting-edge journalism.

    We paid scant attention to articles by our colleagues older than forty—who, I realize now, had a great deal they could have taught us. The same was true in my thirties and even forties when I was a freelance writer. Like many of my contemporaries, I wished the old fogeys would get out of the way and give us youngsters room to forge new ground.

    I should have seen this coming.

    Still, my new membership in society’s invisible masses comes as a shock. While I don’t have any studies to back this up, I suspect that older women are overlooked more frequently than older men. No surprise there. But am I overreacting?

    On a subway one day Jeff, my guy, nudges me and nods toward two gray-haired women who stand hanging onto a pole, deep in conversation. There’s something about them—their stances, their passion as they talk—that exudes strength.

    “Are they invisible?” he asks. He’s been skeptical of my complaints and insistent that lots of women older than me are anything but unseen. I have to admit: he’s got a point with these two. I can’t hear their conversation, but I’d bet they’re talking about something important, maybe a social issue that they feel passionately about. I wonder how I can get some of what they’ve got. Whatever it is, I want it.

    Or maybe I already have it. While aging has made me a little less sure of myself in some ways, I trust my instincts more, and I’m much more grounded in my beliefs. I’m more aware of what’s going on around me. I wouldn’t make the same dumb mistakes I might have made at the height of my sex appeal—say, walking into a dark alley with a man I didn’t know well because I was too polite to object.

    I can take solace in the fact that older women have a more vibrant role in society than ever before. Look at the number of women in Congress who are over seventy. Many writers, artists, and actresses continue to work into their seventies and eighties, even their nineties. I don’t have to quietly fade away unless I choose to. And something tells me I won’t.

    I wish I could meet the woman who penned that six-word story. There’s a lot more to it than the word “invisible,” and I find myself nodding my head each time I reread it.

    Yes, I’m beautiful now inside and out, in a way I’ve never been before. I’m calmer and more forgiving of those around me, and of myself. I’m better at not getting dragged into the drama of others’ lives. I often say I wouldn’t trade this body for my twenty-year-old self unless I could retain all the lessons life has taught me. Beauty without wisdom holds no appeal.

    In recent years I’ve tried to move a bit more humbly through the world, letting others go before me. Watching and loving, rather than taking control.

    I think back to the times in junior high and high school when I did everything possible to blend in, mostly from an insecurity I no longer feel. There’s a freedom to being unremarkable, I suppose. It just never occurred to me that as I aged, this role would be handed to me, rather than chosen by me.

    Even if society’s default mode is to relegate me to the background, I still have plenty of options. I can find ways to push myself forward—like I did last week at a seminar, when a well-known horticulturist dismissed me after I’d said hello to him. He smiled at me and turned to greet the older man beside me.

    “I have a question,” I announced firmly, which brought the horticulturist up short and his attention graciously back to me.

    Or, depending on my mood, I can settle for the contentment that I’ve earned. I’ve fought on the front lines in plenty of battles. I’ll probably insert myself into a few more before my days here are through.

    To my surprise, though, most of the time now I find that I’m happy for someone else to steer this starship. This goes hand-in-glove with one of the lessons that keeps getting thrown at me: Acceptance of what life presents me with—and forgiveness of those who overlook me—is a lot easier than fighting things I have no chance of changing.

    Back here I can quietly take stock of each new situation. I more readily notice people like me and other overlooked folks. What can they teach me? Calmer, quieter, and no longer constantly seeking the spotlight, I find I have nothing to prove. I can simply be. Isn’t this peacefulness what I longed for in my earlier years? How can I use it now to do the kinds of things I couldn’t accomplish with energy and verve in my younger life?

    This is my heart’s new work—part of it, anyway. The rest is encompassed in my own six-word story:

    Forgiveness begets peace. Infuriating, but true.

  • 33 Ways to Be Childlike Today

    33 Ways to Be Childlike Today

    Kids Painting

    “Great is the human who has not lost his childlike heart.” ~Mencius

    Remember when life was simple?

    When your friends were the most important thing in the world. When a snow day was a perfect excuse to have fun, not a block of time when you felt guilty about being unproductive.

    When the ice cream truck could make your day, no matter what happened before. Bad grade? Big deal—it’s snow cone time. Skinned knee—who cares, you have a screwball!

    If only you could bottle that sense of freedom, fun, and enthusiasm for the little things, you could carry it in your responsible adult pocket and take a swig when you started taking everything too seriously.

    I don’t know about you, but mine would be in a glass vial embellished with red, pink, and purple swirleys, topped with a water globe stopper that had a palm tree in it. (Yeah—that’s right!)

    Maybe we don’t need some major departure from business as usual to stop being stuffy and start being childlike (which can actually help you become more innovative, in case sheer joy isn’t motivation enough).

    I’ve compiled a list of ideas to be more childlike today. I chose thirty-three because it’s the house number where my parents live, and it’s because of them I am the best couch cushion fort maker on both the east and west coasts. Enjoy: (more…)