The Age of Time and Health
And Gaining a Deeper Appreciation of Both
A few weeks ago, I was meeting with my accountant. He is about my age, still working, and, as far as I can tell, enjoying how he lives. When he is out of the office, he spends time with his family, children, and grandchildren. He doesn’t practice a paragon of health disciplines like I do, but he seems active and energetic. For example, he regularly walks from his home in Brooklyn to his office in mid-Manhattan.
When I told him what I’m doing with my life and about this website and the book I’ve written, he said something that struck me deeply. He said he works with many people who are much wealthier than either of us. “They could bury us in gold coins” was how he put it. Yet, for the most part, every one of them, once they reach our age, would trade everything they have for extra time and better health. How’s that for a head-scratching question about how they have lived their lives up to this point?
What struck me so deeply about his statement was the resonance I felt with my own experience of this time of life. The metrics that once counted so much for me – achievement and success in whatever I was doing and the admiration and status I gained from them – no longer matter. What does matter is the quality of each and every day, the wonder of being alive, and being authentic and honest with myself, with people in general, and especially with those who matter to me most. Doubling down on these and other basic qualities of life, ones that are timeless and don’t depend on the distractions offered by modern life, have become the new metrics that life holds for me now. Time and health have become my alternative currencies for what matters.
I have a few friends and acquaintances around my age who see things this way, and many who don’t. The ones who don’t want to keep achieving and doing, seek admiration and status, and try to act and look “younger.” I’m happy that works for them. But, for me, this time of life is about fixing and healing and coming to a deeper understanding and experience of life than I have had up to this point.
For me, the appreciation of time and health were the first steps of a bigger transformation, an inner awakening of the wonder and possibilities of life at this age. I have become much more grounded and spiritual than I was before. I have ventured into areas of buried emotions and childhood trauma that have eluded me up till now and that I can now address and resolve. I work hard at health practices, but I also know that my overall health is as influenced by my subconscious conditions as it is by what I do in the gym or yoga class. Becoming aware of my subconscious conditions and harmonizing with them, rather than trying to control them, is my best route to continued health and longevity.
While I sense an urgency that is dictated by knowing the clock of life is ticking, I also accept that these things go at their own pace and that I must live authentically and let the river of life within me flow where it intends to go. This is where I experience the most satisfaction and contentment.
Allowing myself to occupy this inner territory has opened up many new and unexpected vistas. The increasing presence of the subconscious conditions in my life now occupies a good part of every day. Yet all this was only made aware to me once I began exploring my own physical health. The secret to my awakened life was laying inside me all that time. I just had to pay attention to it.
“How much time do I have left?” is a big question that presents itself to many of us every day. From our earliest awareness it is always in the background, a mainstay of mortal, conscious life. This question became louder as I got older. Yet once I allowed myself to feel how afraid I was of ultimately dying and allowed myself to accept it, this awareness became a source of power within me that has helped define my life ever since.
Likewise with health. Exploring what does and doesn’t work in preventive health and longevity, as well as the integrated web of physical, spiritual, and emotional pathways that we experience as total health and well-being, has become a passion of mine. Thankfully, this passion has been working extremely well so far on my later-life journey. Yet I know I don’t have all the answers and would love to find more people out there who are on similar paths to compare notes with.
So yes, time and health. I can’t think of a better way to describe what my later life is all about.