The TAO of Later Life
Navigating These Precious Years
Later life can be as transformative and meaningful a time to be alive as any other stage of life. It is infused with a deeper sense of mortality than other stages, but this is what gives it it’s unique power for us to live life more fully and more genuinely in these last years. Most people get at least some glimmer of their own mortality at around age 60, some before and some after. In my case it happened in my late 50’s and was an awakening like I had rarely experienced before, changing my life ever since. Other than the birth of my children it transformed my life like nothing else.
I am writing this at the age of seventy-four. How many years I have left as a living being on this planet is anyone’s guess. I’m hoping it’s another twenty or thirty, and I’m also hoping that most of it is in good health with high-quality living. I think about this every day. I pray for it every day. I am grateful for life every day. I live in a way that the pursuit of health and quality of life are my highest priorities and intentions. It is my way of caring for myself so that I can continue doing what matters to me most; spending time with people I love and care about (including myself) and experiencing the depth of my own visceral life.
Realizing the sacredness and majesty, not to mention the awe and wonder, of simply being alive has led me, more and more every day, not to compromise with living any other way. This journey I have been on for over fifteen years is documented in these posts and in my book.
I can’t say that I ever looked forward to getting older, and I still don’t. Yet the inevitable age-related dynamics are complemented and mitigated by an enhanced sense of awe and wonder that I never expected. I have come to appreciate just how wondrous and miraculous my life is and has been. I have experienced a sense of universality, of being a small part of the interconnected “everything,” while at the same time appreciating the life force that runs through me as representative of a universal power that guides the “everything,” myself included. I am convinced that this enhanced sense of universality is one of the ways that nature is helping me come to terms with this last and final stage of life. It also serves as my motivation to keep living this way for as long as possible.
Here are the five biggest takeaways from my own experience of these years, ones that have enhanced my own later life:
1. Be grateful to simply be alive and in good health —My life is, and has been, a river that is guided by an array of forces and experiences, many of which I have not been aware of until now, with many more yet to uncover. I call it the “Great Guide” of life, and it has been extraordinarily generous to me. Part of the wonder of my life is that I have lately realized how fortunate I have been, and am, living the life I live, how fortunate I am to simply be alive in good health. My experience of life now incorporates this newly recognized blessing, even though I have lived much of my life in its shadow and thinking of my life otherwise.
2. Listen to my inner voice—Following the path that speaks most clearly to me, the voice of my soul and conscience (the universe?), is the most effective way to move through these years of later life. It has led me through many thickets but, over time, has provided me with a sense of steady progress on my later-life mission for health, longevity, and quality of life.
3. Recognize that my physical, mental, and spiritual domains are inextricably intertwined—The unity of my physical, mental, and spiritual being is primordial. The ever-interacting and influencing aspects of my entire being and the world around me are subsumed by a unified whole that makes up the sum experience of my life. To this end every domain of my health (physical, mental, or spiritual) is influenced by the others. Treating any one of my domains of health requires help from all the others.
4. Acknowledge mortality and make every day count—Mortality is a gift, not a curse or punishment. The most important part of the evolution and origin of human consciousness was to realize that we are all going to die. At that moment the universe asked, “OK, now that you know all this will end one day, what are you going to do with your one and only life?” Many years later we are still grappling with that question. Our job as humans is to grapple with it personally and as often as possible.
5. Don’t give in to temptations and distractions—Modern life has many temptations of comfort, pleasure, and distraction (“youth” seeking is one of them.) Most of these are very recent in our long evolutionary march, and our bodies and our souls are not used to them. The vast majority of modern temptations promote ill health caused by a lack of movement; eating bad-for-you, non-natural foods and drinks; and (I believe) a lack of wonder about existence and life itself. These all need to be recognized for the diversions from life that they are and actively replaced with healthier options in order to maintain good health, not fall ill and die prematurely, and appreciate my life.
There is much more to say on all this, but these are the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my years since my life-changing “ah-ah moment,” the ones I’ve incorporated into my life and practice. However, what you have to say about your life lessons or personal philosophy, and how you grapple with your own life issues in these wonderful years, is more important. Embrace them, explore them, make the most of them.
