By Jim Selman | Bio
The following thoughts were shared by a friend of mine on the question of what it is like to ‘be’ older and wiser. I think they express something we can all learn from if we haven’t already.
"What’s it like to ‘be’ my age? Besides the obvious physical changes, there is a kind of release—a gentle meltdown—a relaxation that goes beyond where any mere massage could take me.
- Gentleness, calm, quiet inside …
- Infinite space to allow people to Be…
- Grace to see what is moving and what isn’t all around me … To acknowledge what I’ve sensed and seen in people…And to let it be without trying to ‘make’ certain results happen…or certain actions/reactions occur…
- A sense that letting go is OK … That releasing what is in my life now will allow other things, other people, other opportunities to appear …
- Knowledge that being afraid of ‘having nothing’ appear is just old fear … And that since all I have to offer is love, if there are no takers, then it is time for me to leave and experience another life, another existence elsewhere.
- An inner knowing that what I offer (love) is needed everywhere…and that this has nothing to do with what I could buy and everything to do with who I am being for others.
And much wisdom…
- That there is ‘nothing’ here to be attached to … That experience is all I can gather and ‘own’ in this journey.
- That to serve, I must cherish the vehicle I’ve been blessed to live this life in…and try not to fill the energy gap with empty carbs or lazy days.
- That pleasure and pain are the edges of the same sword…and that I’m balancing both edges lightly in my heart.
- That thoughts are what pin us down … And that sometimes we need to ‘do’ something entirely different to change our thoughts. Our thoughts are the only way we have a chance to be free….
- That depths of feeling, time and space, the very air I breathe is as much of ‘nothing’ as I am.
- That sadness and joy mirror each other in every moment I am alive. Floating like a butterfly in ecstasy and serenely sad at how magnificent each of us is.
Most of all, I’m amazed with myself…that life can be so enlivening—deliriously luscious—and that I am a being of such limitless possibility. And I’m infinitely grateful that I may be able to ‘really’ serve others now…without controlling or manipulating blindly.
Relaxing into contentment not knowing what’s next…."
© 2009 Jim Selman. All rights reserved.