Comments on: Life Rhythms

By: Anne 2.0 » Blog Archive » Incrementing My Version Number: Announcing Anne 2.1

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:00:59 +0000

[…] Life Rhythms […]

By: Anne

Anne — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 02:05:03 +0000

John - and thanks for your comments. I guess I haven’t yet given up the goal of being someone except that the someone I want to be is myself in fullness–and I keep searching after that. It includes all my relationships and I do find that more and more it’s the relationships that matter to me and my work is just a way of making them and deepening them.

Wisdom as “wry amusement.” I love that. So true. If we can keep an attitude of wry amusement most times, wouldn’t that be helpful. Of course there are times when we can only feel deep sadness (as with the tragedy that hit your au pair’s family recently). Then we feel again how important our relationships are.

Looking forward to seeing you soon.

By: John

John — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 04:36:49 +0000

Anne,

“I used to want to get someplace when I was younger, …” speaks to me, too. I could also add “I used to want to be someone when I was younger”

Now these thoughts provide wry amusement, or is it wisdom, or is that just a synonym for wry amusement?

I realized recently I am someone. It only took 40 years! I was reflecting back on an assignment a colleague of mine used to assign her students when they were tasked with writing their autobiographies at the tender age of 13. This talented educator would have her students write their epitaph. Wow. Did that make them think about what they wanted to accomplish! Having been graduated from the University of Virginia, I was always impressed with Thomas Jefferson’s choices for his epitaph.

As I thought about my ideal epitaph, I realized that everything on it spoke to relationships. Father. Husband. Brother. Son. My job titles certainly weren’t on it, neither were the lastest reports I had produced.

At last, I KNOW that it is the journey, not the destination, that provides life’s flavors. And it is the people in my life and my relationships with them that are my purpose. Everything else, well, it’s just there. Trivial trappings can assume non-trivial importance to me when I get caught up in the culture around me. But now I can laugh at my own antics.

Speaking of seasons, is it a season of life common to most people to come to this realization, and must it take so long. Or is this more of a ‘weather event’ that some of us are fortunate enought to experience, some sooner than others?

Thanks for your thoughts, Anne. I really enjoyed reading them.

By: Anne

Anne — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 14:52:01 +0000

Dave - it’s not that Maui wasn’t beautiful, it’s that it didn’t suit my temperament. The living is slow, there are too many tourists and retirees and not enough ambitious people my age, and there aren’t any seasons. I will never live there again. Go as a visitor? Maybe, but I think I’d rather go to the Big Island. We never made it there though we did visit Oahu, Kauai, and Lanai.

By: Dave C.

Dave C. — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 03:30:58 +0000

Ok, honestly not much to contribute except to say that you just didn’t see the best of Maui. I’ve been there several times and I would consider moving if the job situation wasn’t so bad. If you ever go again, look me up, I’ll make sure you have the time of your life.

By: Anne

Anne — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 14:29:05 +0000

Yes, it is temporary, of course. But like you say, the transientness is part of the beauty of it all.

By: Senia Positive Psychology Blog

Senia Positive Psychology Blog — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 04:49:17 +0000

I guess the main thing to do is to know there’s an end, that it’s temporary. I heard from a friend of mine who studies Buddhism that this is one of the main concepts - the temporariness of it all.

When I was a teenager, I heard a Latin phrase, “sic transit gloria mundi” meaning “thus passes the glory of the world,” and I thought that was a dark, dismal phrase. Since then, I don’t think so.

Leaves fall off the trees in the winter. They change color. That’s what makes them beautiful.