Oh Monica! Not only do these stories contain great pearls of wisdom, but they are SO VERY entertaining!!! Your style of telling these tales is invigorating!
Yes, indeed we are. I wanted to leave a comment in response to your thoughts about experience can becoming an argument against surprise. However it seems you don’t have comments open…… So Here is what I would have left as a comment:
This really landed for me, particularly the idea that experience can become an argument against surprise.
I work with women in the second half of life, and I see another version of this constantly. By the time we reach our 60s and 70s, we aren’t only carrying knowledge. We’re carrying entire maps of who we were taught to be: good wife, good mother, responsible woman, useful woman, agreeable woman.
And sometimes the great work of this age isn’t drawing a better map.
It’s realizing we no longer have to live by the old one.
There is tremendous freedom in being able to say, “I know what I have believed. I know how I have lived. And I am still willing to be surprised by who I might become.”
That, to me, may be one of the great privileges of getting older.
I loved this. ❤️ The fitted sheet is such a perfect metaphor for all the inherited rules we continue following simply because no one ever told us we could stop.
Getting older can bring a beautiful kind of freedom: the confidence to ask whether something still serves us, brings us joy, or deserves our energy. Sometimes reclaiming our lives does not begin with one dramatic decision. It begins with one ordinary question:
Love this about you and your bed. One of the freedoms granted to those of us who rewiring is to change. Our world has changed, our lives are changed but how many of us refuse the slightest change in the way we do things even if it’s easier.
In conversation with my PCP I learned how many retired folks don’t eat a good diet that would benefit their health and energy levels because they don’t want to cook. Most people have a microwave but continue to believe cooking can only be done on a stove?
I get it. Most days I don’t want to cook either but we need to eat and those of us requiring a particular type of food need to eat more than cereal and sandwiches. I’m a southern girl brought up on fresh peas, beans, squash etc. and cornbread as the joys of summer meals. So I’ve learned how to do minimal preparation and cook in the microwave, toaster oven and crockpot. I eat well with minimal prep and cooking time. Freedom to have the things we love often means we have to use our freedom to rewire how we cook.
Oh Monica! Not only do these stories contain great pearls of wisdom, but they are SO VERY entertaining!!! Your style of telling these tales is invigorating!
So often we are thinking in parallel. 😇 Take a look at my article posted today about moving away from old maps.
Yes, indeed we are. I wanted to leave a comment in response to your thoughts about experience can becoming an argument against surprise. However it seems you don’t have comments open…… So Here is what I would have left as a comment:
This really landed for me, particularly the idea that experience can become an argument against surprise.
I work with women in the second half of life, and I see another version of this constantly. By the time we reach our 60s and 70s, we aren’t only carrying knowledge. We’re carrying entire maps of who we were taught to be: good wife, good mother, responsible woman, useful woman, agreeable woman.
And sometimes the great work of this age isn’t drawing a better map.
It’s realizing we no longer have to live by the old one.
There is tremendous freedom in being able to say, “I know what I have believed. I know how I have lived. And I am still willing to be surprised by who I might become.”
That, to me, may be one of the great privileges of getting older.
I loved this. ❤️ The fitted sheet is such a perfect metaphor for all the inherited rules we continue following simply because no one ever told us we could stop.
Getting older can bring a beautiful kind of freedom: the confidence to ask whether something still serves us, brings us joy, or deserves our energy. Sometimes reclaiming our lives does not begin with one dramatic decision. It begins with one ordinary question:
Why am I still doing this?
Love this about you and your bed. One of the freedoms granted to those of us who rewiring is to change. Our world has changed, our lives are changed but how many of us refuse the slightest change in the way we do things even if it’s easier.
In conversation with my PCP I learned how many retired folks don’t eat a good diet that would benefit their health and energy levels because they don’t want to cook. Most people have a microwave but continue to believe cooking can only be done on a stove?
I get it. Most days I don’t want to cook either but we need to eat and those of us requiring a particular type of food need to eat more than cereal and sandwiches. I’m a southern girl brought up on fresh peas, beans, squash etc. and cornbread as the joys of summer meals. So I’ve learned how to do minimal preparation and cook in the microwave, toaster oven and crockpot. I eat well with minimal prep and cooking time. Freedom to have the things we love often means we have to use our freedom to rewire how we cook.