We learn from our parents and elders. While we are children they directly teach us how to walk, talk, tie our shoes, get along with others, etc. Less directly they continue to teach us throughout our lives. Through their actions and attitudes, in fact by the sum total of how they “live”, they mentor, shape and guide our ultimate life choices.
We are strongly influenced by what we liked or didn’t like about how we were raised, thus shaping our own attempts at parenting. So goes each of the phases of our lives, as we choose our career paths, how we live in our middle years, how we embrace or decay in our old age and ultimately how we die, by what we have seen that we liked or disliked in our parents, grandparents and older friends.
The philosopher Piaget defined each of our successive human life phases from childhood through old age. Piaget admonished us of the importance, while in one life phase, of making choices to ready ourselves for the next life phase(s). We make any decision, not just those related to our future, in one of three ways – yes, no, or “no choice”. Each of these three choice points is equally productive of an outcome. But the question is do you wish to default (the “no choice” option) into outcomes that you bemoan as being poor choices.
Most of us make pretty good life choices. We go to high school then trade school or college to enhance our goal of a good career. We think about our life with someone we love so we date a lot of people to hopefully make a good choice of life partner; we plan for kids and their college funds. And so it goes as we plan for and live our lives. But when it comes to the specter of old age and the end of our lives, we pretty much work on retirement funds. Period.
So, this category of “Thnik” is dedicated to staying fully alive right up till you die. As T.S. Eliot said, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” The entries in “Death, Dying and Living Well” will have to do with approaching aging, dying and death with no more fear than the other expected and inevitable phases of our lives. This category is about embracing or discarding what our family and friends have done as they faced aging, dying and death. It’s about taking back our power to choose living fully and joyfully right up till our last breath. It’s also about helping our aging loved ones to make the best of their final life path without the interference of our excessive grief and anguish.