I heard someone put it this way the other day: our thoughts/reactions are like water wearing a path through the limestone-they create easy pathways for automatic reactions, for habits. But we can build a dam in those pathways and force the water to forge an alternate path. This is what I’ve been practicing. And Wednesday, I noticed the practice paying off (which is good because I can get lazy about practice, just ask my mom about those seven years of piano lessons).
I gathered all my supplies for the long day, including my travel mug full of hot coffee. As I was headed out the door, I noticed my back feeling very warm and realized that the travel mug lid was open and almost all the coffee had spilled out in my bag. The automatic “woe-is-me, this is how this day is going to go” reaction kicked in followed by Jason’s “let me take care of it” reaction, but I noticed my heart just really wasn’t in it. The alternate route for the water was forged just enough so that not all of the water was running through the “woe-is-me” route. Just enough so that even though my body was acting out of habit (big sigh), underneath that auto-pilot reaction, it just didn’t feel like that big of a deal. Which it wasn’t, of course, but that hasn’t historically stopped me from acting like it was—like the world was somehow out to get me as evidenced by this early morning coffee spill.
This is the beauty of middle age. I’ll never understand the obsession with youth in this culture. I find the most joy in middle age, when I’ve had time and experience enough to learn that I have control over my own experience. Perhaps some folks find this enlightenment earlier in life, but I was not one of those people. And so I find myself enjoying middle age immensely, and only looking forward to the next phase, where I suspect even more joy awaits.